CITY: Znamenskoye village, Oryol region HISTORY: Maria Efimovna Leonova was born in 1936. Mother worked on the collective farm tirelessly. Everything that was collected from the fields was sent to the front, leaving the very minimum for themselves. In the village of Znamenskoye, where Maria Efimovna lived, there were women and children, all the men were taken to the war. Later, an armless soldier returned from the front, and there were several old men. The children also had a hard time. In the morning they went to school, and after school they ran to help the adults. In winter, the children gathered around the village, mounted their horses and rode into the forest. They sawed, chopped firewood, collected brushwood. Many of them froze their hands and face during this harsh season. The frosts were strong. In the evenings, everyone gathered at home: knitted, sewed, and then they collected everything and sent their relatives to the front. They worked in the fields: they collected hay, straw; sheaves knitted, mothers threshed grain. Children's hands were swollen from overwork and thorny weeds. She recalls: “They took our fathers to the front, from someone they returned home, and someone received a funeral. We kept a cow - we had to give away butter, meat, planted potatoes - and we gave away starch, and we paid off with fresh potatoes, and the chopped noodles and dried ones were taken from us for the front. And spring will come, quinoa and nettles are ripening, and my brother will catch the fish. Flour was given in 5 kg for 10 days, but nothing was spared for the front. As I remember all this, tears run. " After the war she worked as a forester in the Bolotovsky forests. Now he lives 2 kilometers from the village of Novy Sinets in the village of Berezui. Everyone knows her and her name is Baba Masha. She is a local "healer", people come to her from different regions for treatment, that is, even now Maria Efimovna, being in old age, benefits people.