Heroes and feats

My great-grandfather is deeply respected by our entire family. We carry the memory of him through many generations and are proud to be his ancestors. That is why we want to tell you about this surprisingly kind and devoted person. Fyodor Kalinin was born on February 7, 1911 in the village of Nikulino, Hislavichy district, Smolensk region. At the age of 17, he became Chairman of the Molotov collective farm. Those were difficult years and it was not easy for him, and then the fascists came at. On July 9, 1941, being a Communist, he put on an overcoat and went to the front. Immediately took part in the battle of Smolensk while holding the defense at Solovyov ferry, then near Leningrad, and later in the battle for the Volkhov river.While defending the Oktyabrskaya railway, he was seriously wounded in the right arm, by that time he was a radio operator. He spent 6 months in one of the Siberian hospitals. Despite the efforts of doctors, the arm did not "listen" and he was comissioned, sent to a responsible post - Chairman of the city consumer Union of Zvenigorod, Moscow region. After the liberation of Smolensk region, he returned to his village, where two children and his wife Efrosinya were waiting for him. They survived despite the fact that Efrosinya, as the wife of a Communist, was taken to be shot. Fortunately, our aircraft prevented it. The pilot saw that the German with the weapon was leading a Russian woman to the cliff and began to shoot and thus saved her, and until the end of the occupation, she was holed up in the basements of neighboring houses. In 1945, the party appointed Fyodor Avramovich Director of the zagotkontory and for the rest of his life he worked in responsible positions: 1950-1963 Chairman of the collective farm "Bolshevik", 1963-1978 Chairman of the Executive Committee. In peacetime, he was awarded the medal " for combat services". For his long and conscientious peaceful labor, he received the veteran of labor medal and many others. He had 4 children, died in the village of Hislavichi in 1981, but the memory of him will live forever!

Rank: Red Army soldier. Military branch: Aviation. My uncle, my mother's brother Gorokhova (Kovzel) Natalia Nikitichna, Kovzel Vasily Nikitovich was conscripted (voluntary) on August 20, 1944 to the Civil Aviation School of the Air Fleet, possibly by the Krivoshein District Military Committee, Tomsk region: Aviation school of pilots of Civil Air Fleet, - the cadet, on August 20, 1944 - on November 20, 1944; 1-st training detachment of the West Siberian Department of Civil Air Fleet, - the cadet, on November 20, 1944 - on January 19, 1945. In the Armed Forces of the USSR, he was called up voluntarily on January 19, 1945 to the aviation school through the Krivosheinsky district military Commissariat, Tomsk region. In the Great Patriotic War from January 19, 1945 to May 9, 1945 as part of: 1st Aviation Squadron, 10th Aviation Regiment (commander Major Troepolsky Sergei Alexeevich), 3rd Separate Aviation Red Banner Division of the Civil Aviation Fleet, (Commander of the Guard Colonel Sharykin Serafim Nikolaevich), 2nd Byelorussian Front (Commander of the Troops Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Konstantinovich ROKOSOVSKIY) – aircraft motorist, Red Army soldier. After the war, he entered The Military Engineering School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rostov-on-Don. In 1949, he graduated from the Bridge Construction Faculty of this educational institution. He served as a platoon commander in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, since 1953 in the armed Forces of the USSR. In October 1956, he was dismissed to the reserve due to a significant reduction in the Armed Forces with the rank of "senior Lieutenant". He worked as a construction foreman in the bridge construction team of the city of Tuapse, Krasnodar territory.

Type of troops: Military medical staff. My grandmother told me how she first found herself in the operating room of the evacuation hospital No. 5005 (located in the building of the Kiev railway station). She was washing the floor in the corridor when an assistant ran out of the operating room, saw her and said: "Drop it, we need help urgently!". She quickly put on her robe and went to the table where the wounded man was lying, whose leg the surgeon had decided to amputate. "Hold the leg!" the surgeon said, and started the amputation. My grandmother was in shock and bewilderment: "Why, are you going to cut off the leg like this?. "Yes, like this!" the surgeon confirmed. At some point, she felt that the leg of the wounded man had moved away and was holding on, only because it remained in her hands. At this moment, according to her, she felt completely sick and an experienced surgeon, noticing this, shouted to the assistants: "Girls, hold her, or she's going to fall." And, indeed, she did... they picked her up and gave her a cigarette to bring her to her senses. ...Blood was everywhere, groans of the wounded and mutilated-straight from the front in a train to the Kiev railway station and immediately to the hospital, which was overcrowded. And so began her hard days as a nurse, which left indelible marks in her soul, and on her feet - severe varicosity from daily dragging the stretchers with the wounded. She always remembered these moments with tears: she gave her best, around the clock, but it was impossible to help everyone-death, moans, pain, dozens and hundreds of those who can no longer stand on two legs, hold something in their hands, fully see and hear. From very young guys to strong men. The war spared no one.

Rank: Red Army Soldier Troops: Artillery. The Great Patriotic War - the most terrible war of the XX century. "War is bitter sweat and blood,..., lost young lives, unlived biographies, unfulfilled hopes, brides who did not become wives, letters that were waited for and afraid to receive," – this is how Yu.Bondarev describes the war in his story "Memory". The war ended long ago, in 1945, but we must always remember the heroes who died in this war. The war affected every home and family of Russians. The family of my great-grandfather during the war lived in the village of Kochetovka Uinskiy district, Molotov region (now Perm Krai). My great-grandfather's name was Kachesov Andrey Fedorovich. He married a 16-year-old girl (my great-grandmother Evdokia) at the age of 18. By the beginning of the war, they had three children: Olenka, Vasenka and Valenka (my grandmother), as their father affectionately called them in a letter from the front. In July 1941, Andrey was drafted into the Red Army. He was 25 years old. On August 4, 1941, Andrey's family received the first (and only) letter from the front. In the letter, husband and father Andrew wrote: "I lived in Perm for a month, studied a machine gun, I shoot well. Today we will go further, do not send letters until the next address...". His wife Evdokia never found out the next address. The family received a notification that "the Red Army soldier Andrey Kocheshov, while at the front, went missing in November 1941." The military enlistment office reported that Andrey took part in the Smolensk battles. The battle of Smolensk was the biggest and most persistent battle of the first months of the Great Patriotic War. Battles did not stop here neither day nor night from July 1941 to October 1943. So the family was left without a breadwinner. My grandmother Valya (Andrey's daughter) told me more than once how unbearably difficult it was for the family without a father. My great-grandmother took care of the children. To feed her family, she had to work on a collective farm from early morning until late at night. Children grew up independent. In the evening, my mother told her children what household chores they had to do by her arrival. It never came to their minds to disobey their mother, not because they were afraid of being punished, but because they knew that no one else would do the work for them. Their lives largely depended on the result of their work. But despite all the difficulties and hunger, the children remained children. Naughty, joking, playing different games, making their own toys. Dolls were made from rags, stuffed with straw and sawdust. They thought that was how it should be, but they didn't dream of anything else. And, not knowing sweets and chocolate, they grew up every year. But not only were there no sweets for wartime children. They did not have medicines, good clothes, shoes were only bast shoes and felt boots, instead of briefcases they had bundles. But those children survived, grew up and remember that happy, long-awaited Victory Day. My family has never seen their grandfather and great-grandfather, but we love him and are proud of him! Memory is given to us in order to remember those to whom we owe our lives! The family album has his only photo.

Rank: Sergeant Type of troops: Armored and Mechanized Troops Division: 159th rifle division (1st formation). Grigory Nikolaevich Krugovoy has the same dream about the war. Like a flash of lightning, dreams snatch a fragment of the attack on Rzhev. The ground is covered with the decomposing corpses of Russian and German soldiers. From this horror Grigory could neither eat nor drink. In that direction, the warring parties suffered huge losses, according to the latest calculations, there were more casualties than in the battle of Stalingrad. The fascists were rushing to Moscow, the Soviet troops were standing to their death. This was the start of the war for Gregory Krugovoy. He was supposed to be drafted in 1942. However, he was not taken to the army, leaving him to pick harvest. In Orenburg, it turned out to be an unprecedented year, and the tractor driver was given a reservation - it was necessary to harvest wheat. An 18-year-old boy ran away to the front after all. His four brothers were already fighting the enemy, and he could not sit in his native collective farm in the Akbulak district. But the volunteer was taken off the train, literally by the scruff of the neck and sent to the field. All the soldiers who were on the train died on the first day, as it later became known. And only in September, after the harvest, he was called up to the Red Army. After a short training at Ufa, a recruit of the 159th division of the 631st mortar regiment was sent to the front line at Rzhev. The Soviet troops rejoiced that they had defended the city on the Volga, but the USSR was expecting a "second Stalingrad". It was assumed that the Germans would go to Moscow through Orel. But intelligence reported that as the main direction the enemy chose Rzhev. The Soviet troops, anticipating it, launched a counteroffensive. From Rzhev they went to Smolensk with heavy battles. In the village of Sychevka in the area of Vyazma Krugovoi was wounded in the arm. The young soldier was treated in a hospital in Kislovodsk. The captain came to "woo" the recovering front-line soldiers to the tank unit. Grigory also raised his hand in agreement: "Take me - I'm a tractor driver. I was already in the infantry. If die - then with music." That was a hint on the radio in the tank. After three months of training, the gun commander was sent to the factory for a tank. In Omsk, there was a queue for heavy equipment. From the headquarters of the Supreme commander-in-Chief, tankers are asked to help the factory workers. They put up together 29 tanks on the line 24 hours a day and worked around the clock. The front demanded more and more. Grigory volunteered to assemble the gearboxes. The new tanks were loaded into long trains. In the Urals, military equipment was driven quickly, on double traction. In Kuibyshev they sharply turned 90 degrees and went a new direction - to Odessa. The train with tanks got under massive fire from enemy planes. The combat vehicles were hastily unloaded, and they moved on their own over the pontoon bridge over the Prut river. They fought through Romania and Bulgaria. Advanced units were moving forward, followed by the tankers who were securing the bridgeheads. The Germans felt the end, and ran fast. The 37th mechanized brigade of the 4th guards tank corps, where a Guard Sergeant fought, made marches 30-40 kilometers forward, waited for the rear, and again moved forward. During the liberation of the capital of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, his tank was hit. Grigory Krugovoy spent a month in a hospital with a concussion. It was pointless to catch up with his unit, they went to lake Balaton. He was assigned to the 1st company of the 8th division of the SMERSH counterintelligence rifle regiment of the third Ukrainian front. It was a famous division. It dealt with the Vlasovites, and white emigrants also came under its close attention. Grigory Nikolaevich was involved in the protection of the headquarters. The war ended for him in Austria. Recalling his combat experience Krugovoy jokes: "Went through both the Crimea and Rome. I was a mortar and a gunner, and served in the intelligence service. Shot accurately, in Ufa during the exercises all the shells were sent "in the bull's eye". The commander gave a cigarette case for accuracy. He was lucky in that war: he, the youngest in the family, went through fire and hardships, remained alive. And to the brothers-eternal memory. Andrey Nikolaevich died the death of the brave near Konigsberg in 1945.

Rank: Senior Sergeant Military Branch: Artillery Division: 216th Sivashasskaya Rifle Division of the Red Banner of the Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov. Korenkov Pyotr Georgievich was born in 1924 in the village of Lopatinsky village Arzhanovskaya Kruglovsky district of Stalingrad region. As soon as he finished 8th grade, the Great Patriotic War began. A year later, in June 1942, as an eighteen-year-old boy, he went to the front. Since December 1942, Pyotr Georgievich was on the Stalingrad front. He was wounded twice on 28.11.1943 and 8.10.1944. Pyotr Georgievich was first a mortar gunner, and then a mortar crew commander. His rank was that of senior sergeant. Many enemies were destroyed by Korenkov Pyotr Georgievich. From the award list: "On October 8, 1944, near the village of Moldini in the Latvian SSR, 150 Germans ambushed and attacked the firing position of a mortar battery. In the battle, the commander of the unit Korenkov fearlessly acted around this group. He lay down, and from behind the bushes personally destroyed three Hitlerites, and then with a cry: "Hooray!" went into attack, while capturing three more Germans. Being wounded, he did not leave the battlefield until it was over." For this battle, he was presented to the government award with the “Order of Patriotic War 2 degree". He also has the Order of the Red Star and many medals. After the end of the war, he worked for some time in the Arzhanovsky selmag as a salesman, and then he was elected Chairman of the Zotov collective farm "Udarnik". In this position, he worked until the merger of the Zotov collective farm with Arzhanovsky in 1961. Soon he and his family changed their place of residence, moved closer to the city near Volgograd. Pyotr Georgievich was married. With his wife Vera, they raised their son Alexander, who died at a young age in an accident at the factory where he worked as a master. Korenkov Pyotr Georgievich died in 1972.

Rank: Sergeant. Branch of service: artillery. Division: 173rd rifle division (2nd formation). In 1928, he came to Moscow. He worked as a locksmith at a ball bearing factory. From 1937 to 1938, he worked as a watchman in the commandant's office at Plant No. 214 (Moscow). From 1938 to 1939, he was transferred to the post of duty pass Bureau at the same factory. He was married to Anastasia Sidorina, and had a daughter, Svetlana, in 1940. He was recruited for urgent mobilization for the Great Patriotic War by the Leninsky district military enlistment office (Moscow region, Leninsky district, Lenino-Dachnoye, Saburovo village). February, 1942. - 2083 rifle regiment. 1942-75th guards rifle regiment (battles at close approaches to Moscow-liberation of Borovsk and large settlements of the stations: Balabanovo, Iznoski, Ryzhkovo of the Moscow and Smolensk regions. The battle for Moscow). January 1943 – 195 guards reserve rifle regiment. November 1943-173rd rifle division (second formation), 1313th rifle regiment, 76-mm separate artillery division. January 1944 – he was wounded in the shoulder by a mine fragment. From 21.02.1944, he was treated in the evacuation hospital No. 2817 in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod). At the end of January 1945 he received the status of a disabled person of the Patriotic War. Since September 1946 he was enrolled in paramilitary security and worked at Object p/i 125 (Moscow plant of polymetals) as a duty officer in the pass office, in February 1948, he was transferred to the position of senior shift armed guard.in January 1953 was appointed head of the guard of the armed security guard (25.03.1958 – gratitude for the timely detection and elimination of fire of machine "Pickup", 21.04.1964 – he was awarded the title of "Striker of Communist labor"). January 1976 – he was appointed as a watchman in the armed rifle guard (28.04.1985-in honor of May 1, listed on the board of honor with the issuance of a monetary award), January 1980 – was appointed as a shooter in the armed rifle guard, worked in this position until November 1990, retired.

Branch of troops: Communication Troops. He was born in 1925. From the memoirs Of M. I. Kofman: "I was 15 and a half years old when the war started. We lived in the town of Rechitsa, Gomel region, Belarusian SSR. My father was drafted into the army on June 29, 1941. Our family was left without a father. We lived in a house, we had 2 cows. One we sold and bought a horse with a cart, and the other one we took with us. My grandparents did not go with us and did not let the family of their son Ruvun with his wife and three children, the youngest daughter was 2 and a half years old. All were killed by the Nazis. I built a booth on a cart, collected the necessary things and left on August 18. Four days my mother and I walked went to the East. On the way, we learned that all the "Volga Germans" were evacuated, and we went in the same direction. On the way to Belgorod, we sold our cow. Then there were the cities of Sumy, Konotop and Chernyanka, the railway station where I met my father. This meeting was arranged by a kind-hearted woman - a teacher who worked at a Homel school. She convinced my mother to go to a military unit. That's how we saw my father. He had the addresses of my mother's sisters (there were three of them, they went to the Chuvash ASSR). And so my father learned that the Kharkiv Electromechanical plant was evacuated to Chuvashia, and the second part – to Cheboksary. So we went more than a thousand kilometers. At the end of September, my father loaded me and my mother into a freight car. We patched up the cracks as best we could on the way, and I put together a small stove out of a railway lamp. And so we didn't suffer from the cold. We provided food for ourselves. We arrived in Cheboksary on November 11 and found my mother's sisters. They helped us with housing. It was a room of 9 sq. m. where we lived – some studied and some worked. I worked in a kindergarten. Every day I had to bring from across the Volga a cubic meter of firewood (this is 17 km in one direction) + 2 barrels of 250 liters from the column to the kindergarten. I also brought food. In 1943, I was drafted into the army on November 9. In May 1944, I graduated from the training courses for Junior commanders. We were sent (6 people) from the battalion to the city of Vyshny Volchok. There, after 3 months, I received permission to move to the active army on the 2nd Ukrainian front of the 40th army, where I met my father for the second time, and served in the communications company until the end of the war. We were 70 km away from Prague. We returned with the headquarters of the 40th army to Tiraspol. In early 1946, the army headquarters was disbanded. I was given a 1-month vacation at my place of residence. In the same year, I was sent to Minsk to a transfer point. 4 months later, I was sent to the shell repair base, where I served until 1950 in the security service. I currently have dual citizenship. I live in the state of Israel. On December 29, 2015, I turned 90 and decided to retire from work... My father died in Rechitsa in 1963. My mother died in Israel at the age of 90. The older sister died in Yalta. The younger sister died in Israel on January 2, 2016. And finally, I want to say that I wrote these words when my mother was alive: You raised four children, Went through the horrors of war. But you never dropped neither a tear nor a proud head. I remember you, mother...»

Rank: Senior Lieutenant GB. Troops: NKVD and NKGB (except border troops). My grandfather, Boris Korobov, was born on August 13, 1921 in the village of Alyoshki, Voronezh region. He began serving in the Workers 'and peasants' Red Army in 1940 in the 133rd separate battalion of the NKVD, A PARTISIPANT of the HISTORICAL PARADE on NOVEMBER 7, 1941 on RED SQUARE in MOSCOW. After this parade, he took part in the battles for the city of Rzhev. On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, he participated as a sniper in the 4th shock Army of the 599th rifle regiment. A group of snipers in the number of 56 fighters destroyed 445 Nazis. Personally, Boris Mikhailovich destroyed 22 Hitlerites. After the Battle of Moscow, he participated in the liberation of Belarus, fought in Kaliningrad and 2nd Baltic fronts. Participated in the liberation of the cities of Solnechnogorsk, Volokolamsk, Staritsy, Kalinin, Velikiye Luki. In 1946. – in Western Byelorussia on the operative work (anti-gang department - detective of Grodno regional department), in the battle with Bandera because of a grenade, my grandfather was severely wounded – lost right eye, but despite the pain and wounds, he was able to ride a horse back to the location of our troops to bring reinforcements and to ensure the destruction of the enemy on the outskirts of Grodno. After the war he worked as a Chairman of a collective farm in the far north in the village of Dudinka, and then after graduating from higher party school in the city of Krasnoyarsk was busy with party work in Siberia, in the village Partizanskoye Krasnoyarsk region, worked as a collective farm Chairman, the first Secretary of regional Committee of the Communist party. After retirement, he was chief of staff of the district Civil Defense and Emergency Situations. He was awarded the Order of Patriotic War II degree, medals "For military services", "For the defense of Moscow", "For the victory over Germany", "For the development of virgin and fallow lands" and other medals and commemorative signs, certificates. He was active in public activities, was published in the newspaper "Red Partisan", held meetings with schoolchildren and conscripts. He was repeatedly elected a Deputy of the regional legislature. Member of the CPSU since February 1949 He passed away on April 18, 2003, and was buried in Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk territory.

Rank: Petty Officer Troops: Artillery. I was Born in a Cossack village. Great-grandfather was a dashing ataman And he was able to be proud of the power, Faithfully served Russia. T.I.Degtyareva Great Patriotic War… These words still cause pain in the hearts of my family and friends, that’s why the theme of war and Victory, and not only an anniversary, is constant and sacred for us. A lot of water has flowed away after those terrible years, but our family remembers those bitter four years that became a military fate for my great-grandfather Dmitry Illarionovich Kohanenko. He is one of those common soldiers who were given the order to win or die. He was born in the village of Bogoslovskoe (now the village Balakhonovskoe) Kochubeyevsky district. In 1942, on the eve of the entry of the German-fascist invaders to the lands of Stavropol, he barely managed to finish 8 grades of the Barsukov secondary school. At the end of May, he graduated, and on August 3, a rumor went around the village of Barsukovskaya that Stavropol was burning, the Germans were nearby. The local government was hastily evacuated. Dmitry Illarionovich, at the age of 17, was sent to the village of Velikoknyazheskoe, now Olginsky, the former district center, where the military enlistment office still operated, where he wanted to join the active army. But he, as a minor, was not called up for the army, and he went to the village of Prokhladniy hoping that our troops would meet him there and he would be accepted into one of the retreating units. He took a dog cart, left on the market, loaded it with his belongings, and went after the troops. That's how Dmitry Illarionovich got into the training battalion, then into the artillery battalion of 45 mm guns, designed to destroy tanks. It so happened that after his illness, he had to serve as a scout to adjust and clarify the objectives of the special artillery reconnaissance unit, and helped the artillery gunners to fire the 145 mm guns. On January 1, 1942, the Germans, who had occupied the Caucasus, began to retreat. The German troops who were in the area where our units were located, after celebrating the New year, left their trenches without a fight and left. Our units pursued them, drove them out of villages, cities and villages of Stavropol and Kuban. Then the detachment went through a mountain pass and came to the village Ubinskoe where our troops pursued the retreating enemy. The Germans retreated to the village of Krymskaya and took up defensive positions there. Our reconnaissance team secured itself near the village and corrected artillery fire from there. Only in October, the Germans left their positions and retreated to the Crimea. Pursuing the enemy in the area of the village of Starotitorovskaya, the unit in which Dmitry Illarionovich fought, landed troops at the height of "Mayak". Not far away, on the outskirts of Kerch, another landing force landed, capturing half of the territory of the plant named after Voykov. Here, in one of the battles, Dmitry Illarionovich received many shrapnel wounds, which did not allow him to return to the ranks after prolonged treatment. In 1945, he returned to Bogoslovskoe and was appointed head of the Bogoslovskoe communications Department of the Kochubeyevsky office. In 1963, he was appointed head of the Novoaleksandrovskaya communications office, where he worked for almost a quarter of a century until 1986 with a total experience of more than 41 years. Dmitry Illarionovich was a member of the Cossack squad, the Kuban Cossack army. Great-grandfather has many awards, but, unfortunately, some of them have not been preserved. But those that were saved by my grandmother Ekaterina Morgunova, became our family shrine and priceless memory. Dmitry Illarionovich Kohanenko's military and peaceful work was were marked with the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the first degree and medals: "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War", "For valor and bravery in the Great Patriotic War", "Medal of Zhukov", "Veteran of the separate Coastal Army". He was recognized four times as the winner of the socialist competition in his field of activity. He was also an active participant in all the affairs of the district organization of the Communist party, and the veterans of the district elected him Chairman of the control and audit Commission of their veteran organization. An essay about Dmitry Illarionovichand his combat career was published in our regional newspaper "Znamya Truda". I am proud that my great-grandfather is known and remembered in the Novoaleksandrovsky district. It's about people like him that the lines were written: May the Salt of the Earth - a wise strong Cossack - live and not only in the tales! The memory of him, a dear man, as well as of his every battle, of every day of the past war - in my heart forever! And I would like very much to address my peers and all people of different generations with an appeal: "Remember! And let the genetic memory that exalts you, never give you peace!"

Rank: Corporal Troops: Communications Troops. Kochetkov was the smallest in the unit, both by age and height. Therefore he was always in the front rows of intelligence. When the war started, Petya Kochetkov was 15. In the village of Gorodishche, where he was born and grew up, every day they were waiting for reports of Soviet Information Bureau from the battlefields. In the distant Orenburg region then, at the very beginning of those terrible five years, it seemed that just a little more, and our people would win the war, drive the damned fascists from Soviet territory. Almost immediately, his older brother was called to the front. They were never to see each other again. The time passed. There were less and less friends around, with the advent of the 18th birthday the guys went to the front. And they had been waiting for reports for a long time not with certainty - with anxiety And in the Kochetkov family, with the approach of winter 44, there was another summons. It was time for Petya to try on a military uniform... With the first white flies, the guy who just celebrated his 18th birthday was drafted into the Red Army. Several dozens of boys were escorted from the Gorodischa and neighboring villages. Through the frozen mud, on what seemed to be an endless line of wagons, they went to the Pavlovsk camps near Orenburg. There, the recruits were trained in the service. At that time, it was interesting for Petya to look at the neighboring wagon train, where rifles were "riding" under the supervision of a very young girl. He held a weapon in his hands - there was a military-patriotic training at the school and a retired lieutenant colonel trained them well. But real, combat... The course of study was very short. And thanks to school classes, Petya became the first in combat and political training. He quickly learned to read topographic maps and handle the instruments that helped to correct artillery fire. Once in the active army, excellent student Kochetkov was sent to the reconnaissance company. When the battle is underway - in front of the artillery, three kilometers ahead, the reconnaissance should advance. It was necessary to direct the "Katyusha" to the main pain points of the enemy. It was necessary to calculate how quickly and where his comrades needed to move. And the main task of the scouts was to select convenient places to place observation posts. They also had to dig trenches overnight, establish communications, and disguise their temporary shelters. And all this-unnoticed by the enemy, otherwise - instant death. The ground trembled under his feet. The first experience of carrying out a patrol in the observation post Petya remembered for a lifetime. The fascists responded with incessant fire. The ground in the truest sense of the word was shaking under their feet, the ground was falling from all the cracks of the fortified dugout. It seemed like the end of the world. Man is an amazing creature. But you get used to everything. And in war, you get used to it ten times faster. So private Kochetkov soon got used to hearing shell bursts over his head, seeing his comrades dying, and enduring all the hardships of front-line life. No one counted how many observation posts were equipped. And it was unlikely that this was possible - the army was moving in the direction of Czechoslovakia, freeing more and more important strongholds on its way. And how many times Kochetkov was sent to the enemy's rear! One particularly memorable case was when the Nazis discovered a reconnaissance group and opened heavy fire. The signalman was killed in the first seconds by a mortar shot. Then the surviving fighters had to return to their position. The next day, despite the increased danger - the Nazis were already waiting for them on their territory-they went on a mission again. Opava, eight embrasures. In April, the 45th troops of the 4th Ukrainian front continued their offensive. After crossing the Opava river, Soviet units encountered a serious obstacle - a developed network of long-term reinforced concrete fortifications of the Germans. On the outskirts of the city with the same name, the invaders built a number of pillboxes - reinforced concrete, in eight embrasures. They turned all the stone buildings into nodes of resistance. Here the artillery scouts had to work hard. The battle was particularly fierce for the fortified height that covers the approaches to the city from the East. After scouts’ adjustment, Soviet tanks with armored infantry paratroopers broke into the Eastern part of the city. Assault groups knocked the Nazis out of buildings and pushed the enemy out block by block. By the end of the day on April 22, 1945, the city of Opava, an important road junction and a strong German defense stronghold, was stormed on the territory of Czechoslovakia. Moscow, on behalf of the Motherland, saluted the winners with 12 artillery volleys from 124 guns. The last hope of the Reich. But the heroes themselves had no time to celebrate. The troops continued to fight heavy and bloody battles for Moravia, the industrial region of Czechoslovakia. The operation began on March 10, but even by the end of the first week of April, there were no results. After Opava, Kochetkov was sent as part of a company to the east of Moravian Ostrava, where the Germans were covered by three long-term defensive strips. All the structures were well camouflaged, and at a distance they could not be distinguished from the surrounding hills. This territory remained one of the last industrial areas of the Third Reich. At the beginning of March 45, Hitler came to Ostrava to give a speech to the command staff, demanding to hold the front at all costs and threatening the most severe punishments in case of retreat. It was brought to the attention of the personnel of the Hitlerite units that this area represented the last hope of the Reich. It was not possible to hold it - on May 8, the Soviet troops celebrated the complete defeat of the enemy. A few weeks of fierce fighting, subtle operations involving scouts, and the Nazis lost Moravska-Ostrava. After this defeat, the German troops were not able to create a solid defense anywhere else up to Prague itself. Four years before peaceful life, however, Petya Kochetkov - by that time already a corporal - was not destined to return home immediately after the Great Victory. After Czechoslovakia, there was still Western Ukraine, which had to be liberated from Bandera formations. Then - service as a bomber, his duties included the destruction of unexploded mines and shells. It was only after six and a half years of service that he returned home. The gray-haired guy didn't know how to do anything but follow orders and risk his life. What to do? He decided to go as a loader to the Orenburg CHPP (now the Orenburg boiler house of the Orenburg heating networks). Every case that Pyotr Kochetkov contacted turned out to be for a long time. Here, too, he served until retirement. In his time, the development of control and measuring devices and automation took place, and in general - the transition to automatic process control systems. And here Petya Kochetkov was in the front rows... Newspaper "Orenburzhye" dated May 7, 2014

Rank: senior Sergeant. Troops: - Ground Forces, - Air Force (except marine aviation), - Coast Guard, - NKVD troops, - Border Guard. Vasily Kovalev was born on April 10, 1921 in Kursk in a large family of a baker. He received a 3-class education. Before the Great Patriotic War, he worked at the mine named after Artem in Dzerzhinsk, Stalin (Donetsk region). In May 1940, he married Lydia Ivanovna Novitskaya. He was called up to serve in the Red Army by the Dzerzhinsk RVC, the Ukrainian SSR, the Stalin (Donetsk) region, and the Dzerzhinsk district in May 1940 and sent to serve in the far East. According to his daughters ' recollections of their father's stories: Vasily Mikheevich served in Vladivostok in the 15th Marine Corps Brigade until the fall of 1942. Then he participated in the Stalingrad operation as part of the 333 rifle brigade. There, in the trenches of Stalingrad, he became a member of the CPSU (b). In July 1943, he was seriously wounded in the Kalach area and was hospitalized for a long time. Documents confirming service, wounds, and military awards from 1940 to October 1944 are currently being searched for in the archives. On October 7-8, 1944, V. M. Kovalev arrived at the 1st Ukrainian front to replenish the 1235th rifle regiment of the 373rd rifle division, stationed in the area of Vladimir-Volynsky. As part of the 1st battalion of this regiment, he served until the end of the war as a senior cook. When crossing the Oder river 16 km South-East of Breslavl (Germany) during the battle on 22-24.01.1945, for timely delivery of hot meals under heavy enemy fire to the regiment's forward positions captured on the other bank of the river, Sn. Sergeant V. M. Kovalev was presented with the medal "For Combat Services". Victory day Vasily Mikheevich welcomed in the offensive of the division of Czechoslovakia near the city of Görlitz (Germany). Vasily Mikheevich was discharged in the summer of 1945. He returned to Donbass and before retiring in the early 70's worked as a sinker at the mine named after Artyom in the village Artemovo, Dzerzhinsk, Donetsk region. In the post-war years, he was awarded the jubilee medals of 20, 30, 40 years of Victory and 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years of the USSR armed forces. In 1985, he was awarded the order of the Patriotic War II degree. The veteran can be described with such a detail- he never used travel privileges - "Why, can I not pay myself, I'm still alive?!". He loved the song "Zemlyanka" (Dugout) and often sang it. Vasily Kovalev died on December 28, 1987.

Rank: Krasnoflotets Koptyaev Alexander Varfolomeevich. Born in 1914. Place of birth: Arkhangelsk region, Ustyansky district, Rubchevskaya village. On 13.09.1938, he was called up for service by the Molotov RVC of the Arkhangelsk region – the place of work was the Lomovoe quarry. 21.06.1941 once again conscripted by Molotov GVK, "VUS-84" was a private crew, place of work-the 3rd construction area of the steamship "Amur" (in July 1941, to accelerate the work to increase the depth the dredgers "Vaygach" and "Amur were involved". In total, 11 dredgers worked on dredging operations, and their forces provided the necessary depth of the fairway for escorting Soviet and foreign vessels that arrived as part of the allied convoys. In 1941, at the call of the Molotov RVC FROM 25.06.1941 to 30.11.1941, he served on the base trawler "T-892" board 46. From 09.06.1941 to 02.12.1941, the T-892 trawler was a part of the active army-NF. The trawler was part of the White Sea Military Flotilla - the 12th Brigade of the Northern Navy. Trawlers were former fishing boats, which were converted during the war, and were equipped with combat weapons to detect, transport and destroy mines. The trawlers escorted our transport vessels between the ports of the White, Kara, and Barents seas, carried out patrol duty in the White sea, trawled fairways to escort allied convoys, ensured their safety, and escorted them to the ports of Arkhangelsk, Molotovsk, and Murmansk. The allied convoys took the shortest but most dangerous route: between the enemy coasts of Norway and Spitsbergen. Our escort ships met them near Lake Medvezhiy. From the deck of the trawlers, pilots moved onto allied ships, and then the trawlers went ahead of the caravan, clearing the way from mines: they also had to engage in battles with the enemy’s coast guard. The Barents sea played evil jokes with the crews of ships-the deck was frozen, it was slippery, and the sailors often went overboard. Stormy winds, fogs and severe frosts hit the shoulders of strong and hardy. Trawlers were attacked many times by enemies from the air. The enemy dropped bombs, fired machine guns, many sailors were killed, and the ocean was their last resting place- there are no monuments or crosses in the places of their death - only cold waves. Until the end of the war, my father served on a trawler and was discharged only after Victory Day. He rarely and reluctantly recalled the war; he said that it was very scary – but he did his duty, defended the White Sea borders of our Homeland. After the war, he continued to sail on SF vessels as a senior mechanic. After a serious illness, our father died and was buried in the city of Arkhangelsk, Lomonosov district, Ilinskoe cemetery.

Kulkov Anatoly Yegorovich. He was born on October 2, 1928 in the village of Boyarkino in the Bronitsky district of the Moscow region, and by the beginning of the war he was not fully 13 years old. As a man, he was always terse and did not like to remember that time, but even from a few phrases and facts of his biography, you could understand what people like him had to go through. They had a large family, where he was the eldest, and so when his father was taken to the war, all the care of the family fell on his shoulders. He had to leave school. You can say that from childhood he immediately stepped into adulthood. He went to work immediately, from the first days of the war, as soon as the men went to the front, either on call from the military enlistment office, or as volunteers. Along with adults, children endured all the hardships of wartime. Their fragile shoulders were burdened with the immense weight of the rear. And who was left in the village? Only women, old people, children. He and his peers worked together with adults in the fields. In the spring they helped to plow, sow, mow hay for cattle in the summer, harvest crops in the fall, and carry firewood from the forest in the winter. That is how the whole war went. Instead of playing children's games, wartime children picked up shovels and rakes, got behind the wheel of a tractor, took a horse by the bridle and went to work. It was hard and difficult, they were so tired that they could barely "carry" their heads to the pillow. But everyone understood that their work helped to bring the victory closer. After the war, a year later, he was drafted into the Soviet Army, where he helped to restore the national economy. And since December 1948, he served as a dog handler. After serving in the army since February 1952, he worked in the Internal Affairs Office for 32 years. During his service, he has: During his service he has: medals "For impeccable service 3,2,1 degrees", 14 thanks, was awarded the medal "Veteran of Labor", jubilee medals "50 years of Soviet militia", "60 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War", "65 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War". His left hand was injured. While on duty at the Interior Ministry, he neutralized a bandit who was waving a knife and threatened passers-by. He neutralized the intruder by grabbing the knife by the blade and cutting his tendon.

Troops: Military medical staff. Before the war, Raisa studied at the Kuibyshev military medical Academy. After graduating from the Academy in 1941, it was necessary to pass state exams, but the Great Patriotic War began. And she was sent to the front with the rank of captain of the medical service. She was 22 years old. Her part was sent to the Northern front, where Raisa served until the end of the war on May 9, 1945. Raisa Alexandrovna served in the frontline medical unit as a doctor. Her main specialty was neurosurgery. But she had to do everything, absolutely all operations that could be done in a medical unit to save a person's life. During the war a peculiar accident happened with her. A General was wounded in the battle, and their medical unit gave him first aid and sent Raya with him to the front-line hospital. They drove him on a sledge, the soldier led the horse, and Raya, as a doctor, watched his condition, sitting next to him in the sledge. The road went through the forest. It was deep winter. The night was coming. Suddenly she hears a shot and the soldier falls dead, then a second shot-the horse is killed, and a third shot-the General is killed. Raisa saw the sniper in the tree and was stunned with horror. The shots were very clear. She couldn't even move from what she saw. She stood by the sledge and waited for the shot. In a few seconds, her little life flew through her mind, and she waited for this ominous shot. The sniper, apparently seeing that it was a girl, did not shoot. At dawn, the girl heard the tramp of soldiers coming from the front line. Her joy knew no bounds. As they drew level with her cart, they saw the frozen girl, and all this terrible picture. Raya could not walk, the soldiers rubbed her with alcohol, gave her a few sips to drink, and wrapped her in fur coats taken from the dead, took her on a sledge with the wounded to the hospital. After the war, Raisa Alexandrovna married a front-line soldier. They had two children. She worked in a military hospital in the city of Novgorod.