Heroes and feats

Voloshin Grigory Yefimovich_x000D_ _x000D_ My great-grandfather Voloshin Grigory Efimovich was born on May 20, 1926 in the city of Kotovsk, Odessa region of the Ukrainian SSR. At the beginning of the great Patriotic war, the Voloshin family was evacuated to the Stavropol territory. My great-grandfather graduated from high school there with honors. In 1943, my great-grandfather specifically assigned himself a year to volunteer for the army. First, he got into the training unit, successfully graduated, and was assigned to the infantry. My great-grandfather went to the front in March 1944. Place of recruitment: Alexandria-Obolensky RVC, Stavropol Krai, Alexandria-Obolensky district. Great-grandfather served as a private guard, scout 8 separate guards reconnaissance company 9 guards airborne Poltava red banner and the order of Suvorov division. He defended the Ukrainian front from August 1944. Great-grandfather rarely talked about the war. But I remembered some cases from my front-line life. At the beginning of his military career, great-grandfather served in the infantry. The food was poor during the war years, and the infantry even more. One day, great-grandfather went to the guard, and when he returned, his friends in the company said that they decided to leave the infantry together to join the reconnaissance company. The intelligence service said they were better fed. If the infantry troops were given only one pot of porridge, then in intelligence it was still a decent piece of fat and a small chocolate bar. At first, great-grandfather didn't notice much difference in nutrition. But three days later, he realized that fat and chocolate still give a significant increase in strength and endurance than empty porridge. Scouts needed much more strength than ordinary infantrymen, as they performed much more complex and dangerous tasks. So, great-grandfather by chance became a scout. Shortly before the end of the war, my great-grandfather was wounded. A shell fragment tore off the middle finger on his right hand. He went to the hospital. His intelligence team was sent on another mission, and, unfortunately, they all died… My great-grandfather met the victory in a hospital in Czechoslovakia. After the war, the authorities really wanted him to go to military school and continue his military career. But great-grandfather was tired of fighting and did not want to be a military man. Although until 1948, he still had to serve in various garrisons in Romania, Austria and Hungary. After returning home in 1948, my great-grandfather studied in absentia at the pedagogical Institute and received a degree as a history teacher. He started working in party structures. He died on April 30, 1996. List of awards: 08.02.1945 Order of Glory III degree 12.04.1945 Order of the red banner 09.05.1945 Medal "for the victory over Germany in the great Patriotic war of 1941-1945" 1945 Medal for the liberation of Prague 06.04.1985 order of the Patriotic war I degree Here is how his exploits are described in award documents: January 18, 1945 guards private Voloshin G. E. acted with a group of scouts in an ambush behind enemy lines near the city of Rosenberg. Guards private Voloshin G. E. with two comrades stopped two light staff cars of the Germans and killed a non-commissioned officer in a battle with the resisting enemy. For bravery and bravery shown during the capture of cars, the guard private Voloshin G. E. was awarded the government award-the Order of Glory of the III degree. On January 17, 1945, acting on a special mission in the area of Busko-zdruy (Poland), the guards private Voloshin G. E. and the guards corporal lokhmatov G. V. under the command of the guard Lieutenant Artyukhov V. V. went to the rear of the enemy at 25-27 kilometers, brought valuable information about the enemy, which was developed a plan of action for the division. On February 2, 1945, near the town of Malec (Poland), my great-grandfather's platoon was surrounded. Acting platoon in conjunction with self-propelled guns, guard soldier Voloshin, G. E., first broke into the ranks of enemy infantry and melee destroying soldier after soldier until, while rushing for them self-propelled gun and the platoon broke through the encirclement and did not reach our 223-infantry regiment 18 division. During the breakout of the ring of encirclement of the guard, private Voloshin G. E. killed up to 30 enemy soldiers and officers. On February 4, 1945, while being observed at a station near the city of Malec (Poland), guards private Voloshin G. E. and guards private Kuchugura V. P. they were surrounded by a platoon of enemy infantry. Guard private Voloshin G. E. and guard private Kuchugura opened fire on the enemy, came out of the encirclement, killing more than 25 enemy soldiers. Personally, the guard private Voloshin G. E. killed more than fifteen enemy soldiers. My great – grandfather was awarded a government award-the Order of the red banner-for his courage and bravery in escaping from the encirclement.

Vozhzhov Pavel Andreevich_x000D_ _x000D_ 07.1941 year - 04.1943 of the year - student of the Volgograd subtly technical College. Guards Junior Lieutenant since 04.1943: commander of the t-34 medium tank, 144 tanks’ battalions, 10th Guards separate tank brigade. Guards senior Lieutenant, Baltic front (end of the war). Extract from the award list of September 13, 1943 on the presentation of Pavel Andreevich Vozhzhov to the Order of the RED STAR during the battles from 6.9 to 9.9.43 years:"...In the battles with the German invaders for the localities: Shcheglovka, Alyoshenka and the city of Navlya tov. Vozhzhov proved to be a fearless, courageous and determined tank commander. Boldly he led his tank to enemy positions and fire, and tracks destroyed the enemy's manpower and equipment. Vozhzhov was the second to cross the Navlya river and burst into the city, where, following the example of the company commander, he broke through to the railway and, spreading panic among the enemy soldiers and destroying them, quickly captured the station along with other tanks. During the fighting from 6.9 to 9.9.43 years destroyed: 2 PTO, 1 machine gun, 2 guns, 1 car and up to 50 enemy soldiers and officers. Captured: 8 prisoners, 2 PTO, 5 horses... " List of awards Vozhzhov Pavel Andreevich: 20.09.1943-Order of the red Star; 08.01.1945-Order of the red Star; 09.05.1945-Medal "for the victory over Germany in the great Patriotic war of 1941-1945"; 30.12.1956 - Order of the red Star; 06.04.1985 - order of the Patriotic war II degree. After the war, Vozhzhov P. A. served in the group of Soviet troops in Germany (Deputy company commander for the technical part of the 61st Guards tank regiment) and in the Volga military district (Deputy. commander of a tank battalion in the technical part of the 381st tank regiment). He graduated from the service on 08.10.1960 with the rank of major. Since 1960, he lived in Sevastopol. He worked as an electrician in the red banner black sea fleet and in the naval hospital of the KCHF named after N. I. Pirogov. Together with his wife, Vozhzhova Raisa Arsentyevna (07.02.1926-12.01.2017), they raised two sons: Anatoly (doctor of Economics, Professor) and Sergey (Ph. D., associate Professor).

Vasilyeva Valentina Andreyevna_x000D_ _x000D_ Tells the great-grandson, a student of class 5 B GBOU SOSH No. 191 Saint Petersburg, Podbolotsky Leonid: "last time I told about my great-grandfather-pilot Vasiliev V. A. and his sisters-blockade runners, and now I want to tell about my great-grandmother Vasilyeva V. A., who together with her mother, my great-great-grandmother, Baykova A. I. lived in Kuznechny lane. At the beginning of the war, she was a teenager and studied at school No. 300, which was located on B. Moskovskaya street. When the first bombs suddenly fell on the city in September 1941, she and her school friends, like many children of that time, put out fires from land mines, and when the school was closed, her great-grandmother was sent to logging. The winter of 1942 was very cold and her hands and feet were frostbitten. After returning to the besieged city, she became a nurse at hospital No. 112, which was located on the Fontanka river. In the same hospital there were sewing workshops, where my great-grandmother's mother worked together with her sister Antonova E. I., they sewed clothes for soldiers. I also want to tell you about my grandfather's family, his parents-mom and dad lived on Ligovsky, 99. great-Grandfather Tumarkin IV, defended the Pulkovo heights, was shell-shocked, wounded several times. My great-grandmother, B. Y. Tumarkina, stayed at home. The family had three children, the oldest-8 years, the middle-3 years and the youngest-1 month. The little one didn't survive and died. My grandfather spent the entire war in the active army, and my great-grandmother and her children spent all 900 days in Leningrad. My grandfather was born after the war in 1952. I have a friend, Sonya. Once her great-grandmother prilutskaya F. G. and my great-grandmother Valya studied at school No. 300 and lived on Kuznechny, they were friends. And on May 9, 1945, Sonia's great-grandmother knocked loudly on the door of my great-grandmother, who had returned from duty, in the morning and shouted: "Valka, victory, victory! On the street, on the street!" They ran to Marat, to Nevsky. Strangers were singing and congratulating each other! Hugging! And they, the girls who had grown up over the years, cried, laughed and dreamed of a happy future! We are still friends with our families, already in the fourth generation, and on May 9 we go to the "Immortal regiment" campaign and visit the "900 days of the Blockade" memorial-this has become our family tradition!"

Vasiliev Vasily Alekseevich_x000D_ _x000D_ Tells the great-grandson, a student of class 5 B GBOU SOSH No. 191 St. Petersburg, Leonid Poblocki. Vasiliev Vasily Alekseevich was born in November 1920 in the suburbs of Leningrad, now it is already in the city. In the family, the little great-grandfather had two older sisters and an older brother. The family lived poorly and hard. During his school years, the grown-up Vasily went to study at the OSOAVIAKHIM flight club, because since childhood he was fond of airplanes and really wanted to fly in the sky like a bird. His desire, as it turned out, was not in vain, he studied very well and easily-he grasped everything "on the fly"! From the flying club, he was drafted into the army. There, having seen that he already has basic flight training skills and is suitable for flight service both in terms of parameters and health, he was enrolled in a flight school. After graduating from school, he was assigned to an aerial photography unit in the Baltic States, where he met the war. At the beginning of the war, when the Germans began to advance, their detachment was re-formed and great-grandfather was sent to the Leningrad front. He spent the entire war as a bomber. Among his friends were children of famous people at that time. Timur Frunze is the son of civil war commander Mikhail Frunze. My great-grandfather was a member of the family of Voroshilov, a Marshal and civil war hero. At school, he knew and spent time with Vasily Stalin, the son of the leader of our country - Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. In civilian life, he was offered to move to Moscow and work at the Likhachev factory. But he could not leave his family here, which at that time consisted of two sisters and a niece. His older brother went missing in the war. His mother died during the siege and was buried in a common grave at the Piskarevsky memorial cemetery. During the war, the sisters stayed in the besieged city and worked. The older sister, when the city was taken in the blockade, entered the militia-extinguished high-explosive bombs, was on duty on the roofs, caught spies. When the blockade was broken, she joined the women's sapper detachment-this detachment went ahead of the army and cleared the territory. She passed the entire war. She was wounded-a girl from their group exploded next to her on a mine and was hit by a shrapnel. After the war, on May 9, their group traditionally gathered. The middle sister was also first in the militia and learned to drive a car there. During the blockade, she drove lorries on the ice of Lake Ladoga. She said that according to the instructions, the door in the car when driving on the "Road of life" should be open so that you can jump out if a shell hits the car. She knew firsthand how cars went under the ice. The whole war went the same way. She was lucky and was never injured. Unfortunately, when I was born, my great-grandfather and his older sister were no longer alive! My middle sister died when I was a year and a half old. She got to see me, and I don't even remember her! But all the heroic stories of protecting our city are carefully preserved in our family and passed down through the generations! This is a part of my family's history that I remember and am proud of!

Volkhin Arkady Andreevich_x000D_ _x000D_ Volkhin Arkady Andreevich (1925-1945) lived with his father Andrey Lazarevich, brother Gennady, and sisters Yevgenia and Sofia in Tyumen on 105, Novaya (Profsoyuznaya) street. His mother Anna Nikolaevna died in 1938, affected by frequent relocations after the family was dispossessed and expelled from Pozory village of the Perm region. Their father, Andrey Lazarevich, a participant of the First World War (1894-1942), raised the children. Given the soldier's experience, strength, and health, at the age of 47, he was called to the front. Andrey Lazarevich, a red army rifleman of 26 A 171 subdivision of engineer road construction battalion (Karelian front) was killed during the shelling from the air, and buried in a mass grave just off highway Lauhi - Kesten'ga. Arkady Andreyevich was drafted into the Red Army and sent to study at a Tank school located in the Molotov region (Perm), where he received a military occupation as a breechblock operator and self-propelled artillery gun charger, and was sent to the active army to the first Ukrainian front in March 1944. The guard private fought with the Nazi invaders as part of the second battery of the Artillery division of the 29th Guards Unech motor rifle brigade of the 10th Guards Ural Volunteer tank corps. In the battle for the city of Kamenets-Podolsk (Khmelnitsky region, Ukraine) he performed his first personal feat and was presented with the award, a Medal for Bravery, for repulsing two enemy counterattacks, knocking out an enemy tank, simultaneously eliminating the malfunction of the lock in the gun, and also destroying more than 10 German soldiers with rifle fire. Standing on the defensive in an open area as part of the calculation repulsed four German counterattacks. 21.07. 1944 during the liberation of L’viv (Western Ukraine), the tank was shot down, guard Sergeant Volkhin AA did not die, as stated in the commander's report on irretrievable losses (Ukrainian SSR, Lviv region, Lviv, 23 Kokhanovskaya street, centre, near the road, opposite the forester's house). Guard Sergeant Volkhin A. A. continued the battle path. It was March 1945, and the end of the war was less than two months away... In the battle of 11.03.1945 in the area of Ryben (Poland), being in the advanced detachment and being in the crew of a self-propelled mount, Volkhin A. A. was the first to fight the enemy, showing immortal courage and bravery. The crew received an order to enter the enemy's flank and destroy the anti-aircraft battery, which prevented the advance of the red Army units with fire. Operating in difficult mountainous and wooded terrain, the self-propelled mount attacked the enemy from the move, destroying three guns. In this fierce battle, A. A. Volkhin was killed. For courage and bravery, he was presented with an award, the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd grade. Many years later, the family of his younger brother Gennady (1928-2009, a member of the labour front, a 15-year-old teenager who got up to the lathe at the 639 defence plant, which produced torpedo boats for the front) got a letter from the tank commander A. Kotov, who, while in the hospital, told how Arkady, his "wonderful, modest, cheerful, comrade who did not know sadness", fought and died. The letter was addressed to his sister Eugene, who volunteered for the front in the aviation unit. Arkady wrote in a letter that he had tried apples, plums, and pears in Poland; for a guy from a small Siberian town they were delicious and amazing fruits; he wrote that he became quite an adult, even grew up and put on some weight... In the photo of 1944, he is 19 years old, and at the age of 20, he died... The commander buried him there, by the road near the village, the name of which he did not know...

Voznyuk Pavel Alexandrovich_x000D_ _x000D_ Pavel Voznyuk (30.06.1918-18.01.1984) was in the Red Army (The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army) from 16.12.1941 (from 13.09, according to the card of the transfer point).Rank: Senior Sergeant. Place of call: Komi-Permyatsky DDB (District draft board), Molotov region, Komi-Permyatsky ND (national district). entry no.: 10525202. Member of the AUCP(b) (All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) since 1943, ticket number 4511617. From 14.09.1941 to 29.09.1941, he was a private of the 40th reserve rifle regiment. From 29.09.41 to 01.05.1943 a senior Sergeant, commander of a 120mm mortar, platoon assistant commander of the 1196 rifle regiment of the 359 rifle division of the 30 army of the Kalininsky front. From 15.03.1943 to 18.05.1943, he was in the Penza mortar school. Then he was first a platoon assistant commander in the mortar company of the 7th reserve rifle regiment of the 16th reserve rifle brigade, then Secretary of the political Department of the 79th tank brigade of the 19th tank corps of the 4th Ukrainian front. From 14.11.43 to 20.11.43, he was treated in the hospital (there is a certificate from the military field hospital No. 5244). It says that Pavel Alexandrovich has "a shrapnel wound to the left parietal region and a shrapnel wound to the chest on the left." From 22.11.43 to 15.12.43, he was a section commander in a mortar battalion of the 178 reserve rifle brigade. From 15.12.43 to 04.05.1944, he was a commander of the Department of management of the Ministry of battery, platoon assistant commander of 3 guard of artillery regiment of the 4th guard of Apostolivs'kyi infantry division, of the 3rd Ukrainian front. From June 1944 to June 1945, he was a cadet of the Kyiv Red Banner School of self-propelled artillery named after M. V. Frunze. For exemplary performance of command assignments at the front against the German invaders and displaying valour and courage, by frontline order No. 31/n from 24.07.1942 issued by the armed forces (Military Council) of the 30th Army of the Kalinin front and kept now in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence, Pavel Voznyuk, commander of the 447th separate mortar division of the 359th rifle division, was awarded the medal "for bravery". His award list describes his feat as follows: "On January 15, 1942, in the battle for the village of Volynovo, his squad as part of the squadron moved to the location of our advanced infantry units at a distance of 500 meters from the enemy, and its mortar fire ensured the advance of rifle units. On February 8-9th, 1942, in the battles for the villages of Lebzino and Gusevo, he delivered a crushing blow with well-aimed fire and destroyed up to 30 German occupiers. Worthy of the governmental award the medal "For courage".[CAMD, f. 33, f/a. 682524, dep. it. 852, №. 10525196] The second order of division No. 8 / n from 10.03.1944 on 3 GV. SP 4 GV. SD 31 GV. SK 46 A 3 of the Ukrainian front, which is now in the CAMD, says that the medal "for bravery" was awarded to "the commander of the 120 mm mortar battery of the guards, senior Sergeant Pavel Voznyuk, for suppressing the fire of the enemy's machine-gun point with its squad in the battle for the village of Aleksandrov Dar, Kryviy Rih district, Dnipropetrovsk region on March 7, 1944." [CAMD, f. 33, f/a 690155;dep.it . 1882, № 34442484] by Order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 9, 1945, Pavel Voznyuk was awarded the medal "for the victory over Germany in the great Patriotic war of 1941-1945".

Verbitsky Ivan Nikiforovich_x000D_ _x000D_ Verbitsky Ivan Nikiforovich was born on October 13, 1927, in Novopokrovka village of Partizansky district. When the war began, Ivan Nikiforovich was 13 years old. Adult men, including his father Nikifor Grigorievich and his elder brother Alexander, went to the front, and teenagers took their place. Ivan Nikiforovich, along with other boys, did all the hard men's work on the collective farm: ploughed, weeded, harvested grain, worked until late at night. In the winter it was even harder, he worked on logging in the taiga, where all the work was done manually. In 1944, Ivan Nikiforovich was seventeen years old, and he was drafted into the army. He was sent to the border-security troops, to the East, in the city of Blagoveshchensk, Amur region, where he was trained for a month. Then he was assigned to the Markovo Outpost. He graduated from the school of service dog breeding, and later served with his four-legged friend. There was unrest at the border. The Japanese had the task of starting a war with Russia. They constantly provoked border guards, fired at them. The border guards were ordered "not to respond to the provocation, not to open fire." The Japanese sent saboteurs to our territory every night, and they tried in every possible way to pass unnoticed, tied animal hooves to their feet, crossed the border backwards. It was difficult to deceive the border guards, they served conscientiously. Ivan Nikiforovich detained several armed saboteurs with his service dog. During the war, most of the soldiers served in the West, where there were fierce battles. In the East, the situation was also difficult, but there were much fewer border guards, and they had to serve 17-18 hours a day. Ivan Nikiforovich passed 30 km every day while guarding the border. He met Victory day at the border, carrying the service. The Japanese became more and more impudent, more often violated the border, killed border guards, and killed the best friends of Ivan Nikiforovich. On the night of August 8 to August 9, 1945, an undeclared war with Japan began. The border guards were the first to engage and fought heroically with the Japanese, among them was Verbitsky I. N. They destroyed the border, police posts and went on the offensive. Red Army soldiers who were transferred from the West came to the aid of the border guards. The war lasted until September 1945 and ended with the defeat of the Japanese army. Ivan Nikiforovich has many military awards. In April 1951, Ivan Nikiforovich was demobilized; he served a total of 6.5 years. After the service, he worked in the exploration party in the Ivanovka hamlet of Partizansky district. Later, he moved to Partisanskoe village, and worked in the village council, in the village general store, in the procurement agency. From the procurement agency, he took well-deserved rest. He raised two children, a son and a daughter. On June 3, 2015, Ivan Nikiforovich passed away at the age of 87.

Vashchekin Evgeny Gavrilovich_x000D_ _x000D_ A brief, specific statement of a personal combat feat or merit: Vashchekin Evgeny Gavrilovich in the Patriotic war from its first days. In September 1941, in the battle for Smolensk, he was seriously wounded. In the 24th Eupatoria guards rifle Red Banner division SB. 3 SD / since November 1941. With the division as the head of the fourth Department, he went a long way in battle. In the battles on the Volkhov front, in heavy defensive battles, in swampy areas, timely informed the command of the presence and loss of personnel. In difficult conditions of the battle, he established a record of the personnel of the units after they left the encirclement. Repeatedly during the battle, was present in the battle lines specifying the presence of personnel and losses. In the heavy offensive battles of 1942 in the Sinyavino area of the Volkhov front, Yevgeny Vashchekin, under enemy fire, collected personnel records and promptly informed the command and higher headquarters, which contributed to the success of the battle. He paid a lot of attention and care to putting combat units together. During the formation of the division in 1942, Yevgeny Gavrilovich Vashchekin did not rest for three days, being engaged in putting units of the division together, with the result that the division successfully completed its combat mission in the battles of Stalingrad. In offensive battles from Stalingrad to the Dnieper and in the Crimea, in difficult combat conditions, regardless of all the hardships of combat life, he always processed personnel records in a timely manner and informed the higher headquarters. During the preparation for the summer battles of 1943, Yevgeny Vashchekin went to the army and front hospitals to collect the recovered soldiers of the division of the 9th company. Currently, despite the poor state of health, which was lost in the Patriotic war, overcoming all the pain, every day he takes care of putting military units together, and especially rifle companies. All warriors love their caring boss. He responds sensitively to requests from families of fallen servicemen. In the battles for the liberation of Lithuania and on the territory of East Prussia, Vashchekin Yevgeny Gavrilovich showed exceptional care in completing the combat formations of units. In the battles for the conquest of. Konigsberg and the final defeat of the Germans on the Zemland Peninsula, being directly in the units, under enemy fire, Vashchekin Eugene Gavrilovich systematically replenished the rifle companies and kept them always in numbers capable of performing combat tasks. Gratitude for the timely provision of data to the command, on the combat and numerical strength, for the care taken to complete the combat orders of the units, which ensured that the command completed the combat tasks that led to major combat successes of the division in capturing the city of Konigsberg. Rank: GV. major in the red army since 03.1933 Place of conscription: Yalta RVC, Crimean ASSR, Yalta district duty Station: 24 SD 2 GV. And the date of the feat: 01.09.1941-30.09.1941, 01.09.1942-30.09.1942, 01.06.1943-31.08.1943 Rank: Guards Major in the Red Army since 03.1933 Place of call: Yalta Regional Military Commissariat (RMC), Crimean ASSR, Yaltinsky District. Place of service: 24 rifle division of guards 43A3 of Belorussian Front.Date of the feat: 19.07.1941, 08.08.1941 Order of the Patriotic war second grade. Rank: captain, in the Red Army since 1933. Place of service: 111 rifle division 59, Volkhov Front Medal "for military merit". Year of birth: 28.12.1903 Lieutenant Colonel, in the Red Army since __. _ _ .1933. Place of birth: Crimean region, Yalta. List of awards: 1. 22.05.1942 medal "For military merit" 2. 03.11.1944 Order of the Red Star 3. 03.11.1944 medal "For military merit" 4. 25.04.1945 Order of the Patriotic War 2nd grade 5. 06.11.1947 Order of the Red Star 6. 20.04.1953 Order of the Red Banner 7. 22.12.1942 Medal "For the defence of Leningrad" 8. 22.12.1942 medal "For the defence of Stalingrad" 9. 09.05.1945 Medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" 10. 09.06.1945 Medal "For the conquest of Konigsberg" date of Award document: 06.04.1985 Order of the Patriotic War of the first grade title: Major of the Gurads Medal "For military merit"._x000D_ .

Volkov Nikolay Ivanovich_x000D_ _x000D_ The events of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 go further into history. However, no amount of running time can erase from memory the names of those who stood up for the defence of the Motherland. In the Neryungrinsky Museum of the history of the development of southern Yakutia named after I. I. Pyankov, among other pension cases, the pension case of my grandfather Nikolai Ivanovich Volkov, opened by the Timpton district Department of social security of the Yakut ASSR on January 2, 1950, is kept. A few yellowed sheets of documents, behind the meagre lines of which the fate of the soldier, his family. In March 1937, he married Irina Pavlovna Vorontsova. Then for three years (from 1937 to 1939), he served in the Omsk region. In 1940, the Volkov family came to the village of Nagorny, lived on 13, Krasnaya Molodezh street. From the certificate issued by the Timpton district Department of public education, we learn that N. I. Volkov worked at The Chulmansky boarding school as the head before the war. Here, in Nagorny, on July 18, 1941, the Volkov’s daughter Valentina was born. On August 4, 1941, Nikolai Volkov was drafted into the Red Army and sent to military training camps in the Chita region. After completing military training in the Trans-Baikal military district, he was sent to the front. In December 1941, his wife Irina Pavlovna received the only news from her husband - a telegram from Moscow. In June 1942, a private Volkov Nikolai Ivanovich, while at the front, went missing, as evidenced by a notice issued by the Aldan United military enlistment office on September 30, 1949. Archival documents contain additional information about N. I. Volkov: military position-Rifleman, member of the All-Union Leninist Communist Youth Union, and says: "Can be considered missing in March 1942." The further fate of the soldier is unknown. Leaving for the front, Nikolai Volkov ordered his wife to take care of their daughter, who at that time was barely half a month old. The Volkov family survived the difficult war years. After the war, the daughter Valya finished school and forever linked her fate with South Yakutia. For many years, she worked in the East Siberian geological exploration expedition "Vostokkvartssamotsvety" (Khatym village). From here, she went on a well-deserved rest. Today, the daughter of a front-line soldier. Valentina N. Bergovina, a veteran of labour, the first Builder of the city, lives in Neryungri. Here also live three granddaughters of a warrior, a great-grandson, a great-granddaughter, and a great-great-granddaughter. A large family remembers and honours the defender of the Motherland. As a reminder of the loved one, the family keeps a memorial book "Memory", dedicated to the soldiers of southern Yakutia. The book containing information about her husband was presented to Irina Volkova in the year of the 50th anniversary of the great Victory. A ten-year-old great-great-granddaughter, raised on adult stories in reverence and respect for her great-great-grandfather, proudly says: "My grandfather Nikolai Volkov!" Perhaps this memory of the younger generation is the greatest reward for a soldier who fulfilled his human and military duty to the end, protecting what was sacred to him - his home, relatives, and Homeland. 70 years have passed since the end of the great Patriotic war. However, before human memory, before the memory of the heart, time is powerless.

Volkhin Andrey Lazarevich_x000D_ _x000D_ Volkhin Andrey Lazarevich (1894-12.05.1942) - participant of the First World War and the Great Patriotic war. After the First World War, he returned alive to his native village of Pozory, Perm province, where he worked as a peasant with his father and elder brother Vasily. He married Lushnikova Anna Nikolaevna from the neighbouring village of Lisya. In the metrics of children: Evgeny, Arkady, Gennady, Sofia-different places of birth-Kansk. Votkinsk. The family was dispossessed, the brother Vasily was convicted (Book of Memory of victims of political repression in the Perm region) and until 1932, Andrey Lazarevich transported the family from place to place. In 1932, he bought a house on the outskirts of Tyumen. The house has not been preserved, but there is a linden tree that Andrey Lazarevich planted with his children before the war. This linden tree is still alive today and blooms every spring... The news of the attack of Nazi Germany in Tyumen came in the afternoon of June 22, 1941. On the former Market square (now Central), a rally was held, which was attended by 20 thousand people, or 2/3 of the city's population, among all, were soldiers of the First World War, wearing the Royal George crosses, grey-bearded grandfathers shouted: "Guys, we will fight!" Andrey Lazarevich was already 47 years old and soon the brave, strong father, who was always a hero in the eyes of children, went to the front. 47 years for a soldier is a considerable age, but Andrey Lazarevich was a hardy, strong, excellent shooter, besides, he had already fought "with the German". He comforted the family by telling them how once, on the front of the First World War, a large shell hit the ground very close... and it didn't break. The case was extremely rare, everyone believed that Andrey Lazarevich was born under the lucky star, that fate would save him that time. Fate saved Andrey Lazarevich both in 1914 and in 1930, allowing him to leave his seed on the ground. Volkhin Andrey Lazarevich, red army Rifleman, of the 26 A 171 separate road construction battalion was killed in an air bombing on 12.05.1942 during the Kesteng offensive operation of the Soviet troops of the Karelian front. He is buried in a mass grave; the burial place in the commander's report on irretrievable losses is marked as follows: Karelo-Finnish SSR, Loukhsky district, Loukhi station, South-West, 34 km, Loukhi - Kestenga highway, 18 km to the right. Children of Volkhin Andrey Lazarevich made their contribution to the great Victory. Daughter Yevgenia, born in 1922, went to the front as a volunteer, served in the aviation unit, was a parachute stacker, was discharged from the army, and later linked her fate with Ukraine, worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature. His son Arkady, born in 1925, Guard Sergeant of the 10th Guards Ural Volunteer tank corps, castle-loader of self-propelled guns, took part in the liberation of Ukraine and Poland from the Nazi invaders. He died on March 11, 1945, during the liberation of Poland in the town of Ryben. Awarded the medal "for bravery", the order "Great Patriotic War", second grade (posthumously). His son Gennady, born in 1928, was a member of the labour front, in 1943, at the age of 15, went to work as an apprentice of a turner at the 639 plant (Tyumen shipbuilding plant), the only plant that produced torpedo boats during the war. Today, the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren of Volkhin Andrey Lazarevich live in Tyumen and the Donbas...

Verpatov Nikolay Sergeevich_x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ My grandfather was a Navigator in a reconnaissance aircraft. He graduated from the Melitopol military aviation school in May 1940. He met the war in the city of Kotovsk, Odessa region, in the 211 light bombardment regiment as a Flight Navigator. Military rank-Lieutenant. The day before, on Saturday, June 21, he went with his fiancee Klava to a dance, where everyone saw that on the other side of the Prut, "everything was grey from German helmets", but it did not occur to anyone that the bombing would begin at night. The Outpost was holding the Nazis for three days, and grandmother Klava with her sister Zina's family managed to catch the last train. Sergey, Zina's husband, ran home and ordered: “Hurry up to the station! We are leaving”. When one of the women wanted to take a sewing machine, Sergey said: "Don't take anything. Close the chickens in the barn, and we'll be back in three days." They returned only after the war... My grandfather flew combat missions from the first days of the war. In August 1941, he was transferred to the 315 reconnaissance regiment at the headquarters of the Western front. On September 27, 1941, he was shot down in an air battle, wounded, and captured near Poltava. According to the law of the time, he should have committed suicide, but did not. Until April 1945, he was in a concentration camp. From the meagre stories of my grandfather: three times death was inevitable, but passed by. There were 900 prisoners in the first camp. By spring, 300 were left, and the rest died of starvation and typhus. On the territory of the camp, there was no grass, and the prisoners ate all bark on the trees. My grandfather survived. In the spring of 1942, during sorting, they were called one by one, asked questions, and sent to the left (to the "rejected") or to the right (to those who were fit for work). Communists and Jews were shot immediately. My grandfather was a candidate member of the CPSU, all the documents were with him, he did not throw them away. When asked why he was going to join the party, he replied that he was brought up that way. The officer hesitated, then tried to send him to the left, then to the right, but then pushed the grandfather to the remaining ones who were not shot. So my grandfather survived again. In the last camp in Germany in 1945, prisoners loaded coal into Pullman cars. To the words of the guard "Rus, Rus – a good car", the grandfather replied: "It's good, it's good, and soon you will be taken to Siberia in this car." The guard must have understood something in Russian because he hit him on the head with the butt of his rifle. And grandfather survived again! In April 45, he and other prisoners escaped from the camp, got to the Americans, but returned to the Soviet Union. From June to December 1945, like all those who returned from captivity, he passed the "state check" in the 12th reserve rifle division at the station of Alkino in the Bashkir ASSR. In December 1945, he was transferred to the reserve. My grandfather didn't tell me anything about the war or the concentration camp. After the war, he experienced all the "charms" of a former prisoner of war. He worked, started a family, read all the books about the war, and he was very worried about the collapse of the Union. Almost every night in his sleep he screamed, he couldn't sleep on his back

Vagin Nikolai Mikhailovich_x000D_ _x000D_ From the memoirs of Nikolai Mikhailovich prepared by him as the Chairman of the Board of veterans of Mosalsky district of Kaluga region Mosalsky for the Museum of Kaluga region. "The First day of the Great Patriotic War - June 22 1941 - I met on the Western border of our country, near the town of Yavorov of Lviv region, while on active duty in the ranks of the Red Army, as part of 445 artillery regiment of the GHQ reserve. The German fascists treacherously, without declaring war, began bombing and firing all types of weapons (ground and air) at our border airfields, ammunition and fuel depots, settlements, barracks and military camps in the early morning of June 22. It was a big shock. Our unit was in a border military camp in the forest that day. On the first day of the war, the border guards and we, the border units, repelled the fierce attacks of the fascists. Then, on June 22, the regiment's commander, major Moskovtsev, a graduate of the Moscow artillery Academy, made a heated speech to us - the soldiers and officers of the regiment. He explained the situation to us and assigned combat tasks to each unit, warning us of the upcoming fierce battles with the treacherous enemy. Having hastily received all the combat equipment, our artillery unit immediately joined the battle in the area of Yavorov. Our soldiers and commanders, despite the significant superiority of the enemy in forces, put up a desperate resistance and the enemy was forced to retreat in our area. We repulsed several enemy attacks during the day. For 5 days, we were holding Yavorovo, trying to exhaust the enemy's forces. However, the forces were so unequal that we were forced to withdraw and leave Yavorovo. These were the hardest and the days in my military biography. The incredible bitterness of retreat, the realization that we were not able to hold back the onslaught of a treacherous, armed to the teeth, outnumbered enemy and had to leave our land temporarily. We believed that it was temporarily that we were leaving our territory. We believed that by mobilizing all our forces, we would drive out the enemy. But then it was so painful to leave we could cry. The enemy at that time was several times superior in ground and air forces. The first days of the war were very difficult for our Motherland, for our people and for us - the warriors. These were the days of our moral and psychological adjustment. From the first days of the war, we learned the brutal face of the fascists, their cruelty, their antihumanism. In these first, most difficult days of the war, the days of retreat with fighting, we were under the continuous endless bombing of the enemy. The enemy did not disdain even the fact that they chased the plane for our individual fighters and shot them at point-blank range, which was repeatedly with me. In one of the major raids of enemy aircraft near Ternopil, I was covered with earth from the explosion of bombs, I lost consciousness. I woke up at night in a deserted rye field. I struggled to free myself from the earth that covered me. My unit, as it turned out, went further, and I fell behind. The unit thought I was killed in the bombing. With great difficulty, it took me three days to catch up with my unit, which I was very happy about. The commander of the regiment warned us on the first day of the war that the enemy was treacherous; he would take all sorts of the most brutal methods of war, including the encirclement of our military units and their subsequent destruction. Our regimental commander set us the task: to act boldly, smoothly, unitedly, to stick together, and then we would not be afraid of anything! We would get out of any encirclement! That's how we behaved. Many times, we got into very difficult situations, but we passed the encirclement! Our artillery regiment had to fight on the South-Western front, defending Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kremenchuk, Prokhorovka, Kharkiv; On the Stalingrad and Don fronts, defending Stalingrad Northwest of the tractor factory; on the 4th Ukrainian front, liberating the Donbas, crossing the Sivash, liberating the Crimea and Sevastopol; on the 3rd Belorussian Front, liberating Mogilev, Orsha, Lithuanian and Latvian lands. We assaulted the fortress of German Junkers - Kenigsberg. On the Baltic Front, they participated in the destruction of the horribly resisting Kurland group of fascists who acted together with the Vlasov traitors to the Motherland. During the war, we had several regimental commanders changed due to injuries or death. At the beginning of the war, our regiment was commanded by major Moskovtsev, and for the last two years, the commander of our 7th guards regiment of the GHQ was Colonel Grigory Ivanovich Ivanov - a highly educated, intelligent and skilful commander, a native of the Pskov region. The Deputy of the regiment was Yuri Petrovich Korolyk. The head of the service was Lukyanets Pyotr Panteleimonovich. The most memorable moments in my front-line life were the extremely powerful actions of our artillery during the defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad and the capture of the Konigsberg fortress. Under Stalingrad, as you know, all kinds of military units fought heroically, including artillery, which by the time of the battle of Stalingrad had become very powerful. The volleys of our guns did not allow the fascists to recover. We shot at the enemy continuously. This incredible thunder made many of us deaf. Orders were lip-read. Our artillery rained down heavy and dense artillery fire on the enemy positions when the encircled army of Paulus rejected our offer of surrender. Then all our numerous weapons began to speak even more powerfully and, because of the dense fire and actions of our aircraft at the same time, in the area of the encircled army of Paulus, everything was completely ploughed up by shells. Then the fascists could not stand it and were forced to surrender. I will never forget this fight! Konigsberg is a fortress whose walls are thicker than 3 meters. By simple shells, they could not be broken. In addition, an artificial deep channel filled with water surrounded the entire fortress. The bridges over the canal were dismantled, and all approaches to the fortress were shelled. The fortress of Konigsberg was designed by the Nazis for a long siege with ammunition and food supplies for a long time. Our troops approached this fortress in the autumn of 1944. To capture the fortress, our command used the interaction of aviation, large-calibre artillery and demolition forces. Our unit, having large-calibre guns in 152mm, gave accurate shots at the fortress. We had a very powerful force here, but we managed to take the fortress with very heavy and prolonged fighting. When it was possible to destroy one of the forts of the fortress and then, under continuous enemy fire, to build a bridge over the canal, only then did our units of various kinds of troops enter Konigsberg with battles. The Nazis shot at us from every corner, from attics, from every possible place. Only on May 9, Konigsberg was completely taken by our troops. I met the long-awaited Victory Day on May 9 in Kurland (Latvia), where our unit, along with other units of the 3rd Baltic Front, was finishing off the stubbornly resisting Kurland group of fascists. I was discharged in 1946 with the rank of petty officer. I came home to Mosalsk, Kaluga region. Upon arrival, I immediately plunged into the intense organizational work to restore the economy destroyed by the war in the Mosalsky district.

Vanyura Vyacheslav Ivanovich_x000D_ _x000D_ My grandfather was born in a family of teachers Mariya Bonifat’yevna and Ivan Alekseevich. He lived a very dignified, heroic life. My mother, the daughter of Vyacheslav Ivanovich, who was only one year old in 1941, passed my grandfather's autobiography into my hands. Further are the excerpts from this document: "After graduating from seven-year school, I entered the Kharkiv electrical engineering School of the southern railway, after graduating from the technical school from 1938 to 1939, I worked as a duty agent of the accounting Bureau at the Osnova station. In 1939, I voluntarily entered the first Leningrad military Aviation technical school named after K. E. Voroshilov. After graduation, I was sent for further service in the 154 Fighter aviation regiment of Pushkin (Leningrad military district) as an aviation mechanic. The regiment was armed with I-16 aircraft. In the great Patriotic war, I participated from June 22, 1941 until May 9, 1945: from June 22, 1941 to August 21, 1941 as part of the 154 fighter aviation regiment, 39 Fighter aviation regiment of the Leningrad Front, I was an aviation mechanic. On August 21, 1941, when the Germans stormed Pushkin airfield, I was wounded, and after being wounded, I was being treated in the Sverdlov hospital in Leningrad until September 1941. After recovery, I continued to serve in the technical team at the management of the 275 fighter aviation division of the Leningrad Front as an aviation mechanic until 1943, then in the communications link at the management of the 275 fighter Aviation division of the Leningrad Front as a senior aviation mechanic. In 1943, I was transferred to the 196 fighter aviation regiment of the 275 fighter aviation division of the Volkhov Front. In 1944, as part of the 196 fighter aviation regiment of the 324 fighter aviation division, I participated in the defence of the Soviet Arctic. After the defeat of the Germans in the Arctic and Finland's withdrawal from the war, in December 1944, as part of the 196 fighter aviation of 324 regiment of the Svir Red Banner fighter aviation division, he arrived in the Moscow military district to receive materiel. The division was in the reserve of the Main command and was equipped with a new material unit, YAK-9U aircraft. In 1945, I took part in preparations for the Victory Parade as an aviation technician. In December 1945, I was sent to study at the First Leningrad Red Banner military aviation technical school for advanced training of senior technicians of aviation squadrons, from which he graduated in 1946 and was enrolled in military unit 75320, which was renamed the Riga Red Banner Higher aviation engineering military school of the air force named after K. E. Voroshilov. I graduated from this School in May 1952. After graduation, I was awarded the qualification of an air force mechanical engineer for operation." My grandfather's further career was closely connected with aviation in the 43 Air Army in Mirgorod in 1952-1953, then he was sent to the 36655 military unit and served as a senior design engineer. In 1958, the military unit was renamed into military base №.220, and grandfather continued his service as a senior engineer - technologist, assistant to the head of the technical Department. He has been married since 1939. His wife, Miroshnichenko Anna Petrovna, was born on February 3, 1919. Their children are my mother Irina Vyacheslavovna, born in 1940, and her brother Yura, born after the war, in 1951. My grandfather's family lived in Uman, Cherkasy region, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Riga. At the beginning of my story, I said that my grandfather studied all his life. It is also written in his autobiography: "In 1955, I enrolled in the Evening University of Marxism - Leninism, from which I graduated in 1958. From 1960 until 1962, I studied at the philosophical faculty of the Evening University of Marxism - Leninism in the political Department in the military unit. From 1962 to 1974, I worked at the University of International relations as a lecturer, promoter of international relations. Simultaneously, I taught at the People's University." My grandfather was awarded orders and medals. In our family are kept the Order of the Red Star, medals "For Courage", "For military merit", "For the defence of Leningrad", "For the defence of Soviet Arctic", "For the Victory over Germany" medals dedicated to the anniversaries of the Soviet Army and Navy.

Vtornikov Ivan Fyodorovich_x000D_ _x000D_ Ivan Fyodorovich Vtornikov was born on May 21, 1923, in Alma-Ata in a peasant family. He finished eight grades of secondary school, after which he began working as a Turner. In 1942, he was drafted into the Red Army. On the front line, he was in April 1944. He fought on the first Belorussian front with the 375 anti-tank division of the 312 rifle division. The gunner performed his first feat while breaking through enemy defences southwest of Kovel, about three months after arriving in the unit. The 375th anti-tank division of the 312 rifle division supported the advance of its infantry. Although the gunners fired frequently, there were enough shells to reliably suppress the enemy's fire system. Suddenly, the German artillery bracketed the clearing, on the edge of which was hidden ammunition depot. The mushrooms are bursting closer and closer. Everyone who was nearby rushed to save the warehouse. With a huge risk to their lives, Ivan Fedorovich and other gunners moved their dangerous cargo to the shelter in a matter of minutes. Returning to the firing position, Ivan Vtornikov looked at the panorama. On the head of the Nazis, one after another, shells fell. The enemy's two heavy machine guns were silenced by their bursts. Two or three days later, the crew destroyed up to twenty invaders and blew up two wagons that delivered shells to the enemy battery. And on July 21, Ivan Fyodorovich and his friends helped the infantry hold Dorogusk station in their hands, repelling several counter-attacks by the Nazis. The commander, Major General Moiseevsky, by the Order of the Red Star, noted the exploits of the young gunner division. The award order was signed on August 14, and the next day the gunner distinguished himself again. On August 15, at the moment of artillery preparation, Junior Sergeant Vtornikov smashed an anti-aircraft gun and a hand machine gun of the enemy. In the afternoon, when the Nazis launched a counterattack west of the village of Oblyasy, his team met the danger bravely and helped the infantry hold the line with their fire. In the evening, when the enemy counterattack was repeated, Vtornikov was wounded but continued to fight. The gunners had to use their personal weapons. The Junior Sergeant destroyed six Hitlerites. On August 18, the division commander awarded our compatriot with the Order of Glory third grade. Soon the division's party organization accepted the brave gunner into the party. In January the forty-fifth, the division participated in the attack on the Radom direction. The Germans tried to organize resistance, but our troops crossed the Pilica, irresistibly moved forward. The gunners, who accompanied the infantry with fire and wheels, paved the road. Only by villages Jedlnia and Nova Volya Sergeant Vtornikiv destroyed three machine-gun emplacements and up to forty Nazis by direct fire. The division's artillery commander, Colonel Bordun, pinned the order of Glory second grade on Ivan Fyodorovich's chest on behalf of the commander. In late January and early February, fierce battles broke out for the major industrial and cultural centre of Poland, the city of Poznan. The Germans turned the city into a major hub of resistance, and all suburban villages and villages into strongholds. Our command had to urgently recruit assault groups. The squad of the Sergeant Vtornikov was included in one of them. During the battle for the outskirts of Poznań, Junikowo, the gunners showed great courage and bravery. A pillbox blocked the path of our infantry. Ivan Fyodorovich, with his own squad, rolled out the gun on direct fire and opened fire on the embrasures. The Nazis were snapped. Machine guns came into action, and the fight lasted two hours. The enemy managed to disable one by one almost all the soldiers of the squad. Finally, there was only Vtornikov left at the gun. Doing the job for everyone, he continued to fire and destroyed four machine guns covering the approaches to the pillbox. Then, with the help of other weapons, the pillbox was finished. The next day, Ivan Fedorovich was appointed gun commander, and in a combat situation began training a new squad. On February 2nd, he was among the first to cross the Warta river with a new calculation under heavy enemy fire. No sooner had the gunners equipped the firing position, as up to a company of fascists went on a counterattack. The gunner was immediately disabled. Sergeant Vtornikov took his place and helped the Riflemen repel three enemy counterattacks. In this battle, Vtornikov’s gun destroyed two guns, five machine guns, inflicted great damage on the enemy in manpower. On February 7, Vtornikov's gun crew took part in the assault on Fort Rauch. At close range, they silenced two casemates. Being shell-shocked, the Sergeant continued to fire. In total, in the battle for Poznań, Vtornikov, by the fire of his gun destroyed and suppressed four guns, seventeen machine guns, three observation posts of the enemy. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On April 16, 1945, the historic Berlin operation began. On this day, when breaking through the enemy's defences South of the city of Lebus, the commander of the gun, senior Sergeant Vtornikov, with his squad rolled the gun into the neutral zone and destroyed three machine guns and two faustnikovs who were holding up our infantry. Then the soldiers eliminated two observation points. The next day, when a group of Hitlerites managed to filter their way through the infantry battle lines and get to the positions of the gunners, Vtornikov and his battle friends met them with machine-gun fire and grenades. For the courage and bravery shown in the battle of Berlin, senior Sergeant Vtornikov was awarded the order of Glory, first class.

Vasilyeva Valentina Fyodorovna_x000D_ _x000D_ Valentina Vasilyeva was born on November 24th, 1922 in the village of Tashla in the Ileksky district of the Ural region (now Tashlinsky district of the Orenburg region), in a large family of employees. She finished her seven-year course. She entered the Bashkir pedagogical Institute of the city of Ufa. She studied for two years, but the Great Patriotic war began. She had to give up her studies. Valentina Fyodorovna began working at school, and then at the age of 20, she voluntarily went to the front. She graduated from the school of Junior aviation specialists. She was sent to the active army. She served in the 5 guards strike fighter division, as a radio operator-coder at the division headquarters, with the rank of guard Junior Sergeant. After the war, she worked as a Russian language teacher at the school of the state farm named after March 8 in the Yermekeyevsky district of the Bashkir ASSR. In 1950, she entered the Osh teachers ' Institute of the Kyrgyz SSR and graduated with honours. Since 1952, she worked as a headteacher of primary classes in the city of Sulukta. Since 1961, he worked in Nizhnetroitskiy high school Tuimazy district of the Bashkir ASSR. Valentina Fyodorovna has always been the soul of the team. She had a creative approach to any work, helped young teachers. Cheerful, energetic, she carried the love of photography throughout her life. Constantly gave photos to colleagues. Her teaching career is continued by her daughter Olga Pavlovna, who works as a history teacher at our school and is also engaged in photography (the lines below are taken from her essay). "From my mother's diary:" June 22nd, 1941. A terrible word broke into the peaceful life of the Soviet people-War… I had to give up my studies at the pedagogical Institute, as the dormitory was occupied by an evacuated factory. In May 1942, I volunteered for the front. However, the front was still far away. From Ufa, the girls were sent to the Cherdakly station in the Ulyanovsk region to study at the SJAS (school of Junior aviation specialists). We were trained as radio coders for 4 months, and only then were sent to the active army. I became a radio operator-coder in the Weather Bureau at the headquarters of the 5 guards assault air division. We, the radio operators, received encoded weather data from various points of the Soviet Union, even from the occupied territory, decoded it and transmitted it to the weather forecasters. Only after processing this information by weather forecasters, the pilots received orders for combat sorties. The Nazis were very afraid of the Il-2 attack aircraft; they called them the Black Death and flying tanks. In addition, a lot of fascist invaders died from the actions of attack aircraft. We had people of different nationalities in the division. Valery Ryzhkov and Petya Esipov were Russian, Tolya Artemenko and Pyotr Gorobets were Ukrainian, Anvar Usmanov was Tatar, Volodya Fishman and Leva Peida were Jewish, Zhenya Zhibrovsky was Polish, and Boris Shmakov was a Gypsy. But in what friendship and consistency did they fight… How they developed a sense of camaraderie! Once in a heavy, unequal battle, Boris Shmakov's plane was shot down. And then, in an incredibly difficult situation, Anvar Usmanov landed his plane, saved a friend – and they returned safely to their regiment. Although we, the military aviation and were not directly on the front line-but we saw burned, ravaged cities and villages, the corpses of people on the liberated land. In the city of Apostolovo, Rostov region, the Nazis immured in the mines about 3 thousand people of the civilian population: women, the elderly, and children. And then, when this city was liberated, the corpses were removed from the mines. It was impossible to look and think without a shudder: what torments these people endured, whose whole fault was that they were Soviet. How can you forget that? The war of 1941-1945 was endured mainly by the generation of 20-25-year-olds. For young men of that generation, the way ahead was short, sometimes only a few meters to the enemy's dugout, spewing leaden death – and they went forward, fell, died, defending their native land with their breasts. And they wanted to live so much! Even before the most heated battle, they dreamed of a future life, even though they knew that for many this fight would be the last. Konstantin Simonov said: "we, the living, have many human rights. We have the right to work, we have the right to love, we have the right to friendship, we have the right to happiness. But there is one right that we, the living, do not have – and never will. We have no right to forget what our fallen comrades did in the name of Victory, in the name of the Motherland, in the name of life on earth." Now the 60th anniversary has come, when the guns were silenced, machine guns were silenced, and funerals stopped coming to homes. But the eternal call of memory to those who wrote their name in the glorious history of the Fatherland does not cease in the thick of the people. We, the living, bow down before them forever and always. «I read this story in my mother's diary. Unfortunately, she died on December 6th, 2009… Very little did she not live to see the 65th anniversary of the great Victory… I miss her very much... I love her very much!"