How people lived during the wwii. Working and living conditions of the people during the Great Patriotic War
As you know, during the war, all men who reached draft age were taken into the army, and only women and children remained in the household, who were forced to work hard to provide for their families. Women and children had to do hard male work every day. Very often, the owner of the house was replaced by boys over ten years of age. The girls also worked very hard and helped their mothers and grandmothers with all the household chores.
Almost on the shoulders of children, regardless of age and gender, lay the whole Homework when mothers and grandmothers worked in factories and collective farms from early morning until late at night. In addition, it is worth noting that in addition to hard work, families were often hungry and had a serious need for clothing. Mostly one family had one quilted jacket for two or three children. Therefore, all family members were forced to take turns wearing clothes. In addition, the critical situation in the family affected the level of education of the children. Due to the lack of clothing, children could not go to school, and this significantly affected their developmental delay. Very often in the average family, children completed no more than four grades of high school.
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Our grandparents often lived in old houses. Often the roof and walls were leaking, and in the cold season, all residents of the house were often freezing and seriously ill. This affected the mortality rate, especially among children, who often could not withstand the harsh, prolonged winters.
During the summer season, children often looked for food in the forests and meadows. During this period, one could find berries and mushrooms. During the winter, most families went hungry and ate what they grew in their cities. Also, more daring craftsmen went to hunt wild animals, for example, wolves, roe deer and wild boars. It was especially necessary to beware of wolves, which often attacked people, so they were hunted. In addition, children were forced to go to school through forests and meadows, where they were in danger in the form of wild animals. Therefore, most of the children simply dropped out of school and did the housework.
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The war has left an irreparable mark on every modern family. Someone killed relatives and friends during the hostilities, and someone simply died of hunger in a cold and empty house. This allows everyone to remember and not forget the dire consequences of violence between people.
The Great Patriotic War is the most significant event in the life of our people in the 20th century, which changed the life of every family. In this work, I will describe the life of my great-grandmother, who lived in those harsh times in the Siberian town of Salair in the south. Kemerovo region... Perhaps she was more fortunate than others, since the blood and violence of war did not overtake these places. But life was hard everywhere. With the beginning of the war, the children ended their carefree childhood.
May 9 this year marks 65 years since the end of the war. After the rally, dedicated to the Victory, I went to my great-grandmother and presented flowers as a token of gratitude for her childhood feat. She was not at the front, but the war was her adult childhood. She worked and studied, she was forced to grow up, but at the same time remained a child.
Many people know my great-grandmother Kashevarova Fedosya Evstafievna in a small mining town. She was born here, studied at school here, worked here as a veterinarian for over forty years.
Years of the Great Patriotic War fell on her childhood and early youth. It is noteworthy that when the war began, my great-grandmother was only 1 year older than me. The grandmother does not like to talk about the war - her memories are too hard, however, according to her, these memories> she carefully keeps in her memory. Victory Day for her is the most expensive holiday. And yet I managed to persuade my grandmother to tell why she calls the war years hers>.
Nutrition
During the war, most people faced an acute problem of food shortages. And here an invaluable help was provided by subsistence farming: a vegetable garden and animals. Mom Kashevarova Maria Maksimovna, nee Kazantseva, (October 25, 1905 - January 29, 1987) was engaged in the household and children. In winter, she spun sheep's wool, knitted warm clothes for children, looked after animals, and she also cooked food for the family. Mother's bread was always soft and tasty. There was always a soup with cabbage and cereals on the table. Thanks to their farm, there were dairy products on the table.
True, in those days there was a food tax: each owner of the farm had to surrender a certain amount of food to the state. For example, having a cow, it was necessary for a year, that is, for the milking period, to hand over to the state about 50 liters of milk, or even more. Having chickens, they paid the tax with eggs, the number of which was calculated by the number of chickens. The volume of this tax was quite large, so that sometimes it was difficult to carve out meat, milk, and eggs for their own children. In addition, there were many prohibitions and restrictions. For example, it was allowed to keep one cow and a calf, chickens - 10-15 and 5-6 sheep.
The family's favorite summer drink was kvass. It was always fresh, sweet, even without sugar. The family drank tea from herbal, berry, carrot and birch chaga. Sage, yarrow, currant leaves, raspberries, dried raspberries, currants, rose hips and finely chopped dried plastics of carrots were brewed. We kept teas in canvas bags. My grandmother still treats me to this tea. I must admit that it is quite tasty and healthy.
In the summer, the children went fishing. There were a lot of fish then in the taiga river Kubalda and in Malaya Tolmovaya, and the younger brother, together with the neighboring brothers, often went fishing. They caught fish with bags or nets woven from thin branches. They made traps called> - this is something like a basket. Homemade fish soup was cooked from fish or fried in water.
There was no drunkenness at all in those days, but by special occasions(wedding or patronal feast) beer was prepared for the feast. Of course, not the same as now and not in such quantity. Drinking culture existed everywhere.
Subsidiary farm
The family had a vegetable garden and arable land. A lot of vegetables were planted, especially potatoes. She - potatoes, was the first, second and third course, and so all year round. This strategic vegetable at that time was assigned arable land of up to 50 acres. Land for arable land> by themselves: they felled timber suitable for construction, used it on the farm, and non-combatant timber and uprooted stumps were used for firewood. The procurement of firewood was collective action for the whole family. The forest was felled in the forest, cleared of branches, sawn into small logs, brought home, pricked, stacked a woodpile to heat the stove and bathhouse in winter.
Haymaking began in the hottest summer month, but there was no time to splash in the river. Early in the morning, while the dew was on the grass and there were no midges, the whole family went out to mow, and a few days later the dried grass was raked up and the hay was piled up. Ten - twelve-year-old adolescents deftly handled a rake, pitchfork, scythe. There was no question of any safety precautions, except that they warned about the danger of snake bites, since there were a lot of snakes in the hottest summer month.
In winter, ripe pine cones were harvested: they climbed an adult tree, trying not to break branches, collected seed cones, then handed them over. V winter time the children were busy with their lessons at school and only helped their parents on Sundays. It was on such conditions that they had to earn hayfields for the family's breadwinner, Burenki.
In the short hours of rest from the main summer work, the children went to the forest for berries and mushrooms. No berries were grown in the vegetable gardens at that time. Taiga generously shared berries, mushrooms, nuts, and various herbs. The berries were mainly dried, so that in winter they could be soaked for filling in pies, jelly, or simply chewed dried or put in tea. We went for cedar cones. Far enough, though. But pine nuts made up for the lack of vitamins in winter. Mushrooms were salted in wooden trays and dried. And in the fall, he had to harvest in his garden and dig up potatoes in the field. All the work in the field, in the garden and around the house was done by children on an equal basis with adults. Moreover, my father returned from the war a cripple.
Student body
In Novosibirsk, the girls bought tickets to Kiev. The train was formed for the return home of those evacuated to Siberia. The seats in the heating car were on the floor in the corner. Likewise, other passengers were traveling on the floor, in their knapsacks. Children and old people also slept on the floor, often taking turns, since there was not enough space. On the road, they ate dry food on what they took on the road: dried boys from rutabagas, carrots, beets and crackers. The train of carriages was uncoupled at the stations, driven to a dead end, and one had to wait for hours for it to be pulled to the west again. Public spaces were not provided for in such cars, and people celebrated all their needs at stops in the field along the railroad bed. We arrived in Kiev only on Saturday 30 August. Exhausted by the road and bitten by lice, the friends fell asleep near the station right on the ground. And the station, as such, did not exist: from rough, unhewn planks, a trailer was cobbled together. And in the morning, leaving one guard with his things, we went to the institute. They were given certificates, since the exams had already ended, and they, like a saving straw, grabbed the invitation of a recruiter from the veterinary institute, since there was a shortage of admission to the first year. He took the girls straight to the hostel. The dilapidated building had no windows, no doors, not even one wall, and the opening was boarded up with boards. Having settled in a large room, placing modest belongings on the beds, the girls had to gain strength over the night for an exam on Sunday in all subjects at once. The first exam was chemistry, the second was physics, the third was biology, the fourth was mathematics, and the fifth was composition. Late in the evening we returned to the hostel, there was no one there, they untied their knapsacks, ate and fell asleep. On Monday morning they came to the institute, and the order for admission hangs in the Ukrainian language. They asked me to read it. It turned out that all four were enrolled in the first year of the Kiev Veterinary Institute.
So four Siberian women became students in Ukraine. We lived in a dormitory in a room for 20 people, where only a few windows had glass, and the rest were filled with plywood, where there was one drum in the middle of the room - a heater, where you had to go to bed early in the evenings, since there was not always enough money for a lamp - a kerosene stove. In Kiev, the students met another face of the war - hunger. Products were given until the fourth course only on ration cards. The day relied on 400 grams of bread and 200 grams of sugar for a month.
The bread was given dark, raw, but it was not always enough for everyone. The queues for bread were huge. Parcels with dried potatoes, carrots, beets were sent from home, but there was no bread. I was hungry all the time. And then with special warmth they recalled their student brigade, the collective farm camp and the smell of ripe spikelets of a golden grain field in distant Siberia. The most difficult test for the Siberian students was Ukrainian language... They gave lectures in Ukrainian, conducted practical lessons, took offsets. Passing comparative anatomy without knowing the language was simply unrealistic. And Latin! An old man sits in the winter near a drum - a heater and tortures you about the case declension of a Latin noun or an adjective. Knowledge of Russian was very useful here and German languages... With gratitude they remembered their teachers, their lessons in Russian and German. We finished the first course in Kiev and transferred to the veterinary institute in the city of Alma-Ata. But the language barrier and there he persecuted Russian-speaking students. So we continued the third course closer to our native Kuzbass - at the Omsk Veterinary Institute, where they defended their diplomas. Having received a referral, we began to work, each according to its own distribution. My grandmother was sent to the Novosibirsk region, but fate wanted to order her to return to her parents in her native Salair and work here as a veterinarian until her retirement.
Working days of children of war are marked with a Medal>, long-term work - with a medal>. Two medals and life in between. And I am grateful to my grandmother for keeping in her memory the details of the harsh post-war period that befell many children of those years.
The primary source continues the "Great-grandchildren of Victory" project, within the framework of which we publish the works of Kirov schoolchildren, recognized as the best in the essay competition about the Heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Recall that the competition was held on the initiative of a deputy of the Legislative Assembly Kirov region Rakhim Azimov. The winners - and these are 30 schoolchildren from 23 districts of the region - will go to the International child Center Artek. We will publish our works throughout May.
Today we bring to your attention an essay by Alena Shavkunova, a student of the 10th grade of the Darovskaya school.
"My living history»
On that terrible day, the earth rushed into the sky.
The roar froze the blood in my veins.
Colorful June immediately disappeared into fiction,
And death suddenly pushed aside life, love.
T. Lavrova
Great Patriotic War - War of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against Nazi Germany and its allies. There is no family in our country that would not be touched, not affected by the Great Patriotic War. She claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, which means she brought a lot of grief. And each of our compatriots knows, remembers and honors the exploits of the people who fought, their relatives - front-line soldiers and home front workers.
The national tragedy has not spared our family either. In my essay, I will tell about my relatives who were directly affected by the Great Patriotic War.
My great-great-great-grandfather - Dvinskikh Georgy Petrovich - a member of the Russian-Japanese and civil wars, in time Russo-Japanese War for the displayed valor and courage, he was awarded the St. George Cross, 4th degree.
Georgy Petrovich had a large family. His children suffered a difficult fate - they became eyewitnesses of the most terrible war of the 20th century. His sons and grandchildren took part in the Great Patriotic War. We can say that our relatives were lucky in this brutal, bloody war. Everyone, except for Alexander Nikolaevich, the grandson of Georgy Petrovich, returned home.
Alexander Dvinskikh, Guard Junior Sergeant, during the offensive Soviet troops in 1943, together with his Katyusha, he successfully crossed the Dnieper. On the right bank, our troops recaptured a bridgehead from which a new offensive was to begin. The Nazis, having gathered large forces, tried to push the Russian soldiers into the Dnieper. They unleashed a barrage of fire, but nothing helped them. The Soviet offensive continued. In this battle, when crossing the Dnieper, Alexander died.
In our family, memories of relatives who participated in that war are carefully preserved and passed on from generation to generation.
The granddaughter of Georgy Petrovich, sister of Alexander, Vera Nikolaevna Dvinskikh (now Kuligina), also served at the front. She was drafted to the front on December 3, 1942, served on the Karelian front as part of the 6th separate Red Banner battalion of air observation, warning and communications, that is, she guarded the sky of Karelia. Vera Nikolaevna demobilized in August 1945, and was invited to the city of Belomorsk to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Victory.
It was Vera Nikolaevna who, 40 years after the end of the war, was looking for the grave of her deceased brother Alexander. Vera sent inquiries to various military departments and archives for a long time, but she received the same answer everywhere: “Missing”. Finally, the Central Archives of the USSR Ministry of Defense replied that her brother Alexander Nikolaevich Dvinskikh was buried in mass grave in the village of Khodorov, Kiev region. Since then, we know where our relative's grave is. And this is very important - to know that there is a place to which you can bow and pay tribute to your ancestors.
Among our relatives there are not only front-line soldiers, but also home front workers.
Once, having come to visit my great-grandmother, I began to talk to her about her past life. I was interested to know how they lived before, and she gladly told me about her childhood and youth. I remembered my grandmother's story for a long time, I could hardly imagine how they lived before. The strength of character, the fortitude of my relatives is worthy of respect!
My great-grandmother Tatiana Ivanovna Krinitsyna worked in the rear during the Great Patriotic War. Her childhood fell on the war years. Great-grandmother was born in 1932, when the only store was located 25 kilometers from their village. My grandmother had two younger sisters, and she tried to help her parents with the housework, looked after the younger girls. After a while, my great-grandmother went to school, but her studies were short-lived. She studied for only one year in 1940. And with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the great-grandmother and her classmates were sent to work on a collective farm. They worked for workdays, went to work every day. The guys did not have weekends or holidays. Per Good work, shown diligence and responsibility in 1942, Tatiana was instructed new job- a bull was assigned to the girl. That is, she, a very young girl, was entrusted with a very serious position. In general, during the war years in the rear all the overwhelming work was done by children, adolescents, and women. They carried hay, straw and firewood on bulls. In the summer, they plowed the land, sowed, prepared hay - all this was done by hand and free of charge. They threshed and then handed over the grain to the state. All this was for the front, for the soldiers, for the victory! And we won! Victory Day has become a great holiday not only for front-line soldiers, but also for those who worked tirelessly in the rear throughout the war.
On May 9, 1945, the Great Patriotic War ended. Although the war ended, a terrible famine began in the country. Many cities were destroyed during the war, and everything that was grown in the villages in the fields was sent to provide cities, for workers who rebuilt the destroyed. People in the villages survived as best they could, ate poorly: flour was mixed with grass, cockle, moss and roots.
And my great-grandmother's life continued to test her strength. Tatyana's father died at the front, and in the summer her mother died, and the girl was left alone with two sisters. The younger sister was taken to the orphanage, it was very difficult to part with her sister! The middle sister stayed with Tatiana. They lived very hard, poor. In winter, they ate what they managed to prepare in the summer. Great-grandmother recalls how one day in late autumn the roof of the house was blown off, and in order to somehow warm up, they heated the stove almost around the clock and slept on it. In 1947, my grandmother was sent to work at the Podosinovsky flax plant, where she remained. In the winter she processed the trust (the trust - the flax and hemp straw, processed thermally, biologically or chemically), and in the summer they went to work on the collective farm. This continued until 1953. Then the great-grandmother got married, and together with her husband they came to work in the Darovsk region - on the construction of a new flax mill. They stayed to live on our Darovsk land. My grandmother was born here, and my father was born to her. Of course, now the great-grandmother and great-grandfather are very old, but, fortunately, they are still alive - this is our living history!
I am very proud of my ancestors: front-line soldiers and home front workers. And may they not receive the high title of Hero Soviet Union, but they also contributed to the great Victory. Their life at the front, hard work in the rear during and after the war - this is the feat of ordinary, modest people. And for me my relatives are real Heroes of the Great Patriotic War!
Our generation, born at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, is very far from the war. We know about the war from books, films, but these memories of my relatives are dearer to me. Their stories are carefully kept in our family, my parents gave information about our ancestors to me, and I, in turn, will tell about the Great Patriotic War, about the participation of our relatives in it to my children. I think it is very important to keep memory, remember that time, about the feat that people who survived and survived the Great Patriotic War performed for us. Memory keeps the link between generations.
I am proud of everyone who fought, who returned from the front, who died in the war, who defended the world, who gave us the opportunity to live, study, love, dream! I want to finish the essay with the words of a poem by Tatyana Lavrova, the beginning of which is in the epigraph:
Put on gymnastics and overcoats
Yesterday's boys are the color of the country.
The girls sang goodbye songs
They wanted to survive in the terrible hour of the war.
The war, like a lump, rolled along the roads,
Carrying devastation, hunger, death and pain.
There are very few of them left alive,
Those who accepted the first, most terrible battle!
They went on the attack for the truth, for the Fatherland,
For peace, for mother and father, for a good home,
To protect against the horrors of fascism
Rights to a life that was crumbling around.
Lilacs, carnations, delicate tulips ...
The beginning of summer, life is in full swing.
Love is alive, the wounds are healed
But this June day has not been forgotten!
In 1941, the war began. The front was rapidly approaching. Our retreating troops marched through the village in an endless stream on foot. We stood on the side of the road, peering into the faces of the soldiers, hoping to meet our loved ones.
People wondered why our Red Army was retreating so quickly. The newspapers wrote about the successful operations of the Red Army in the east and west of the country. The newspapers were full of catchy headlines: "The enemy will not pass!", "The enemy will be destroyed on his territory!" After all, the country's defense industry worked for several years in an enhanced mode, manufactured in a large number aircraft, tanks, other weapons, ammunition, equipment. But the front was rapidly approaching our village.
The evacuation began in September. All the cows were taken away from the residents, in exchange they were given receipts with a promise to return the cows after the end of the war (there was already faith in victory!). The sheep had to be slaughtered, although the time was still warm, the meat was difficult to keep. The dug out potatoes were partially buried in the "holes" in the hope that by the spring we will return home from the evacuation.
We were evacuated to the east 50 km from the house. You could take very few things with you, i.e. as much as you can take away on two carts. Our houses were left unattended.
We evacuated together with my grandfather's family. The main thing that the grandfather was able to take with him was a workbench and the necessary tools. Thanks to his skill (he was both a carpenter and a joiner, a jack of all trades), he arranged and supported all of us, his children and grandchildren (9 people) at the place of evacuation.
By the spring of 1942, the Germans were stopped, or rather, they did not go further than the village of Polnovo, because there were bad roads and swamps ahead. Our village was 15 km from the German positions.
Despite the proximity of the front, in the spring of 1942 we were allowed to return home from evacuation. Our house was partially destroyed, the glass in the windows was broken, the doors were torn off, and part of the yard wall was sawn for firewood. All the holes with the buried food were destroyed. Soldiers lived in the house in winter.
Thanks to my grandfather, the house was restored and my mother and I were able to somehow live. We planted vegetables in the garden, neighbors shared seeds, planted potatoes with “eyes”. We spent the summer at home. In the fall of 1942, we were again evacuated, but to another village, also 50 km to the east. Again, almost all the vegetables were left in the garden. Apparently, they did it on purpose so that the population could be fed at the expense of vegetable gardens, and the military would be left with something.
In the spring of 1943 we were returned home and were no longer evacuated. In the village the same picture - dilapidated houses, looted "caches", well at least the houses were not burned down. They felt the close presence of the front, the Germans remained in their former positions 15 km from the village. We always knew the exact time, because every day at exactly 12 o'clock the Germans began shelling the positions of our troops and the cannonade from the bursting of shells was clearly audible.
There was no news from my father. Mom wrote to all authorities, looking for my father. She was nevertheless informed that her husband was “missing”, then such standard wording was sent to many. But my mother did not lose hope for the return of her father. And only after the end of the war was it reported about his death. At 31, the mother was left alone.
I was in my seventh year. I helped my mother take care of the garden to the best of my ability. In the summer, together with the grown-up children, I went to the forest for berries (blueberries) and mushrooms. The shoes were not normal. A neighbor made me small bast shoes and I used them to go to the forest. I must say that these are very light and comfortable shoes, you won't hurt your feet in the forest, and when you get out of the water, your feet are almost dry again. It's better than walking in holey boots.
They lived very hungry that summer. They had no real bread. Mother baked "kolobushki", black and bitter, from sorrel seeds, which was enough for us in the field. "Empty" cabbage soup was cooked from sorrel, i.e. without meat. The berries and mushrooms that I brought from the forest were a little help to the meager diet. Closer to autumn, vegetables began to grow in the garden, life became easier.
In the village there are many abandoned faulty military equipment- our and German cars, several guns. There were rifles and cartridges in the trenches outside the village. Then the military removed their property, but much remained. Adult guys were crippled by detonating ammunition.
The war was still going on, and the collective farm began to work. Sowing work was ahead, but there were no tractors, horses or other agricultural equipment. The land in the fields was dug by women with shovels, the men were still at war. The land in our area is heavy, clayey. The production rate was set, to dig up at least three acres. Mom came home very tired, but she also needed to work her own garden.
The winter of 1943 was approaching. It was necessary to prepare firewood to heat your house. My mother and I went to the forest, cut down dead trees and brought them home on sleds off-road. The brought firewood was enough for two days. And so we went to the forest all winter. Mom alone cannot cut a vertical tree with an ordinary two-handed saw. She told me: "Just hold the second saw handle, it will be easier for me to cut."
In the winter of 1944, the Germans were “driven away” from the village of Polnovo, or rather, they left themselves. feared to be surrounded. Our troops confidently advanced to the west (the well-known Demyansk bridgehead). The village organized Kindergarten so that our mothers can work more in the field, and we children are supervised. In the fall of 1944, I was already nearly eight years old, and I went to school.
Reviews
Dear Sasha! How you described everything thoroughly and in detail. Straight on to the story. It is good that they were evacuated not so far from the house and returned periodically, otherwise the house would have been dismantled into logs. How do you remember everything ?!
Thank you for such a necessary story! Further successes!
Lada! Thank you for taking my memories so closely. And I remembered all this with pleasure. Life was, of course, difficult, but it was our life. I wish you creative success.
Bobkova Karina
Research:"About the fate of people close to me during the Great Patriotic War"
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Municipal budgetary educational institution
average comprehensive school No. 1 named after N.L. Meshcheryakova
Zaraysk, Moscow region
Research:
“About the fate of people close to me in the years
Great Patriotic War"
Full name of the head:
Chernyshova Alla Viktorovna
Position: history teacher and
Social studies
We live in a time of peace. Fortunately, we do not know the horrors of wartime: shooting, cold, hunger, death of loved ones. But this was not always the case. Very terrible years happened in the history of our country. So 1941-1945 became just like that. This year marks exactly 67 years since the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War.
“No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten” - we see such an inscription on the monuments to the unknown soldier, near whom an “eternal” fire is burning. This fire never goes out so that we do not forget about the exploits of our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers. What do we know about that war? Just what they tell us at school. We watch feature films and learn about that difficult time. We read books about the war and admire the heroism of the people who defended their homeland. There, in books, in films, are the real heroes. It seems that all this is fiction, fantasy, that a person was not able to endure such tests. However, ordinary grandparents live next to us, who know this terrible war firsthand.
How did people live? How did you manage to withstand the difficult times of the war? What was that generation like? I asked these and many other questions to my grandmothers and received answers to many of them.
A large number of historical facts I learned from my great-grandmother Alexandra Ilyinichna Kuleshova, who will turn 92 this May. She saw a lot and suffered a lot in her life, and her stories are very dear and interesting to me, because I was born at the beginning of the XXI century, and she at the beginning of the XX. My great-grandmother is a representative of those distant times, and this is what she told me.
The war changed the peaceful course of life in our family. I learned about this from the stories of my great-grandmother Shura, who in June 1941 was barely 21 years old. Before the start of the war, she was very ill, was being treated in a hospital. Therefore, her husband, Vasily Nikolayevich Kuleshov, decided to send her and her one-year-old daughter to the village after the hospital, to her parents, so that after an illness she could stay in the fresh air, get stronger, and recover with the help of loved ones.
Everything went well: great-grandfather worked in Zaraysk, and his wife and little daughter were vacationing in the village. But one day relatives came from the city with terrible news: the war began, and the husband of the great-grandmother was brought a summons that he should appear at the military registration and enlistment office to be sent to the front. They decided to leave their daughter Nina in Filippov, where they rested, and went on foot to the city (there was no transport in those days, they walked about 20 kilometers on foot). “I was so worried,” recalls my great-grandmother, “that, running ahead and grasping my husband’s strong hand, I prevented him from walking. He calmed me down as best he could. At night there was no time for sleep. Early in the morning I had to report to the recruiting station. ”Seeing off the future front-line soldiers was at the city station. This event is very sad: crying, tears, lamentations. As if the whole world was crumbling. And nothing remains. Ahead like some kind of darkness. The abyss of fear, grief and loneliness ... "
How many were there who waved goodbye in last time to your loved ones! Among them are my great-grandfather Vasily Nikolaevich and his older brother, Pyotr Nikolaevich, who went missing in November 1941.
The Kuleshov brothers and their sisters had a hard life since childhood, since their father Nikolai died at 1 World war and their mother had to raise four children without any help. Therefore, their working life began early in the village of Dyatlovo. But never, as great-grandmother Shura recalls, they did not complain, but courageously endured all the difficulties. Vasily showed this courage at the front.
We have preserved letters from the front in our family, so simple and touching. Grandma Nina sometimes rereads them and seems to be returning to those distant years. In his letters, great-grandfather never complained, but was more interested in the life of his wife and child and always tried to cheer them up: he wrote that he had to patiently “go through everything”, that he had to work hard so that the difficult years would pass sooner. He dreamed of the time when he and his family would live peacefully and happily, loving each other. It is known that from June 30, 1941, he served in the city of Luga, Leningrad Region, was assigned to the Guards Regiment, a communications company. From a letter from 1942, we learned that great-grandfather was wounded and evacuated to a hospital in the village of Nekrasovskoye, Yaroslavl Region. The wound was severe in the stomach. When I was recovering, I wrote from the hospital: "I feel good, I will soon be discharged and I will go again to beat the enemy who attacked our flourishing homeland." Last letter was received on March 3, 1943, the birthday of my grandmother Nina. How many feelings, experiences and aspirations are in this letter. And this is just 5 days before his death. "He died of his wounds on March 8, 1943" - we read in the Book of Remembrance (based on the funeral). So, by the will of fate, the holiday in the life of our family became a mourning day.
The brother of Shura's grandmother, Mikhail Ilyich, as a seventeen-year-old boy, began the war in the militia near Tula, where ditches were dug in order to delay the advance of the Nazis. There he joined the Komsomol and wrote the third application with a request to send him to the front. The request was granted, and soon he was already near Moscow as part of the 8th Guards Division of General Dovator. He was enrolled in a cavalry reconnaissance squadron. With a carbine, two anti-tank grenades, in white coats, the scouts raided the location of the advancing German troops. Once we ran into German tanks. Having spent the grenades, they fired from their carbines. Mikhail received his first wound - in the leg. Here, near Moscow, he earned his first award - the Medal For Courage. Further the battle at Stalingrad, the infantry did not keep up with the retreating enemy, the cavalry pursued the Germans. The scout squadron went on night raids. They put rubber horseshoes on the horses' hooves, with them NZ (emergency supply) for three days, ammunition. Once they almost hit the "cauldron". For 18 days, until ours arrived, they held the defense. Of the 119 soldiers, 21 soldiers survived. The commander, senior lieutenant Zensky, turned gray during these days. Subsequently, he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Murashov - my great-uncle - the Order of the Red Star
For the battle near Kursk he was awarded the title of "Excellent intelligence officer". Here, in one of the battles, a horse was riddled with shrapnel, and the fighter himself was seriously wounded. Medical battalion, hospital and doctors' conclusions that it is no longer possible to serve in the cavalry. Sent to the combat unit. Again battles, battles, battles ... the Baltic states, and then - the Far Eastern Front. Mikhail fought with the Japanese already as a tanker, then cleaning Sakhalin, and so on until 1948, when he returned from the front.
Having become acquainted with equipment at the front, Mikhail connected his peaceful life with machines. In 1981, Mikhail Ilyich Murashov died - the front-line wounds reminded of themselves.
The younger brother, Nikolai, was only 11 years old by the beginning of the war. He lived with his parents in the village. There were few men, so children and adolescents had to work on the collective farm. Kolya loved horses and worked on the collective farm with them. He was still so small in stature that it was difficult for him to harness the horse. He climbed onto the cart and harnessed from it. During the war years, he did all the work on an equal basis with adults. Having received labor training on a collective farm, he went to Moscow and entered a vocational school, where he mastered the profession of repairing railway equipment. He achieved high skill, for which he was awarded the Order of Labor Glory. Working as a mechanic for testing auto brake devices, he gave out finished products only of good and excellent quality and handed them over from the first presentation. We learned about this from the stories of Shura's grandmother and newspaper articles. Now Nikolai Ilyich Murashov is gone - he is dead. Sometimes time does not relieve the pain from the heart. And pain can live forever ...
Grandmother's sister - Tonya - by the beginning of the war was a 15-year-old girl. She had to work very hard in peat mining, where they extracted the necessary fuel, often being knee-deep in water, regardless of any weather. I had to live in the most difficult conditions, half-starved, poorly heated. This affected Antonina's health, she was seriously ill, was a disabled person of the 1st group and died, being not an old person.
The younger sister Anna Ilyinichna Murashova was 13 years old. In the summer she worked in the village: she went with the adults to the mow, collected firewood, worked in the field, and took part in harvesting potatoes. After graduating from the Zaraisk seven-year school, she began to study at the FZU under Peropukh, after which she was sent to Leningrad (1946), which was just beginning to recover after the enemy blockade. Anna Ilyinichna says: “It was difficult: cold, hunger, devastation. We had to work a lot, it was necessary to restore the city, but we knew that the worst was already behind us and a bright future awaited us ”. Anna Ilyinichna, having arrived in Leningrad as a young girl, and now lives in this city.
At the beginning of the war, great-grandmother Shura herself got a job at a shoe factory, but she did not work there for long, since the factory was evacuated to Siberia. And she, having a small child, was forced to do homework - knitting socks, mittens for the front. I had to work hard. To feed herself and her daughter, she grew potatoes, went to prepare firewood, worked in the village in the summer when the Germans approached Zaraysk.
Great-grandmother told how they did all kinds of hard work. There were no men, and the girls' strength was not at all sufficient. My head was spinning, and I was constantly hungry. But they "did not lose heart." Everyone who remained behind enemy lines knew that fathers and brothers were fighting at the front for our Motherland, for you and me. “Everything for the front! Everything for the victory! " - it was not just a slogan, it was the way of life of the Russian people. Everyone knew: there was no other way, no other way to defeat the enemy. The husband and brothers of my great-grandmother fought with weapons in their hands, and the women tried to help the soldiers. Their work was very hard, because they shouldered all the male work. Only women, children and a few old people remained in their village.
His thirst for life, for a peaceful existence, hope for better days each tried to contribute to the common cause. With bated breath, listening to the radio, they followed the latest news. They encouraged each other if a letter did not come, waited for news from the front together, survived as best they could, shared the last crouton, a lump of sugar. The Russian people were confident of an early victory. “Our cause is just! The enemy will be defeated! " - so every inhabitant of our mighty Motherland thought.
Not everyone had a chance to see holiday fireworks in May 1945. Many remained on the battlefields, others died behind enemy lines, doing everything possible and impossible in the name of great Victory... Alexandra Ilyinichna survived this terrible time and now, with tears in her eyes, talks about those memorable events.
My great-grandmother is very kind and helpful. For her, there are no words "I can not", "I do not want". She does the best she can. She loved and loves life very much. Everyone who knows my great-grandmother loves and respects her.
I am proud of my ancestors who helped the Motherland during the difficult years of the war. I consider them to be real heroes. I know we have a lot to learn from them. I want my children and grandchildren to be proud of me. We must learn from those who fought for the Motherland, learn from them courage and resilience, take an example from them, remember that the fate of the country is closely linked with the fate of every person. We must honor heroic feat our people and be proud of our homeland.
How will our life turn out? It is not so much important who we will become, what success we will achieve, but what kind of people we will be. It is important to remember that our loved ones fought and worked so that we did not know the horrors of war. They left as a legacy to all their descendants the most precious thing - the ability to love their loved ones, their homeland.
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