Stories about the war 1941 1945 new Russian. Uninvented stories about the war: “Get ready, ladies, for terrible things.”

Lev Kassil "The Story of the Absent"

When, in the large hall of the front headquarters, the commander's adjutant, looking at the list of those awarded, named another name, a short man stood up in one of the back rows. The skin on his sharpened cheekbones was yellowish and transparent, which is usually observed in people who have lain in bed for a long time. Leaping on his left leg, he walked towards the table. The Commander took a short step towards him, presented him with the order, firmly shook the recipient’s hand, congratulated him and handed him the order box.

The recipient, straightening up, carefully took the order and box into his hands. He thanked him abruptly and turned around clearly, as if in formation, although his wounded leg hampered him. For a second he stood indecisive, looking first at the order lying in his palm, then at his comrades in glory gathered here. Then he straightened up again.

— May I speak?

- Please.

“Comrade commander... And here you are, comrades,” the awardee spoke in an intermittent voice, and everyone felt that the man was very excited. - Allow me to say a word. At this moment in my life, when I accepted the great award, I want to tell you about who should be standing here, next to me, who, perhaps, deserved this great award more than me and did not spare his young life for the sake of our military victory.

He extended his hand to those sitting in the hall, on the palm of which the golden rim of the order gleamed, and looked around the hall with pleading eyes.

- Allow me, comrades, to fulfill my duty to those who are not here with me now.

“Speak,” said the commander.

- Please! - responded in the hall.

And then he spoke.

“You probably heard, comrades,” he began, “what a situation we had in area R. We then had to retreat, and our unit covered the retreat. And then the Germans cut us off from their own. Wherever we go, we run into fire. The Germans are hitting us with mortars, hammering into the woods where we hid with howitzers, and combing the edge of the forest with machine guns. Time has expired, according to the clock, it turns out that ours have already gained a foothold on a new line, we have drawn off enough enemy forces, it’s time to get home, it’s time to delay the connection. But, we see, it’s impossible to get into any of them. And there is no way to stay here longer. The German found us, pinned us in the forest, sensed that there were only a handful of us left here, and took us by the throat with his pincers. The conclusion is clear - we must make our way in a roundabout way.

Where is this roundabout way? Which direction should I choose? And our commander, Lieutenant Andrei Petrovich Butorin, says: “Without preliminary reconnaissance, nothing will work out here. You need to look and feel where they have a crack. If we find it, we’ll get through.” That means I immediately volunteered. “Allow me, I say, should I try, Comrade Lieutenant?” He looked at me carefully. This is no longer in the order of the story, but, so to speak, on the side, I must explain that Andrei and I are from the same village - buddies. How many times have we gone fishing to Iset! Then both worked together at a copper smelter in Revda. In a word, friends and comrades. He looked at me carefully and frowned. “Okay,” says Comrade Zadokhtin, go. Is the task clear to you?”

He took me out onto the road, looked back, and grabbed my hand. “Well, Kolya,” he says, “let’s say goodbye to you, just in case.” The matter, you understand, is deadly. But since I volunteered, I don’t dare refuse you. Help me out, Kolya... We won't last here for more than two hours. The losses are too great...” - “Okay, I say, Andrey, this is not the first time you and I have found ourselves in such a situation. Wait for me in an hour. I'll see what's needed there. Well, if I don’t return, bow to our people there, in the Urals...”

And so I crawled and buried myself behind the trees. I tried in one direction - no, I couldn’t get through: the Germans were covering that area with thick fire. Crawled in the opposite direction. There, at the edge of the forest, there was a ravine, a gulley, quite deeply washed out. And on the other side, near the gulley, there is a bush, and behind it there is a road, an open field. I went down into the ravine, decided to get close to the bushes and look through them to see what was happening in the field. I began to climb up the clay, and suddenly I noticed two bare heels sticking out just above my head. I looked closer and saw: the feet were small, the dirt had dried on the soles and was falling off like plaster, the toes were also dirty and scratched, and the little toe on the left foot was bandaged with a blue rag - apparently it had suffered somewhere... For a long time I looked at these heels, at the toes , which moved restlessly above my head. And suddenly, I don’t know why, I was drawn to tickle those heels... I can’t even explain to you. But it washes away and washes away... I took a thorny blade of grass and lightly scratched one of the heels with it. At once both legs disappeared into the bushes, and a head appeared in the place where the heels stuck out from the branches. So funny, her eyes are frightened, she has no eyebrows, her hair is shaggy and bleached, and her nose is covered in freckles.

- What are you doing here? - I say.

“I,” he says, “are looking for a cow.” Haven't you seen it, uncle? The name is Marishka. It's white, but there's black on the side. One horn sticks down, but the other is not there at all... Only you, uncle, don’t believe me... I’m lying all the time, I’m trying this. “Uncle,” he says, “have you fought off ours?”

-Who are your people? - I ask.

- It’s clear who is the Red Army... Only ours went across the river yesterday. And you, uncle, why are you here? The Germans will catch you.

“Well, come here,” I say, “Tell me what’s going on here in your area.”

The head disappeared, the leg appeared again, and a boy of about thirteen slid down the clay slope to the bottom of the ravine, as if on a sled, heels first.

“Uncle,” he whispered, “quickly let’s get out of here somewhere.” There are Germans here. They have four cannons near that forest over there, and their mortars are installed on the side here. There is no way across the road here.

“And how,” I say, “do you know all this?”

“How,” he says, “where from?” Am I watching this for nothing in the morning?

- Why are you watching?

- It will be useful in life, you never know...

I began to question him, and the boy told me about the whole situation. I found out that the ravine runs far through the forest and along its bottom it will be possible to lead our people out of the fire zone. The boy volunteered to accompany us. As soon as we began to get out of the ravine, into the forest, there was suddenly a whistle in the air, a howl and such a crash was heard, as if half the trees around us had been split into thousands of dry chips at once. It was a German mine that landed right in the ravine and tore up the ground near us. It became dark in my eyes. Then I freed my head from under the earth that had poured on me and looked around: where, I think, is my little comrade? I see him slowly raise his shaggy head from the ground and begin to pick out clay with his finger from his ears, from his mouth, from his nose.

- This is what it did! - speaks. “We’re in trouble, uncle, with you being rich... Oh, uncle,” he says, “wait!” Yes, you're wounded.

I wanted to get up, but I couldn’t feel my legs. And I see blood floating from the torn boot. And the boy suddenly listened, climbed up to the bushes, looked out onto the road, rolled down again and whispered.

“Uncle,” he says, “the Germans are coming here.” The officer is ahead. Honestly! Let's get out of here quickly. Oh, how many of you...

I tried to move, but it was as if ten pounds were tied to my legs. I can't get out of the ravine. Pulls me down, back...

“Eh, uncle, uncle,” says my friend and almost cries himself, “well, then lie here, uncle, so as not to hear or see you.” And I’ll take their eyes off them now, and then I’ll come back, after...

He turned so pale that there were even more freckles, and his eyes sparkled. “What is he up to?” - I think. I wanted to hold him back, I grabbed him by the heel, but no matter what! Just a glimpse of his legs with grimy toes spread out above my head - on his little finger, as I can see now... I lie there and listen. Suddenly I hear: “Stop!.. Stop! Don't go any further!

Heavy boots creaked above my head, I heard the German ask:

- What were you doing here?

“I’m looking for a cow, uncle,” my friend’s voice came to me, “it’s such a good cow, it’s white itself, but there’s black on its side, one horn sticks out, but the other is not there at all.” The name is Marishka. You did not see?

-What kind of cow is this? I see you want to talk nonsense to me. Come here close. What have you been climbing here for a very long time, I saw you climbing.

“Uncle, I’m looking for a cow,” my little boy began to whine again. And suddenly his light bare heels clearly clattered along the road.

- Stand! Where are you going? Back! I'll shoot! - the German shouted.

Heavy forged boots swelled above my head. Then a shot rang out. I understood: my friend deliberately rushed to run away from the ravine in order to distract the Germans from me. I listened, gasping. The shot struck again. And I heard a distant, faint cry. Then it became very quiet... I was having a seizure. I gnawed the ground with my teeth so as not to scream, I leaned my whole chest on my hands to prevent them from grabbing their weapons and hitting the fascists. But I shouldn’t have revealed myself. We must complete the task to the end. Our people will die without me. They won't get out.

Leaning on my elbows, clinging to the branches, I crawled... I don’t remember anything after that. I only remember when I opened my eyes, I saw Andrei’s face very close above me...

Well, that’s how we got out of the forest through that ravine.

He stopped, took a breath and slowly looked around the entire hall.

“Here, comrades, is who I owe my life to, who helped rescue our unit from trouble.” It’s clear that he should stand here, at this table. But it didn’t work out... And I have one more request to you... Let’s honor, comrades, the memory of my unknown friend - the nameless hero... I didn’t even have time to ask what his name was...

And in the large hall, pilots, tank crews, sailors, generals, guardsmen quietly rose - people of glorious battles, heroes of fierce battles, rose to honor the memory of a small, unknown hero, whose name no one knew. The dejected people in the hall stood silently, and each in their own way saw in front of them a shaggy boy, freckled and bare-footed, with a blue stained rag on his bare foot...

Radiy Pogodin “Post-war soup”

The tankers pulled away from the front to the village, which only yesterday became the rear. They took off their shoes, dipped their feet in the grass as if in water, and jumped up, deceived by the grass, and groaned and laughed - the grass tickled and burned their feet, which had become damp in their winter footcloths.

There are T-34 tanks with bowler hats and outer uniform on the armor, and body armor on the gun barrels. The tankmen hobble towards the well - their skin itches and requires soap. The tankers hit themselves on the sides and cackle: their nails and sonorous blows create red flashes on their white skin.

The tankers stuck around the well - they couldn’t get the buckets out. They shave with German razors from the famous Solingen company and look in round girlish mirrors.

One tanker became impatient waiting for his turn to wash, and his bucket was full of holes, so he wrapped himself in a waffle towel and went to look for a stream.

Sand flows in streams into the trenches left by the Germans, it rings wonderfully, and in it are grass seeds: black, gray, red, with tails, with parachutes, with hooks. And just like that, in a glossy peel. The earth filled the craters on its body with water. And something has already separated from the damp side of the earth that will itself come to life and give life to rapidly changing generations.

The boy was sitting by the stream. Near him, two dry-breasted hens were digging the ground. A tailless rooster was feeding nearby. He lost his tail in a recent battle, so his uncooled eye sparkled angrily and then, saddened and embarrassed, shyly squatted in front of the chickens, proving and promising something.

“Great, warrior,” the tanker said to the boy.

The boy stood up, serious and wrinkled.

Swayed on thin legs. He was thin, his clothes were thin, patched and still full of holes. To strengthen your adult position over this thin-legged skit, the tanker generously moved his hand and said in a kind bass voice:

- Go for a walk, kid, go for a walk. Now it's not dangerous to walk.

- But I don’t go for walks. I'm feeding chickens.

The tankman fought for the first year. Therefore, everything non-military seemed insignificant to him, but then it grabbed him, as if he had been scratched by something invisible and incredible.

- You have nothing to do. The chicken eats worms. Why herd them? Let them eat and peck whatever they find.

The boy drove the chickens away from the stream with a vine and walked away himself.

- Are you perhaps afraid of me? - asked the tanker.

- I'm not shy. And all sorts of people walk around the village.

The rooster looked at the tanker with a robber's black eye - apparently he was once dashing; he hissed and threatened, and turned away his miserable tail, ready, at any moment, to carry away his meat in flight, and at a gallop, and at a trot.

- Guys - they can eat anything, even if they eat a crow. And our Maruska and Seryozhka Tatyana’s legs were cramped from rickets. They need to eat chicken eggs... Tamarka Suchalkina has a cough - she needs milk...

He was a small boy, about seven or eight years old, but the tanker suddenly thought that in front of him was either a very old man or a giant who had not risen to his full height.

growth that did not stretch out across the fathoms of shoulders, that did not accumulate a loud voice from hungry empty grub and disease.

The tanker thought: “It’s a damn war.”

- Do you want me to treat you? I have ration sand in my tank - sugar.

The boy nodded: treat him, if you don’t mind. When the tanker ran across the meadow to his car, the boy shouted to him:

- Rake some paper for me. It will be easier for me to endure, otherwise I will lick it all off my palm and no one else will get it.

The tankman brought the boy granulated sugar in a newspaper bag. I sat down next to him to breathe the earth and tender spring herbs.

—- Where is Father? - he asked.

- At war. Where else?

- And in the field. She and the women are plowing under the rye. Even after the summer, when the fascists were advancing, they elected her as chairman. Other women have weak children - they hold them by the skirt. And here I am and Maruska. Maruska is small, but I’m not capricious, you can be free with me. Grandfather Savelyev was given to the mother as an assistant. Walking is completely outdated. He feels the weather in his bones. He tells you when to plow, when to sow, when to plant potatoes. But there are still not enough seeds...

The tanker sucked in the thick morning air, already saturated with the smell of tanks.

- Let's take a swim. I'll wash you with soap.

- I'm not dirty. We make lye from ash - it also cleans. Do you have perfumed soap?

- For what? I have soldier’s soap, gray, it’s better than perfume rub.

The boy sighed and seemed to smile.

— The perfumed one has a delicious color. I once stole a whole signet from someone here, a German. Not yet deployed.

He turned away the paper and even licked it. Suddenly it's sweet. Maruska, so she immediately put it in her mouth. Still small and stupid.

The tanker undressed and entered the cold stream.

“Take off your clothes,” he ordered. “Don’t go into the stream - you’ll freeze.” I'll water you.

- I won't freeze. I’m used to it,” the boy took off his shirt and pants, climbed into the stream with his back forward - frail-chested, legs straight from the back bones without round boyish buttocks, widely spaced, and his hands were the same - bluish, brittle and red in the fingers.

The tanker dropped him back on shore.

- You have no weight at all, boy. Not fat. Cold water“He’ll give you a cold through and through.” He splashed a handful of water on the boy, scooped up the water a second time and let it out—the boy’s sunken belly was covered with scabs.

- Don't be afraid. It’s not contagious on me,” The boy’s eyes sparkled with resentment, in the close depths of these eyes something cooled and sank, dimming, “I burned my stomach with potatoes...

The tanker breathed as if he had coughed, as if he wanted to clear his lungs of bitter smoke. He began to carefully soap the boy's shoulders.

-Did you drop a potato?

- Why drop it? Am I empty-handed, or what? I won’t drop the potatoes... The front was still there, over there over that hill. There is the village of Zasekino. You probably know from the map. And in our Malyavin there were a lot of their carts, cars, and horses with carts. And the Germans themselves! The road from them was green - people were running thickly. Over there, where the tank is now hiding under a tree, two Germans were boiling potatoes on a fire. Someone called them. They left. I'll take potatoes from the pot in my bosom...

-Are you crazy?! - the tanker shouted, confused. - The potatoes are hot!

- What if it’s with butter? She has such a breathtaking spirit... Splash it in my eyes, your soap It stings a lot,” The boy looked at the tanker calmly and patiently, “I sat under a bush with the goal of maybe they’ll forget something, maybe they won’t eat enough and throw away the leftovers... Then I walked almost the entire village on foot.” You can't run. The way you run from them means you stole them.

The tankman kneaded the soap in his hands.

“You’ll waste all the soap in vain.” Let me rub your back,” the boy bent down, scooped up some water, washed his eyes, “I stole a lot of things from the Germans.” Once I even stole an orange.

- Did they catch you?

- They caught it.

- But of course. I was beaten many times... I only stole food. The kids are small: our Maruska, and Seryozhka Tatyanin, and Nikolai. They are like jackdaws: their mouths are open all day. And Volodka was wounded - all sick. And I am the eldest above them. Now grandfather Savelyev is sitting with them. I was assigned to another task - passing chickens.

The boy fell silent, tired of rubbing the muscular, broad tankman’s back, coughed, and when he walked away, he whispered:

“Now I’ll probably die.”

The tanker was confused again.

-What are you talking about? For such words - on the ears.

The boy looked up at him, and in his eyes there was a quiet, unobtrusive forgiveness.

- There’s no food. And there is no one to steal from. You won't steal from your own people. You can't steal from your own people.

The tankman crushed the soap in his fist, crushed it for a long time until it started to crawl between his fingers, and tried to come up with words that would suit the occasion. It was probably only at that moment that the tanker realized that he had not yet lived, that he did not know life as such, and where could he, a precocious man, explain life to others.

“They are driving cows and bringing you bread,” he finally said. “The front will move further away - the cows and bread will arrive here.”

- And if the front stays for a long time?.. Grandfather Savelyev says - you can eat burdock root. He himself ate food in captivity, even during that war.

The tankman wiped the boy with a waffle uncut towel.

“It’s not a human thing to eat burdock.” I’ll think about it, talk to the foreman, maybe we’ll support you from our rations.

The boy, in a hurry, shook his head:

- No... You can't be skinny. You need to fight. How about we somehow. Grandma Vera - she is very old, almost lifeless - says that malt grass grows in the swamps - you can bake cakes from it, it puffs as if with sourdough. Just fight faster so that those cows and that bread can reach us in time,” Now hope shone in the boy’s eyes, darkened from long melancholy.

“We’ll try,” said the tanker. He suddenly laughed, a sad, forced laugh. “What’s your name?”

- Senka.

That's where they parted. The tanker gave the boy a piece of soap so that he could wash his team: Maruska, and Seryozhka, and Nikolai. The tankman called the boy to eat cabbage soup from the soldier’s kitchen, but the boy did not go.

“I’m at work now, I can’t leave.”

The chickens were pulling worms from the damp, quiet earth.

The tailless rooster, frightened by the tankman's step, completely lost his head and, instead of running, rushed straight at the tankman's feet.

- And you, damn fool, where are you going? - the tankman shouted at him.

The rooster completely went crazy, kicked the tankman in the boot, fell down and screamed with a wild cry, lying on the wing - this cry was either a frenzied sob, or the rooster threatened someone, or promised.

Near the tanks—maybe the smell of the kitchen was to blame, maybe it was the crow of a rooster—the tankman dreamed of a hearty house, with lace curtains, a cheerful, red-cheeked girl, and a rich post-war chicken soup.

Radiy Pogodin “Horses”

Already in the first spring of the war, grandfather Savelyev designated a field for plowing - a wide wedge between the hills, near the lake.

- Plow this land. This land is resilient. In my entire life, this wedge has never given a pass. During a drought, the water here does not dry up—the springs flow here. When it rains, excess water will drain from this land because the field is inclined towards the lake. And the sun warms it well thanks to the tilt. And the wind bypasses it - it is blocked by a hill.

From this wedge we lived a second winter under the Germans. That winter was long. It was blizzard and desperate. News from the front does not reach a small village. And if they achieve any, the Germans will decorate them in their own way - badly...

It's bad when the stove is not lit.

It’s bad when there’s nothing to eat, nothing to feed the kids.

It's really bad when there's uncertainty.

But the heart does not believe in death. Even in the weakest chest time rushes towards the victorious hour.

Spring came early. Hearing her, the women got ready to plow. Four pull, the fifth drives the plow. And others are resting. They plow in turns so as not to overstrain themselves. The seeds were collected by the handful, each one saving how much.

Senka also joined the harness - he came with his strap to help. It’s pulling—there’s a ringing in my head from the strain, red circles in my eyes.

- Hey, horse! What a stallion! Don’t be angry, don’t be fierce - you’ll trample the whole field. Look at the strength in you - the earth is already cracking.

Senka does not pay attention to these ridicule. Let them laugh for the good of the cause.

Steam comes from the ground. And steam from the plowmen. The sky moved somewhere to the side. The ground slipped from under my feet. Senka falls nose-first into the furrow.

- Hey, horse! - the women say.

After a break, Senka again adjusted his strap to the plow, and no one dared to drive him away.

More than half of them had already been plowed when they came across a bomb. Let's go to grandpa. They feel sorry for the work, they feel sorry for the wasted energy, but there is nothing they can do: move the bomb and they will grow up as orphans instead of bread.

Grandfather sat for a long time, looking out the window at the spring, which - and you won’t even notice - will turn into a scorching summer.

“We need to keep plowing,” said the grandfather. “You will be full from this field.” On the other hand, not for sure. If only there were as many of those fields as before: if one dries up, another will yield; one will rot, but another will survive. But here is one thing, but it’s true.

- Grandfather, there is a bomb on him. Maybe you didn’t understand or didn’t hear enough? - the female chairman told him.

“I can handle the bomb,” answered the grandfather. He bent down to the window, leaned his head against the frame. “If only I knew where to hit her, then it would be completely easy for me.” Business for a moment.

Grandma Vera, the oldest old woman in the village, who, as they said, once upon a time saddled the devil and has been riding him ever since, otherwise how can you explain such agility at her ancient age, pushed the women aside and stood in front of the old man with her hands on her hips:

“What, you little gray stump, don’t you know?” How many times have you fought in the war and don’t know?

- Don't make noise, Vera. The system is different in every war. If anything happens, take my cat, Martha, with you.

Grandma Vera waved her hands - her hands were like pecking skinny birds.

- Well, Varnak! I would think about the soul, but he about the cat.

The women looked at them with fear.

“You don’t come to the field tomorrow morning,” said grandfather Savelyev calmly, “Stay at home.” You, Vera, stay at home too. Don’t you dare... In such a matter, you need only one.

“You’re still too young to command me!” - Grandma Vera went, walked around the hut.

The cat, hissing, lunged at the stove.

Grandfather sighed and turned to the window. He looked at the sky, at the flying wedge of a crane.

“Psssssss...” whispered the grandmother. The cat Martha jumped into her arms. “Come on,” the grandmother said to her affectionately, “you’ll stay with me.”

The women left quietly. The grandmother, shuffling along the floor with her patched tarpaulin boots, carried away the cat. Senka stayed behind, huddled on the stove behind the old man’s sheepskin coat.

The old man was sitting by the window. The sunset sky painted his head a fiery color.

Senka woke up from the old man's step. The old man looked at the spade and grumbled something to himself, not angrily, but sternly.

Senka decided: “He can’t take an ax, so he’s decided not to hit the snout with a bomb.” Sudden deep sleep overtook him at the end of this thought, which is why Senka was late in the field. And when he came and hid in a ravine along which a stream ran along the field, he heard: the grandfather was hitting the bomb with the butt of his ax. The bomb buzzes hard, like an anvil—the sound of the blows seems to bounce off it.

- I took the ax after all! - Senka shouted, and his heart sank for his grandfather, and the salty wet earth crunched in his teeth.

When the women came to the ravine, they could not resist; the old man had already dug a trench along the bomb - a narrow gap. Now he was digging steps - there was a smooth descent into this gap. And when he dug it out, he went down there and carefully rolled the bomb onto his shoulder.

The women in the ravine froze. Why should an old man be so heavy? But, apparently, there is in a person, even though he is old and weak, such an ability that helps him to use up all the strength remaining for life in a short time.

Grandfather climbed up the steps. He will go up one step and catch his breath. It rises higher. He rests his hand on the edge of the crack so that the weight of the bomb presses not only on his legs. And when he got out of the ground, he headed along the furrow towards the lake. It goes shallow - not strong. His shirt is clean. White hair combed with a comb.

The women rose from the ravine. Grandma Vera is ahead of everyone. Without a scarf.

Senka’s fear receded before the slow grandfatherly step, before his bent back, which bent lower and lower. Senka crawled along the ravine after his grandfather.

Grandfather's neck was swollen. My knees were weak.

He finally reached the lake. I stood on the edge of a cliff. He dropped the bomb from his shoulder into the water and fell down himself. The bomb exploded. The steep bank moved into the lake along with the fallen grandfather.

When the women ran up, a sandy, gently sloping scree formed at the site of the cliff. Below, near the water, lay the grandfather, powdered with white sand. Grandfather still lived.

He was uninjured. Only deaf and motionless. The women picked him up and carried him in their arms to the hut. There he slowly came to his senses.

The village children, led by Senka, came to him every day, played near him or just sat.

The front passed through the village, scorched it, but not much - my grandfather lived to see our army.

Senka was dressed up to herd chickens, so he overlooked the death of his grandfather Tamark Suchalkina, the eldest after Senka, who was sitting that day in the old man’s hut at the head of the children.

Grandfather called her over and ordered:

- Take the children away, Tamarka. I'm going to die. Tell the people not to rush to come to me, to wait. Let them come tomorrow.

Tamarka got scared and argued:

- What are you doing, grandfather? You're probably asleep - you're weaving such words.

Grandfather also told her:

- You go, Tamarka, take the children away. I need to be alone now. Now my time is precious. I need to forgive people for their offenses and ask them for forgiveness myself. Everyone has. Both those who died and those who live. Go, Tamarka, go. I'm going to talk to myself now...

Tamarka didn’t believe her grandfather’s words as much as he believed his eyes, dark, looking from the depths, as if through her—as if she were muslin. Tamarka pursed her lips, wiped her nose and took the children outside the forest clearing to watch the strawberries bloom.

When Senka found out that the old man had died, he fell on the grass and cried. All thoughts, all grievances and joys left his head - everything was gone, except for a short word - grandfather.

Four soldiers—four rear guards, elderly and wrinkled—carried their grandfathers’ coffin up the high hill. There was an ancient graveyard on this site. Ancient stone crosses, worn away by rain, cold and wind, are still preserved here. The Germans built their own cemetery next to the stone crosses - level, along a line. The crosses are identical, wooden, with one crossbar. With what arrogant thought did they choose this place, what significant symbol did they count on?

The women came up with the idea of ​​putting their grandfather there, at the very top of the hillock, so that he could see the boring German cemetery and the entire surrounding distance: fields, forests, lakes, and the village of Malyavino, and other villages, also not strangers to him, and white from the dust of the roads, trodden by a slow grandfatherly step. The women, of course, knew that the dead old man would no longer be able to see anything and the smells of herbs would not touch him, that it made no difference to him where he lay, but they wanted to keep the rumor about him alive, so they chose the ancient high hill as a monument to him.

The soldiers prepared to fire a volley of four combat rifles over the grave.

“There’s no need to make a fuss about him,” said the woman chairman.

Grandma Vera pulled her hands out from under her scarf. Her arms shot up like clods of earth from an explosion.

- Fire! - she shouted, - I suppose it’s a soldier. I suppose he fought all his life. Shoot!

The soldiers fired their weapons into the blue evening air. And they fired again. And so they shot three times. Then they left. The women also left. The kids left the hill, dressed in anything they could find, washed out, patched up, and not their size. Senka and Grandma Vera remained near my grandfather’s grave.

Senka sat bent over, his head hanging. In his gray patched padded jacket, he looked like a fresh pile of earth, not sprouted by herbs. Grandma Vera rushed among the German graves like a black torch. She approached the edge of the hillock, and kept muttering, and kept shouting, as if she was scolding old Savelyev for something, who, in her opinion, had passed away early, or, on the contrary, she promised to live out his unlived time in her endless old age.

The next day, the transport soldiers rode off on spring carts to the front. The women hurried to do their business. The children sat down on the warm porch of the hut in which their grandfather lived, which was now empty, empty, light and echoing, and neatly tidied up.

The front has already moved far from the village. Only sometimes at night the huts began to tremble. The wind brought an uneven rolling sound through the open windows, as if something was collapsing, as if dry logs were beating on their sides and hooting as they fell to the ground. The sky above the front was dawning in the middle of the night, but that terrible dawn seemed to smolder, without flaring up, without burning the clusters of silver stars.

All the fighting troops had long passed through the village, both the convoys and the medical unit had passed through. The road became quiet. It would probably have become completely narrow, since the local population had nothing to drive along it, and nowhere to go. But columns of cars walked along the road, loaded with military supplies for the front, and the road was dusty and alive.

A soldier walked along this road, looking for a place to stay for the night. He walked from the hospital to his division, to a rifle company, where he was a machine gunner before being wounded. The porch, seated with children, beckoned him and drew him in. The soldier thought: “However, this is a cheerful hut. I’ll stop here and rest in the thick bustle of life.” The soldier remembered his family, where he was his mother’s seventh, youngest, and last son.

“Hello, little fellow,” he said.

“Hello,” the kids told him.

The soldier looked into the hut.

- You live cleanly. Allow me to live with you until tomorrow. Where's your mom?

“Our mothers are in the field,” Tamarka Suchalkina, the eldest, answered him. “We don’t live in this hut.” Grandfather Savelyev lived in it, and now he has died.

The soldier looked back at the children. I saw them - skinny, big-eyed, very intent and quiet.

“Here it is, however...” said the soldier, “What are you doing here, at the empty hut?” Are you playing?

“No,” said the Tamarka girl. “We’re just sitting here.”

The girl Tamarka began to cry and turned away so that others would not see.

“You go to some other hut to spend the night,” she advised the soldier. “Now the huts are spacious.” When the front passed, there was no room for people in the huts—they slept on the street. And now there is a lot of empty space in the huts.

“I’ll spend the night here,” the soldier explained to Tamarka. “I’ll go straight to bed.” Don't make any noise, I have to get up early, I'm in a hurry to get to my division.

Tamarka nodded: it’s your business.

The soldier put the bag at the head of the bed and settled down for the night. I dreamed a little about nurse Natasha, whom he met in the hospital, to whom he promised to send letters every day, and fell asleep.

In his sleep, he felt as if he were being shaken and pushed in the back.

- What, on the offensive? - he asked, jumping up. He started rummaging around, looking for the rifle, and woke up completely. I saw myself in the hut. I saw windows with red borders from the setting sun. And in front of me I saw a boy in a tattered and oversized quilted jacket.

- Are you stuck in your boots? — the boy said to the soldier in an adult, gloomy voice, “Grandfather died on this bench, and you didn’t even take off your boots.”

The soldier was angry for the interrupted sleep, for the fact that such a sucker was teaching him his wisdom. Screamed:

- Who are you? I'll hit you in the ears!

- Do not scream. “I can scream too,” said the boy, “I’m a local resident.” My name is Senka. During the day I worked on horseback. Now the chase is on to the lake, to the meadow.” The boy approached the door. His face brightened, he smacked his lips quietly and affectionately.

The soldier also saw a horse tied to the porch. That horse was either sick or completely starved. The skin hung on a wide bone like a robe. The horse put his head on the railing so that his neck could rest.

- That's how the horse is! - the soldier laughed. “Such is the horse for the winnings and for the soap.” There is no other benefit from it.

The boy stroked the horse's muzzle and thrust the saved crust into his soft black lips.

- Whatever it is, it’s still a horse. The veins in his legs are cold. I'm taking him out, he'll be frisky by the fall. The transport soldiers gave it to us. They also helped bury my grandfather. And when you go to bed, take off your boots. Not good. The house hasn’t cooled down even after grandfather, and you’re stuck in your boots.

The soldier ground his teeth in frustration. He spat.

- Just think, grandfather! - he shouted, “He’s dead, that’s where he belongs.” He has lived his life. Now marshals and generals are dying. Hero soldiers lie down in packs on the ground. War! And you are here with your grandfather...

The soldier lay down on the bench facing the stove and grumbled and shouted for a long time about his wounds and the terrible moments that he endured at the front. Then the soldier remembered his mother. She was already disproportionately old. Even before the war, she had eleven grandchildren from her eldest sons.

“Grandma,” the soldier sighed, “But he’s raising all this horde now.” It takes more than one cast iron to cook potatoes. For such a crowd you need a lot of food - so many mouths! She should rest, warm her feet, but you see what war is like.” The soldier stirred and sat down on the bench. It seemed to him that the hut was not empty, that his mother was moving in this hut in her endless troubles.

The soldier wanted to say: “Ugh!” - but choked. Then he walked around the hut, touched the simple utensils, feeling embarrassed and joyful that they had saved something for him here that he could have forgotten in the haste of the war.

“Wow,” said the soldier, “my poor fellows...” And he shouted: “Hey!” - not knowing how to call the boy, because all the words that soldiers call boys were not suitable here. - Hey, a man on a horse!

Nobody answered him. The boy had already gone to graze his horse towards the lake and was probably now sitting under a birch tree, lighting a fire.

The soldier took the bag and took the overcoat. I went outside.

The land in this place gently sloped down to the lake. The village was still red from the sunset; below, in the pit by the lake, darkness gathered and poured in from all sides. In the darkness, a fire burned like the palms of our hands. Sometimes the fire curled into a ball, sometimes a stream of flying sparks rose from its core. The boy lit a fire and moved a stick in it, or perhaps threw dry spruce branches into the fire. The soldier found the path. He went down to the boy in the wet meadow.

“I came to spend the night with you,” he said. “Will you send me away?” I was the only one feeling cold.

“Lie down,” the boy answered him. “Put your overcoat here, it’s dry here.” Yesterday I burned the ground here with a fire.

The soldier laid out his overcoat and stretched out on the soft ground.

- Why did grandfather die? - he asked when they had been silent for a long time.

“From a bomb,” answered Senka.

The soldier stood up:

— Direct hit or shrapnel?

- It’s all the same. Died. For you he is a stranger, but for us he is a grandfather. Especially for small ones, for children.

Senka went to check on the horse. Then he added brushwood and grass to the fire to ward off mosquitoes. He spread a tattered padded jacket near the soldier’s overcoat and lay down on it.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you up early tomorrow.” There's a lot to do. I buried two potatoes under the ashes, we’ll eat them in the morning.

The soldier had already dozed off in the hut, interrupted his sleep for a while and now could not fall asleep right away. I looked at the sky, at the clear stars, pure as tears.

Senka didn’t sleep either. I looked at the warm crimson in the sky, which seemed to flow from the hills into the lake and cool in its dark water. The thought occurred to him that his grandfather was still alive to this day, only he had moved to another, more convenient place for himself, on a high hill, from where he could have a broader view of his land.

The fallen soldier muttered something amorous in his sleep. Fog rose from the lake. Unsteady shadows staggered over the meadow, gathering into a dense herd. Senka imagined that there were many horses grazing around him - both bay and dun. And strong, stately mares tenderly caress their foals.

“Grandfather,” said the boy, already falling asleep. “Grandfather, now we have horses...

And the soldier stirred at these words and laid his heavy, warm hand on the boy.

Anatoly Mityaev “Vacation for four hours”

The soldier most often had to fight far from home.

His house is in the mountains in the Caucasus, and he is fighting in the steppes of Ukraine. The house is in the steppe, and he is fighting in the tundra, by the cold sea. No one chose the place where to fight. However, it happened that a soldier defended or recaptured his hometown, my home village. Vasily Plotnikov also ended up in his native land. After the battle ended and the Nazis retreated, the soldier asked the commander for permission to go to the village of Yablontsy. His house is there. There remained a wife with a little daughter and an old mother. Yablontsi is only ten kilometers away.

“Okay,” said the commander, “I give you, Private Plotnikov, leave for four hours.” Come back without delay. It’s eleven now, and at fifteen the trucks will arrive and take us after the Nazis.

Plotnikov's comrades brought their food supplies - canned food, crackers, sugar. They put everything in his duffel bag. Let him treat his family. The gifts are not great, but from the bottom of my heart! They were a little jealous of Plotnikov. It's no joke - I haven't seen my relatives for two years, I didn't know anything about the family, and now - a quick date. True, the soldiers also thought that Plotnikov’s wife, little daughter, and old mother could have died in fascist captivity. But they did not express their sad thoughts out loud.

And Vasily Plotnikov thought about this himself. And therefore his joy was alarming. He said only one word to his comrades: “Thank you!”, put the straps of a duffel bag on his shoulders, hung a machine gun around his neck and walked straight across the field, through the forest to Yablontsy.

The village of Yabluncy was small, but very beautiful. The soldier Plotnikov often dreamed of her. Under tall old willows, like under a green tent, in the cool shade stood strong houses - with carved porches, with clean benches in front of the windows. There were vegetable gardens behind the houses. And everything grew in these gardens: yellow turnips, red carrots, pumpkins that looked like leather balls, sunflowers that looked like brass basins, polished to a shine, in which jam was made. And behind the vegetable gardens there were gardens. Apples ripened in them - whatever you want! Sweet and sour pears, terentyevkas as sweet as honey and the best Antonov apples in the whole world. In the fall, when they soaked the Antonovka in barrels, when they put it in boxes for winter storage, overlaying the layers with rye straw, everything in Yablentsy smelled of apples. The wind, flying over the village, was saturated with this smell and carried it far around the area. And people—either passers-by or travelers whose path was away from Yabluntsy—turned off the road, came in, drove in, ate plenty of apples, and took them with them. The village was generous and kind. How is she doing now?

Vasily Plotnikov was in a hurry. The sooner he reaches the village, the more time he will have to meet with his family. All the paths, all the paths, all the ravines and hillocks were known to him since childhood. And then, a little over an hour later, he saw high place Jabluncy. Saw. Has stopped. I looked.

There was no green tent over Jablunci. Instead, a black tattered web was stretched in the sky: the leaves on the high branches were burned, the branches were also burned, and the twigs were charred, and they lined the sky with a black web.

Soldier Vasily Plotnikov’s heart sank and ached. With all his strength he ran to the village. As if he wanted to help his Yablon residents with something. And nothing could be done to help. Jabluncy became ashes. The parched earth was covered with sulfurous ash, like road dust, and strewn with firebrands. Among this ashes stood smoky stoves with tall chimneys. It was unusual and creepy to see brick pipes of such height. Previously, they were covered with roofs, and no one saw them like that. The ovens seemed like living creatures, some kind of huge birds stretching their long necks into the empty sky. The birds wanted to fly up at the terrible moment, but did not have time and remained, petrified, in place.

Before the fire, Vasily Plotnikov’s house stood in the middle of the village. The soldier easily found and recognized his stove. The whitewash showed through the soot. He whitewashed the stove himself before he went to war. Then he did a lot of other work around the house to make life easier for his wife, mother and daughter. “Where are they now? What happened to them?

“The village perished in the fire,” reasoned Vasily Plotnikov. “If it had been bombed or shelled, some stoves would certainly have collapsed, pipes would have collapsed...” And he began to hope that the residents of Yabluntsy had escaped and gone somewhere before the fire. somewhere in the woods.

He walked through the ashes, looking for the iron remains of the house - door handles, hooks, large nails. He found all this, covered with brown scale, took it in his hands, looked at it - as if asking about the fate of the owners. There was no answer.

Plotnikov imagined how a team of fascists, a special team, descended on Jablontsy. They jumped out of the trucks with cans of gasoline. They poured gasoline on the walls. And then came the fascist torchbearer. And he set fire to houses - one after another. He set the entire village on fire from start to finish. And at the same time, or maybe a little earlier or a little later, an enemy tank drove through the orchards, breaking apple trees, crushing them into the ground... Thousands of villages were destroyed by the Nazis in a similar way during the retreat.

The soldier piled up the bricks, blew the ash off them, and sat down. And so, sitting, without taking off his duffel bag and machine gun, he thought a bitter thought. He did not immediately feel that someone was touching the top of his boot. Or rather, he felt light tremors, but did not pay attention, because there was not a living soul around. And when I looked at the boots, I saw a cat - gray with a white chest, my cat Dunyushka.

- Dunyushka! Where are you from, Dunyushka?

He put his fingers outstretched under her belly, sat her on his lap and began stroking her.

Dunyushka snuggled closer to her owner, closed her eyes, and purred. She purred quietly, calmly. She slowly repeated monotonous sounds as she inhaled and exhaled, as if she were rolling peas. And it seemed to Plotnikov that the cat knew how difficult it was for people in war, how heavy his heart was. She also knows where the soldier’s wife, daughter and mother are. They are alive, they took refuge in the forest from the Nazis, and their main sadness is not about the burnt house, but about him. Is he alive, soldier Vasily Plotnikov? If he lives, then they will live too. They will see that there are no fascists, that the Soviet Army drove them out, and they will come from the forest to the village. They will dig a dugout for the winter. They will patiently wait for the end of the war and the return of the soldiers. The soldiers will return and build everything new. And the gardens will be planted...

- Where were you, Dunyushka, when Yablontsi was burning? And how much do you love your home if you don’t leave it after it burns down?

As time went. It was time to return to the unit. The soldier crumbled some bread into a piece of a clay bowl for the cat. The duffel bag with food was placed in the stove and closed with a damper. Then he scratched on the stove with a burnt nail:

"I'm alive. I didn't find you at home. Write.

Field post 35769. V. Plotnikov.”

The cat finished the bread. I picked out the food down to the last crumb. Sitting by the clay shard, she began to wash herself - she licked her paw with her pink tongue and rubbed her muzzle with her paw. " Good omen, thought the soldier, “This is for the guests.” The cat washes away the guests. Who are the guests? Of course, my wife, daughter and mother are the owners of the burnt house.” This thought made the soldier feel better. And other thoughts came: how he and his comrades would get into the truck, how they would catch up with the Nazis and start a new battle. He will shoot from a machine gun, throw grenades, and if he runs out of ammunition, he will kill the fascist with a simple fist...

- Well, goodbye, Dunyushka! I have to go. It’s as if they didn’t leave without me.

The cat looked into the owner's eyes. Got up. And when he walked through the ashes, she ran next to him. She ran for quite a long time. She stopped behind the burnt willows, on a green hillock. From there she followed the soldier with her gaze. The soldier turned around, each time he saw a gray lump with a white spot on the green tubercle.

The troops, which included Vasily Plotnikov’s battalion, advanced very well, drove and drove the fascists. He received a letter from home when they had left the Yablons for as much as half a thousand kilometers.

Anatoly Mityaev “Bag of Oatmeal”

That autumn there were long, cold rains. The ground was saturated with water, the roads were muddy. On the country roads, stuck up to their axles in mud, stood military trucks. The supply of food became very bad. In the soldier's kitchen, the cook cooked only soup from crackers every day: in hot water sprinkled breadcrumbs and seasoned with salt.

On such hungry days, soldier Lukashuk found a bag of oatmeal. He wasn't looking for anything, he just leaned his shoulder against the wall of the trench. A block of damp sand collapsed, and everyone saw the edge of a green duffel bag in the hole.

- What a find! - the soldiers rejoiced, - There will be a feast... Let's cook porridge!

One ran with a bucket for water, others began to look for firewood, and still others had already prepared spoons.

But when they managed to fan the fire and it was already hitting the bottom of the bucket, an unfamiliar soldier jumped into the trench. He was thin and red-haired. The eyebrows above the blue eyes are also red. The overcoat is worn out and short. There are windings and trampled shoes on my feet.

- Hey, bros! - he shouted in a hoarse, cold voice, - Give me the bag here! If you don't put it down, don't take it.

He would simply stun everyone with his appearance, and they gave him the bag right away.

And how could you not give it away? According to front-line law, it was necessary to give it up. Soldiers hid duffel bags in trenches when they went on the attack. To make it easier. Of course, there were bags left without an owner: either it was impossible to return for them (this is if the attack was successful and it was necessary to drive out the Nazis), or the soldier died. But since the owner has arrived, the conversation is short - give it back.

The soldiers watched silently as the red-haired man carried away the precious bag on his shoulder. Only Lukashuk could not stand it and quipped:

- He’s so skinny! They gave him extra rations. Let him eat. If it doesn't burst, it might get fatter.

It's getting cold. Snow. The earth froze and became hard. Delivery has improved. The cook was cooking cabbage soup with meat and pea soup with ham in the kitchen on wheels. Everyone forgot about the red soldier and his porridge.

A big offensive was being prepared.

By hidden forest roads, long lines of infantry battalions walked along the ravines. At night, tractors dragged guns to the front line, and tanks moved.

Lukashuk and his comrades were also preparing for the offensive. It was still dark when the cannons opened fire. It became brighter - planes began to hum in the sky.

They threw bombs at fascist dugouts and fired machine guns at enemy trenches.

The planes took off. Then the tanks began to rumble. The infantrymen rushed after them to attack. Lukashuk and his comrades also ran and fired from a machine gun. He threw a grenade into a German trench, wanted to throw another, but didn’t have time: the bullet hit him in the chest. And he fell. Lukashuk lay in the snow and did not feel that the snow was cold. Some time passed and he stopped hearing the roar of battle. Then he stopped seeing the light - it seemed to him that a dark, quiet night had come.

When Lukashuk regained consciousness, he saw an orderly. The orderly bandaged the wound and put Lukashuk in a boat - like a plywood sleigh. The sled slid and swayed in the snow. This quiet swaying made Lukashuk feel dizzy. But he didn’t want his head to spin—he wanted to remember where he had seen this orderly, red-haired and thin, in a worn out overcoat.

- Hold on, brother! Don’t be timid - you will live!.. - he heard the words of the orderly.

It seemed to Lukashuk that he had known this voice for a long time. But where and when I heard it before, I could no longer remember.

Lukashuk regained consciousness when he was transferred from the boat onto a stretcher to be taken to a large tent under the pine trees: here, in the forest, a military doctor was pulling bullets and shrapnel from the wounded.

Lying on a stretcher, Lukashuk saw a sled-boat on which he was being transported to the hospital. Three dogs were tied to the sled with straps. They were lying in the snow. Icicles froze on the wool. The muzzles were covered with frost, the dogs' eyes were half-closed.

The orderly approached the dogs. In his hands he had a helmet full of oatmeal. Steam was pouring off of her. The orderly stuck his helmet into the snow to tap - hot is harmful to the dogs. The orderly was thin and red-haired. And then Lukashuk remembered where he had seen him. It was he who then jumped into the trench and took a bag of oatmeal from them.

Lukashuk smiled at the orderly with just his lips and, coughing and choking, said:

- And you, Red, haven’t gained weight. One of them ate a bag of oatmeal, but everyone was thin.

The orderly also smiled and, stroking the nearest dog, answered:

- They ate the oatmeal. But they got you there on time. And I recognized you immediately. Just as I saw it in the snow, I knew it... - And he added with conviction: - You will live! Don't be timid!

Valentina Oseeva “Kocheryzhka”

People were returning. At the small blue station, which had survived the bombing, women and children with bundles and string bags were randomly and fussily unloaded from the carriages. On both sides of the road, boarded-up houses, buried deep in the snowdrifts, were waiting for their owners. Here and there fireflies of smokehouses flashed in the windows, smoke rose from the chimneys. The house of Marya Vlasevna Samokhina was empty for the longest time. Its fence had fallen down, and only in some places there were still firmly knocked down stakes. A broken board stuck out above the gate and was beating in the wind. On frosty winter nights, falling into the snow, a hungry dog, looking like a hunted wolf, wandered to the deserted porch. He walked around the house, listening to the silence that reigned behind the large windows, sniffed the air and, helplessly dragging his long tail, lay down on the snowy porch. And when the moon cast light yellow circles on the empty house, the dog raised his muzzle and howled.

The howl alarmed the neighbors. Exhausted, suffering people, burying their heads in pillows, threatened to plug this hungry throat with a club. Perhaps there would have been a person who decided to lift a club on the lean dog’s body, but the dog, as if knowing this, was wary of people, and in the morning only footprints remained in the snow, stretching in an uneven chain around the abandoned house. And only one little man from the house opposite waited for a hungry dog ​​every evening behind the old collapsed cellar. In trampled felt boots and an old gray overcoat, he quietly crawled out onto the porch and watched the snow turn white in the twilight. Then, pressing himself against the wall, he sharply turned the corner of the house and walked towards the cellar. There, squatting down, he made a compact hole in the snow, put out crusts of bread from his pocket and quietly retreated around the corner. And behind the cellar, slowly moving its paws and not taking its hungry wolf eyes off the hole, a lean dog appeared. The wind rocked her bony body as she greedily swallowed what the little man had brought. Having finished eating, the dog raised his head and looked straight at the boy, and the boy looked at the dog. Then both went in different directions: the dog into the snowy twilight, and the boy into a warm house.

Fate little man was the fate of many children caught up in the war and dispossessed by fascist barbarians. Somewhere in Ukraine, in a golden autumn in a charred village that had just been recaptured from the Nazis, a beardless sergeant Vasya Voronov found a two-year-old boy wrapped in warm rags in the garden. Nearby, on the plowed garden soil, among chopped heads of cabbage, in a white shirt embroidered with red flowers, a young woman lay with her arms outstretched. Her head was turned to the side, her blue eyes were frozen in close contemplation of a high pile of cut cabbage leaves, and the fingers of one hand tightly clutched a bottle of milk. From the neck, plugged with paper, large drops of milk slowly flowed onto the ground... If not for this bottle of milk, perhaps Vasya Voronov would have run past the murdered woman, catching up with his comrades. But then, sadly hanging his head, he carefully took the bottle out of the dead woman’s hands, followed her frozen gaze, heard a faint groan behind the cabbage leaves and saw the wide open children’s eyes. With inept hands, the mustacheless sergeant pulled out a child wrapped in a blanket, put a bottle of milk in his pocket and, bending over the dead woman, said:

- I’ll take it... Do you hear? Vasily Voronov! - and ran to catch up with his comrades.

At the halt, the soldiers gave the boy warm milk, lovingly looked at his strong little body and jokingly called him Kocheryzhka.

Kocheryzhka was quiet; hanging his head on Vasya Voronov’s shoulder, he silently looked back at the road along which Vasya was carrying him. And if the boy began to cry, Voronov’s comrades, their faces dusty and sweaty from the heat, danced in front of him, heavily shaking their ammunition and slapping their knees:

- Oh yes we are! Oh yes we are!

Kocheryzhka fell silent, peering intently into each face, as if he wanted to remember it for the rest of his life.

- Studying something! - the soldiers joked and teased Vasya Voronov. - Hey, father, report to your superiors about the newborn!

“I’m afraid they’ll take it away,” Vasya frowned, hugging the boy to himself. And he stubbornly added: “I won’t give it.” I won't give it to anyone. That’s what I told his mother: I won’t leave him!

- Stupid, guy! Are you going to go into battle with a child? Or will you ask to be a nanny now? — the soldiers reasoned with Vasya.

- I'll send you home. To grandma, to mother. I'll order them to take care of it.

Having firmly decided the fate of Kocheryzhka, Vasya Voronov achieved his goal. After having a heart-to-heart talk with his superiors and handing over his pet to the nurse, Vasya wrote a long letter home. The letter described in detail everything that happened, and it ended with a request: to keep Kocheryzhka as if it were your own, to take care of his son Vasily as his own child, and not to call him Kocheryzhka anymore, because the boy was baptized in a warm river font by Voronov himself and his comrades, who gave him first and patronymic: Vladimir Vasilievich.

A young sister brought Vladimir Vasilyevich to the Voronov family in the winter of forty-one, when the Voronovs themselves, having boarded up their house, ran with things and string bags to the blue station. As they walked, in a hurry, Anna Dmitrievna and Grandma Petrovna read Vasenka’s letter, with sighs and tears they accepted from their sister a bundle in a gray soldier’s blanket and, loaded with things, climbed with it into the country carriage, and then into the heated car... And when they returned to their old home and opened their damp house, the war had already moved away, Vasenka’s letters were coming from German lands, and Kocheryzhka was already running around the room and sitting on the bench, intently studying new corners and new faces with his greenish-blue eyes under the dark laces of his eyebrows. Vasenka’s mother, Anna Dmitrievna, cautiously looking in the boy’s direction, wrote to her son:

“We preserve the covenant of your honor and conscience, our dear fighter Vasenka. We don’t offend your stump, that is, Vladimir Vasilyevich, but our income is small - we especially can’t support him. By order of your boy, we remember you as what happened between you, and we keep this bottle as a keepsake. You also explain to us, Vasenka, what you tell him to call us, and I’m still “auntie” and “auntie”, I call my grandmother Petrovna, and I call your sister Granya Ganeya.”

Vasya Voronov, having received the letter, sent the answer:

“Thank you very much for your efforts. I'll figure out the rest when I get home. One request: don’t call him Kocheryzhka, because this is a camp title, given by chance due to the circumstance of his location in the cabbage. And he must be like a person, Vladimir Vasilyevich, and realize that I am his father.”

Vasya Voronov, after thinking about it, always wrote the same thing to his stump: “Grow up and obey.” So far, he has not taken on the big tasks of raising his adopted son. The stump grew poorly, but obeyed well. He listened silently, slowly, understandingly and seriously.

- Fathers, why are you sitting swaddled on the bench? Go for a little run! - noticing him, Aunt Anna Dmitrievna shouted as she walked.

- Where to run? - Kocheryzhka asked, sliding off the bench.

- Yes, in kindergarten, my fathers!

Kocheryzhka went out onto the porch and, as if embarrassed, looked at his aunt with an uncertain smile, then, dropping his hands, awkwardly moving his legs, ran to the gate. From there he slowly returned and sat down again on a bench or porch. Petrovna shook her head:

- Are you tired, Kocheryzhka, I mean Volodechka?

The boy raised his thin eyebrows and answered in monosyllables:

Granya ran to school. Sometimes her girlfriends gathered at the porch, like a flock of cheerful birds. Granya pulled out Kocheryzhka, sat him on her lap, blew on his large forehead with fluffy dark curls and, crossing her strong, tanned hands on his stomach, said:

- This is ours, girls! We found it in cabbage! Don't believe me? He himself knows. Really, Kocheryzhka?

“It’s true,” the boy confirmed, “they found me in the cabbage!”

- Poor him! — the girls gasped, patting him on the head.

“I’m not poor,” Kocheryzhka said, moving their hands away. “I have a father.” Vasya Voronov - that's who!

The girls began to fuss with him, but Kocheryzhka did not like noisy games. One day Petrovna gave him some soil from an old flower pot, and in the very corner of the wide bench Kocheryzhka built himself a vegetable garden. He made neat little beds in the garden. Granya gave the boy red glossy paper and green tissue paper. Kocheryzhka cut out round red berries, laid them out on the beds, and stuck green bushes made of tissue paper next to them. Then he brought a branch from the garden and hung paper apples painted with Grani on it. Petrovna also took part in the game - she secretly put fresh carrots in the garden and was loudly surprised:

- Look, your carrots are ripe!

Anna Dmitrievna called Petrovna a potatchica, but she herself somehow brought two toy buckets and a scoop for the “garden.” Kocheryzhka loved the earth; he took it in his palm, pressed his cheek against it, and, when the meager winter sun fell from the window, he said seriously:

- Don’t block the sun, because nothing will grow!

“Agronomist!..” Petrovna spoke about him with pride.

Life at that time was difficult. The Voronovs did not have enough bread and did not have their own potatoes. Anna Dmitrievna worked in the dining room. She brought leftover soup in a can. Granya quickly climbed into the can with a spoon and fished out the grounds. At the table her mother scolded her:

“At such and such a time, when all the people have not yet recovered from the war, she only thinks about herself!” The mother and grandmother will catch the thick stuff as you wish! Yes, Kocheryzhka is still in our hands!

- I won't! — he said in fear, sliding out of his chair. “I won’t eat!”

- Sit down!.. What kind of “I won’t” is that? - Anna Dmitrievna shouted at him in irritation.

Kocheryzhka bowed his head low and began to shed large tears. Petrovna jumped up from her seat and, wiping his eyes with her apron, scolded her daughter and granddaughter:

—Are you getting on the child’s nerves? Someone else's child is at the table, and they are counting the pieces in front of him! You took it for your own, and keep it according to your conscience!

- What did I tell him? - Anna Dmitrievna gasped, “I’m not shouting at him, but at my own daughter!” I won't lay a finger on him! I can’t live with him... Let whoever took him raise him!

- Should I live with him? I don’t need him at all in my old age, but since they took him, I need to have a heart! Look, he's so nervous about everything!

- Well, nervous! Presented and that's it! - Granka screamed through tears, having received a slap on the head from her mother, “I’ll write everything, I’ll write everything to my brother!” Let him take him completely! We don't need it!

- Who will live with me? - Kocheryzhka suddenly asked, looking around everyone with anxious, tear-stained eyes.

Petrovna caught herself:

- We’ll be all right, son! Just don't cry! The Soviet government will not abandon an orphan! And the father! What about father? There he looks... There he is... - She took Vasya’s photograph from the shelf and, wiping it with her palm, handed it to the boy. - A-and, what a father... With a gun!

Kocheryzhka smiled through his tears at Vasya’s kind, high-cheeked face, and Petrovna, moved with emotion, hugged the boy tightly to her:

- Will he quit?! How he saw this grief... She was lying there, my dear dove, and the milk was drip-drip from the bottle... - She suddenly interrupted herself and, supporting her neck with her hand, began to sway from side to side, - Oh, my God , My God... I brought it to my son, my dear...

Anna Dmitrievna, listening to her words, stopped in the middle of the room; Granya sat quietly, looking with round eyes first at her mother, then at her grandmother.

- And he told her, dead...

Kocheryzhka closed his eyes and, fighting against drowsiness, clutched the card tighter to himself.

“...there’s no way I’m going to abandon your son...” Petrovna’s fading voice came to him, mixed with tears and sighs. “Oh, my God, my God...”

- Look, he’ll destroy the whole card! - Granka suddenly shouted. “I fell asleep!” Let me take it from him!

Petrovna blocked Kocheryzhka from her:

- Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, Granechka! I'll take it myself later!

Anna Dmitrievna, as if waking up, ran to the bed, fluffed up the pillow and took the sleeping boy from Petrovna’s hands. Granka spun around right there to pull Vasya’s card out of Kocheryzhka’s hot, sleepy hands, but her mother silently took her hand away and, looking into the snub-nosed, serene face of the girl, thought: “What is missing in her—a heart or a mind?”

At night the dog howled. Kocheryzhka knew that she was howling from hunger, from longing for her owners, and for this they wanted to kill her. Kocheryzhka wanted the dog to stop howling and not to be killed. Therefore, one day, when he saw traces of dog paws behind his cellar, he began to take the leftover food there. The dog and the boy were afraid of each other. While Kocheryzhka was putting his treasures in the hole, the dog stood in the distance and waited. He didn't want to stroke her matted fur on her skinny ribs—she didn't want to wag her tail at him. But often they looked at each other.

And then a short conversation took place between them.

"All?" - asked the dog's eyes.

“That’s it,” Kocheryzhka’s eyes answered her.

And the dog left, so that at dusk next day make him wait anxiously behind the cellar, listening to every voice from the house. At the table, Kocheryzhka, looking at everyone’s faces with frightened eyes, hid the bread in his bosom.

One night he woke up from a dog's voice. But it wasn't a howl. It was a short squeal. Kocheryzhka listened. The squeal was not repeated. The boy realized that something had happened. He crawled out of bed and, sobbing, walked to the door. Petrovna, in only a skirt, sleepy and disheveled, grabbed him in her arms:

- Where are you going? Where, my father?

Kocheryzhka cried loudly.

- Shut up, shut up, son... You'll wake up everyone in the house...

But the boy struggled out of her arms and, choking with tears, pointed to the door:

- There, there...

- Where are we going with you? After all, there is darkness outside... There are wolves running around there right now... Look!

Petrovna lifted Kocheryzhka to the window and pulled back the curtain. There was a thaw outside; through the wet glass one could see how a yellow shadow was falling from the illuminated window of an empty house onto the porch. Kocheryzhka suddenly fell silent, and Petrovna, yawning, said:

- No way, have the Samokhins arrived?

That night, a woman walked from the station, sinking deep into the snow with her heavy boots. A torn man's coat, tied with a rope, hugged her knees with wet flaps, a black scarf slid over her shoulders, gray strands

hair stuck to cheeks. The woman often stopped and listened to the dog's howl. At the gate, a torn board touched her shoulder, and a wild dog rose from the porch and, pressing his ears to the back of his head, moved towards her. The woman stretched out her hands to him, barely audibly moving her lips. The dog fell into the snow with a short squeal and crawled towards her on his belly... The woman hugged his neck and took a key from her pocket. Then she went up the steps, opened the door, lit a candle stub, and a yellow shadow fell from the illuminated window, which Kocheryzhka saw.

The dog didn't come. Kocheryzhka waited for her for two days, looking at the light shining across the road. Now hoarse, angry barking could often be heard from there. You could hear the dog rushing to the fence and seeing off those walking by with abrupt barks to the end of the street. He guarded his house. At night, no one heard his pitiful howl and did not threaten to stuff his throat with a club. From the conversations of the neighbors, Kocheryzhka knew that one old woman, Marya Vlasyevna, had returned to the Samokhins’ house... Grandma Markevna, who had not gone anywhere during the war, considered herself the mistress of an empty village with boarded-up houses. It seemed to her that it was she who, by staying here, under German bombs, saved the entire village from destruction. And like a hostess, she greeted everyone returning, warmly and compassionately, not stinting either on sympathy or on a bundle of firewood for the cold people. She was the first to appear to families who had not yet warmed up the empty corners, and, leaning against the door frame, chillyly wrapped in a checkered shawl, she said:

- Well, thank God! We're back! You won’t hurt your feet on your own doorstep!

And then she vigilantly noticed someone’s tear-stained eyes, sadly shook her head, cursed the fascist murderers, wiped away her tears with the end of a handkerchief and consoled:

- What to do, dear, war... Now you can’t return it and you won’t climb into the grave yourself. Restrain your heart, no matter how you are... You will probably not be the only one to cry, people with you will cry both over your grief and over their own... All together, it will be easier...

Her gray, sharp face, warm hands with dark veins, tears and sympathy were soothing. More than one orphaned woman cried out her grief with Markevna. After crying, Grandma Markevna busily ordered:

- Try the stove - does it smoke? Let's come to me: I'll give you some dry firewood or pour some boiling water.

Grandma Markevna lived alone, but from morning to evening she was surrounded by people - women, children. Everyone needed something. Sometimes, on a wide bench under the grandmother’s stove, someone’s bundled-up child would sit, and the grandmother, coming from the yard, would say:

- Look, God sent... Whose is this? Safronovs or Zhurkins? - And she answered to herself: - I suppose the Zhurkins... She went to the city to visit her daughter-in-law today...

Having rattled the damper in the oven, Markevna pulled out a hot potato, blew on it, tossed it from palm to palm, and brought it to the child:

- Damn it... Warm your hands and eat it!

Now Grandma Markevna often sat with Petrovna and, pointing to Samokhina’s house, said with offense:

“I’m going to her, and she’s leaving me... I’m going into the yard, and she’s going into the house... I see there’s no face on her.”

“Yes, yes,” confirmed Petrovna, “she is aloof from people... and sometimes, when she worked as a librarian at a factory, there was no end to just the guys, she welcomed everyone herself.”

Markevna freed her pointed chin from her shawl and blew her nose noisily.

“I’m coming up in the canopy, but my heart is not in the right place... And I feel sorry for her, and it’s sickening to impose myself... I just think to myself: grief is like a noose around the neck, if there is no one to stretch it, it will overwhelm the whole person,” Markevna looked back at Kocheryzhka and suddenly whispered: “After all, she returned alone.” Where is the daughter-in-law, where is the granddaughter. Everything is probably buried in damp soil. As if it never happened, it never happened. And she’s all torn, her little coat is thin...

“Oh-ho-ho...” Petrovna sighed, resting her cheek on her hand. “After all, a man lived like a house full of people!” But where did she lose everyone?

But Markevna has already switched from sympathy to resentment again:

- Is there really a human soul left in her? “My dear,” I say, “have you returned to your little house alone?” And she looked at me, grabbed the table with her hands, and shouted: “Don’t ask!” My fathers! It’s like I stuck a needle in her heart...” Markevna covered herself with a handkerchief and began to cry.

Petrovna glanced briefly at Kocheryzhka. His face was gray, his lips were trembling, and there was fear in his eyes.

- Get out of here! What kind of child is this?! - Petrovna shouted angrily and, grabbing Kocheryzhka by the hand, pulled him into the kitchen. “Go get dressed, at least take a walk with the guys!” “She threw him an overcoat and a scarf. “Go, go!” It’s always like this: he sticks to the bench and sits, gets on your nerves,” she explained to Grandma Markevna, returning to the room.

Kocheryzhka hesitantly stomped around in the kitchen, took a baked potato from the stove, put on his overcoat, went out into the yard and wandered towards the barking of the dog. He wanted to look at the dog, which had not come to the cellar for two days. But he was afraid that that woman would suddenly appear on the Samokhins’ porch and scream at him as at Grandma Markevna. There was no one in the yard. Without taking his eyes off the closed door, Kocheryzhka stood at the fence for a long time, then bravely walked towards the gate.

Marya Vlasyevna sat alone by the cold stove. A broken stool and a cleaver were lying next to her. The creaking of the door, the gray overcoat and the outstretched hand with a baked potato frightened her. She brushed her gray hair from her forehead and, closing her eyes, said:

- My God, what is this?

Marya Vlasyevna took a deep breath:

- Top!

A dog ran in from the yard, sniffed the boy noisily and, wagging its tail, stopped next to him. Marya Vlasyevna silently watched as Kocheryzhka fed the dog. Then she looked into the stove and struck a match. The match went out. She struck again. Kocheryzhka picked up thin slivers from the floor and placed them in front of her. Then he hugged the dog by the neck and said in surprise:

- I'm not afraid of her.

Dry boards crackled in the stove. The boy carefully squatted down and extended his red hands to the light.

- Whose are you? - Marya Vlasyevna asked quietly, peering into his face with intense attention.

— Vasya Voronova. “I’m Kocheryzhka,” he said timidly and, noticing a faint smile on her lips, he began to tell his story.

He did it just like Petrovna, resting his hand on his neck and swaying from side to side. Marya Vlasyevna listened to him with surprise and pity. Saying goodbye, Kocheryzhka said:

- I’ll come to you tomorrow too.

Along the way, Granya adopted it. Waving the ends of the handkerchief, she angrily dragged him towards the house:

- He walks around, I don’t know where! All covered in snow! A real Kocheryzhka!

Samokhina avoided her neighbors. She sat alone for hours with her hands on her knees. Her memory, with painful precision, pictured her first one thing and then another... The things scattered in disarray reminded her of getting ready for the trip and the tear-stained face of her daughter-in-law Masha. Masha explained her tears in different ways, at random: either by reluctance to part with a familiar corner, or by fear of an unfamiliar road. Marya Vlasyevna did not know then that Masha was hiding her son’s death from her, that she alone was going through her grave grief, sparing her old mother. Marya Vlasyevna remembers how angry she was with her for these tears, how on the last night of the preparations, losing patience, she sternly shouted at her daughter-in-law: “Stop it! Get a hold of yourself! Ashamed! People are losing loved ones..."

Marya Vlasyevna's thoughts are racing. She sees a long train filled with women and children. She sits between her own and other people’s bundles, squeezing the car into a corner; The granddaughter’s sweaty head, covered with her wide palm, is pressed to her chest. In the twilight, Masha’s large, tear-stained eyes. And then the bombing and a remote stop, where she, Marya Vlasyevna, rushed between the broken cars, not letting go of the round blue teapot and senselessly explaining to someone with eyes frozen in horror: “I went for something hot... for something hot...”

And from under the rubble people pulled out something terrible, shapeless, which could no longer be recognized as either the granddaughter or Masha. Someone took away her blood-stained hood, someone put a bundle in her hands and led her behind a stretcher covered with a gray tarpaulin... Lost at this stop, alone among strangers, she accidentally untied Mashin’s bundle and there she found her son’s card along with his letters to his wife. Next to the card lay a gray piece of paper that reported the glorious death of the honest fighter Andrei Samokhin... The son’s face was joyful and surprised, as if he himself did not believe in this message about his death. Marya Vlasyevna clenched her hands, looked around the empty corners and whispered without tears:

- My children... children...

The top placed his sharp muzzle on her lap and, sighing noisily, licked her old, wrinkled hands.

Now, when Kocheryzhka hid the bread in his pocket, Petrovna cast a significant glance at Anna Dmitrievna, and she herself placed a pile of baked potatoes in front of the boy:

- Eat, eat, son! Otherwise, hide it for later!

Kocheryzhka took the potatoes in his hands and looked at everyone with an incredulous, questioning look. But everyone looked at their plates, otherwise they deliberately went out into the kitchen, and, watching how Kocheryzhka hastily pulled on his overcoat, Petrovna mysteriously whispered:

- Gathered...

And Anna Dmitrievna sighed heavily:

- What does he need there?

If it weren’t for Markevna, the Voronov family would have long ago banned Kocheryzhka from visiting her unsociable neighbor.

- He himself was born into grief, and even at her grief he goggles. This way you can completely spoil the child,” Petrovna worried.

“If you don’t let me in, she’ll cry,” Anna Dmitrievna was upset.

Granka pouted her pink lips:

- You allow it... Vasya will come and everyone will get it... She didn’t find him, and okay!

But Markevna had a different opinion.

- How can you not let me in? - she said sternly. “It’s a sin to restrain his heart.” He who wipes away other people's tears will shed less of his own... Not every grief allows one to come close, but a child is like a warm ray... After all, I, the old one, have upset her darling...

Samokhina’s story, embellished and implausible, circulated throughout the village, they talked about it in the factory cooperative, where people received potatoes.

The only truth in all this was that the woman was left alone. But this was not what tormented Markevna when she remembered Samokhin. She was tormented by the dead soul in a living person, and, unable to revive it herself, she relied on Kocheryzhka.

When leaving, Markevna took out a freshly baked loaf of bread from under her scarf and thrust it to Petrovna:

- Give it to the boy... let him blow it... from himself, it seems.

Kocheryzhka did not understand the little tricks of adults, he really carried it from himself. Entering Marya Vlasyevna’s house, he simply laid out everything he had brought on the table, choosing pieces for the dog. Once Samokhina said sternly:

“Don’t wear it anymore,” But, noticing the fear in his eyes, she asked: “Who is sending you?”

“I’m going myself,” Kocheryzhka sobbed.

Marya Vlasyevna stroked his head:

- Don’t wear it anymore, do you hear? So come...

In the evening she collected some laundry, adjusted the light bulb and sat down to fix it. Then she lit the stove, heated the water, washed the room, pulled out a small chair from the shed and, after thinking, placed it near the stove.

It was getting dark, but Kocheryzhka was not there. Anna Dmitrievna could not stand it, put on a shawl and went to Samokhina’s house:

- At least I’ll see with my own eyes how he’s doing...

But, having reached the gate, frightened by the furious barking of the dog, she turned back and, arriving home, wrote a letter to her son.

“My dear Vasenka!

I am fulfilling my maternal duty and hasten to consult with you. Your son Volodenka is a quiet boy, he doesn’t give us any trouble, only lately we have completely lost our heads with him and have no idea what we should do...”

Anna Dmitrievna described in detail the return of her neighbor Samokhina, the boy’s affection for her, and ended with the words:

“...He has a soft heart, and a persistent character - all like you.”

Having sealed the letter, she called Granka:

- Take it to the station. Yes, call Kocheryzhka.

“I won’t follow him,” Granka refused.

At that time Entrance door knocked, and along with the frosty steam, two figures stood on the threshold. A woman in a black scarf and a man’s coat, tied with a rope, was holding Kocheryzhka’s hand.

“I had your boy,” she said quietly and turned to leave.

But Anna Dmitrievna became agitated:

- He is with you, and you are with us... sit for a while.

Petrovna quickly pushed Granka off the stool and went out into the kitchen.

- At least have some tea with us... Good neighbors are like a second family. “Having said this, she suddenly became frightened and timidly added: “Don’t offend the old woman, Vlasyevna!”

- Thank you. My dog ​​is locked there,” Marya Vlasyevna said with a sigh.

But Anna Dmitrievna took her into the room and sat her on a stool.

- Sit down, sit down next to me, Volodechka! Sit next to your auntie,” she fussed.

“Drink some tea when it’s cold,” Petrovna encouraged.

Samokhina silently took the cup. Anna Dmitrievna pushed her a piece of sugar.

- Eat, eat, little darling! - Petrovna whispered to Kocheryzhka, not knowing how to conduct the conversation.

Verna looked at the guest point-blank. Smooth gray hair, deep wrinkles. Tired face. She seemed to have a deathly headache. She hardly raised her faded gray eyes to the speaker. Greeting the guest, Petrovna carefully selected her words and, afraid to say what she shouldn’t, looked helplessly at Anna Dmitrievna. Anna Dmitrievna pulled Granka under the table, turned to Kocheryzhka and, not listening to his answers, spoke about the weather:

- It's all snow and snow! And where did so much of it come from? On railway the girls just row... they just row...

In the midst of tea drinking, Markevna entered. Seeing Samokhina at the table, she became timid, thrust the tablet into everyone’s hand and immediately began a loud conversation:

- Winter, winter! And spring is here! He sits on a hillock, looking at the sun!

- That's right, that's right! — Feeling her support, Petrovna perked up. “We’ve already suffered through the winter!” Now every plant will reach for the sun, every little soul on earth will feel better.

Markevna looked at her sternly.

“And snowdrops will appear somewhere and nowhere, and yellow flowers along the ravines...” Petrovna began with a frightened face.

And the guest sat silently, clutching the mug with both hands, as if she wanted to warm her frozen hands. Her eyes looked somewhere far away, past these people who were giving her tea. And they, having exhausted all empty words, are frightened

her silence, at first they switched to a whisper, and then fell completely silent, looking at each other in confusion and sadness. One Kocheryzhka was snoring and fidgeting restlessly on the bench. It seemed to him that everyone had forgotten about the guest, and she had been drinking hot water without sugar for a long time. Fearing that she would never leave, he recalled the best, in his opinion, words that Petrovna said to the guests, turned to Samokhina and, pushing the sugar towards her, said loudly:

- Eat, my dear!

Samokhina looked at him and smiled. Petrovna gasped, Granka burst out laughing, and Markevna said triumphantly:

- Treat me! Treat! You are the boss! Ask for another cup!

Seeing off Marya Vlasyevna, Anna Dmitrievna asked not to forget them.

“If the boy doesn’t interfere, then we can only be happy... only happy,” she repeated, fearing to herself that Vasya would give an order not to let Kocheryzhka near Samokhina.

Now every morning after breakfast Kocheryzhka began to get ready.

- To work, son? - Petrovna asked him jokingly, not suspecting that after the ban on carrying food, the boy came up with a new chore: walking around the yard or along the road, he diligently collected wood chips, put them in a bouquet, brought them to Marya Vlasyevna and silently watched as she kindled the fire with his wood chips .

He liked that the room was clean. Having left a trail of wet felt boots on the floor, he took a rag and, snoring, wiped away his marks. More and more often he found Samokhin at work. One day she brought it in a round basket dirty laundry, and the next day, approaching the house, he saw thick white smoke pouring out of the chimney. The room was warm, a boiler was bubbling on the stove. Marya Vlasyevna was washing, rolling up her sleeves. Kocheryzhka stopped on the threshold and smiled tenderly:

- It's warm here!

Marya Vlasyevna took off his overcoat and pulled a chair towards the stove:

- Warm up. Look at the pictures.

She took a damp picture book from the shelf and handed it to the boy. The dog sat down next to him. Turning the pages, Kocheryzhka looked at the pictures and moved his lips.

Marya Vlasyevna pulled a chair towards the stove and began to read. She read slowly: the many words and her own voice tired her. Sometimes, turning the page, she fell silent, but Kocheryzhka’s eyes looked at her with impatient expectation, and she read on until she finished the story.

- All? - Kocheryzhka asked with regret.

The boy looked at her intently and, tilting his head, asked:

— Do you have boots?

- No. And you? - Marya Vlasyevna suddenly asked slyly.

He looked at his trampled felt boots:

- And I don’t have one!

They both laughed.

Since then, reading has become a favorite pastime for both of them. Marya Vlasyevna washed linen for the factory canteen; Kocheryzhka waited patiently until she finished washing and, moving his chair to the stove, began to read to him. We moved from fairy tales to short stories. Kashtanka was the first to be published. In the place where the little dog runs along the street, looking for traces of the carpenter, Kocheryzhka became agitated. He stopped listening, looked ahead and asked impatiently:

- Where is your owner, where is your owner? - And he got angry: - I don’t need to talk about the goose! I say, look for the owner!

Marya Vlasyevna had to prove, explain, and persuade. Kocheryzhka listened, agreed and, pressing against her shoulder, asked:

- Read, Baba Manya!

Life began to return to its previous rut. Anna Dmitrievna no longer brought soup from the dining room, and Petrovna increasingly spoiled her family with hot flatbreads. The boys' cheeks turned pink. Kocheryzhka was forced to drink goat's milk, and as he jumped around the room, Petrovna joked:

- Look, look, the goat is bungling!

Only one letter came from Vasya. It smelled of recent gunpowder, was full of homesickness and confidence in the near end of the war:

“If only I could set foot on my native land, hug you all and look into my son’s eyes... This guy has probably grown up! After all, he is in his sixth year! It’s a pity he doesn’t recognize me!”

- Where can I find out? - Petrovna sighed.

It was snowing. The wet black earth has dried up. People began to bustle joyfully and poured out into their gardens. They cut up the beds, tied up young trees and called from yard to yard in ringing, rejuvenated voices. In Marya Vlasyevna’s garden, the strawberry bushes turned green, and thin raspberry twigs crawled out from under the snow. Beans tied in a rag were soaking in a plate on the window. Stump looked into the rag every day and was touched when tiny green tails appeared on the beans. Marya Vlasyevna brought cabbage seedlings from the city, they planted them together and rejoiced at the strong, tight stems. On Victory Day, Marya Vlasyevna and Kocheryzhka again sat next to Anna Dmitrievna’s table. A lot of people gathered, it was noisy, they drank to the glorious fighters, to Vasya Voronov. Petrovna poured some sweet wine into a cup and handed it to Kocheryzhka:

- Drink, drink, Vladimir Vasilyevich, to your daddy!

The general joy pushed aside everyone's personal grief. Crying for the dead, people rejoiced at the living. Marya Vlasyevna cried and rejoiced, hugging Petrovna and Anna Dmitrievna. Kocheryzhka looked at everyone with shining eyes and was embarrassed when they drank to his father, Vasya Voronov.

Every day the military came from the blue station. Every now and then, Markevna, covering her eyes with her hand, looked at high road and, seeing a man in a green tunic, she went out onto the porch. She herself went to meet a disabled person without an arm or a leg, bowed low and said:

- Sorry, son! He suffered for us sinners!

And the touched stranger hugged her dry shoulders:

“You didn’t suffer in vain, mother.”

After each train, Petrovna sent Granka to see if Vasya was coming.

Anna Dmitrievna jumped up at night and, hearing voices on the road, called out:

- Vasenka!

Marya Vlasyevna, seeing a military man from afar, pointed him out to Kocheryzhka. But the boy answered confidently:

- Not him. I recognize him right away from everyone.

He assured that even the angry Volchok would not bark at Vasya.

“After all, he is not a stranger, but my father,” he said innocently.

Marya Vlasyevna smiled sadly. She imagined a tall, broad-shouldered man taking Kocheryzhka by the hand and leading him away from her house forever. She even dreamed of a boy following his father, looking back at the porch where they so often sat with a book, at the dog he was feeding, and at her, his grandmother Manya...

And Kocheryzhka, not noticing her anxiety, said more and more often:

- Father is coming to see me!

Vasily Voronov has arrived. He was strong, stocky, with a wide smile and a loud voice. Granka was the first to see him and rushed into the hallway with a squeal. Mother and grandmother jumped out onto the porch. Vasya threw two suitcases from his shoulders, grunted and pressed both old gray heads to his chest.

- Oh, my old ladies!

- You are our fighter, protector! - Petrovna babbled, pouring tears over his tunic.

“Son... son... Vasenka...” Anna Dmitrievna repeated, feeling him with trembling hands.

Granka suddenly became shy at the sight of her brother and hid behind the door.

- Come on, give it here! - Vasily shouted, pulling out his little sister, - Well, show yourself, what have you become? Small, big, kind, evil?

Having released Granka, Vasya looked around and asked anxiously:

- Where is he?

Everyone understood that he was asking about Kocheryzhka.

“Now, now,” Petrovna hurried, tying a scarf.

Anna Dmitrievna hurriedly began to tell that the boy was with her neighbor Samokhina, whom she wrote about in a letter.

- The same one? So, is their friendship going well? - Vasya smiled widely, grabbed his hat and shouted to Petrovna: - Stop, grandma! I'll go there myself! I'll confuse them now! Which house? - Smiling cheerfully, he ran across the road to Samokhina’s house.

Kocheryzhka in long blue pants stood next to Marya Vlasyevna, trimming raspberry bushes with large garden scissors. Marya Vlasyevna was saying something to him, straightening her hair that had escaped from under her scarf. Volchok barked at the fence. Kocheryzhka looked around, threw down the scissors and said in a whisper:

- Baba Manya...

A military man walked from the gate, driving away the dog with his hat. Kocheryzhka rushed towards him, but suddenly, timid, he stopped.

- Stump! Vladimir Vasilievich?! - Vasya Voronov shouted, spreading his arms wide.

Kocheryzhka closed his eyes and jumped up and grabbed him by the neck.

- What a son, what a son I have grown up with! - Vasily said, looking into his face.

Marya Vlasyevna silently looked at them with a confused, pathetic smile. The dog squealed restlessly.

- Recognized me? — Vasily asked joyfully, stroking the boy’s dark eyebrows with his fingers and peering intently into the familiar bluish-green eyes.

- I found out! I recognized it right away! And she found out! - Kocheryzhka turned to Marya Vlasyevna and, grabbing Vasily’s hand with both hands, dragged him along with him. - Did you recognize my father? — he quickly and anxiously asked Marya Vlasyevna.

- I didn’t recognize it, so I found out! - Vasya said with excitement in his voice and, going up to Marya Vlasyevna, kissed her on both cheeks. “We’ve probably known each other for a long time!” We met through him, am I right?

Marya Vlasyevna looked into his open eyes and sighed with relief. And Kocheryzhka was already dragging Vasya by the hand, showing him the beds and bushes and saying, breathless with joy:

- Look what we planted here with her! Look, father!

He pronounced the word “father” firmly, as if he had long been accustomed to it. And Vasya Voronov, constantly turning to Samokhina, repeated:

- Thank you for it, thank you! - And he rejoiced uncontrollably: - No, what a son I have!

Marya Vlasyevna smiled and nodded her head, but her hands trembled. She stopped at the porch, raised her tired gray eyes to Vasya Voronov and quietly asked:

—Will you go somewhere or will you live with your mother?

He understood her question and said firmly:

- Nowhere! He and I now have two houses, both our own. What else should we look for?

This is a touching and tragic date for every family of our great people.

The cruel and terrible events in which our grandfathers and great-grandfathers participated go deep into history.
Soldiers fighting on the battlefield. In the rear, both old and young worked hard for the Great Victory.
How many children stood up to defend their Motherland on an equal basis with adults? What feats did they perform?
Tell and read stories, stories, books to children about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
Our descendants must know who protected them from fascism. Know the truth about the terrible war.
On the holiday of MAY 9, visit a monument or memorial that is located in your city and lay flowers. It will be touching if you and your child mark the event with a minute of silence.
Draw your child's attention to the awards of war veterans, which are becoming fewer and fewer every year. Congratulate the veterans with all your heart on Great Victory Day.
It is important to remember that every gray hair contains all the horror and wounds of this terrible war.

"No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten"

Dedicated to the Great Victory!

Asecond: Ilgiz Garayev

I was born and raised in a peaceful land. I know well how spring thunderstorms make noise, but I have never heard gunfire.

I see how new houses are being built, but I did not realize how easily houses are destroyed under a hail of bombs and shells.

I know how dreams end, but I find it hard to believe that human life ending it is as easy as a cheerful morning dream.

Nazi Germany, violating the non-aggression pact, invaded the territory Soviet Union.

And, in order not to end up in fascist slavery, for the sake of saving the Motherland, the people entered into battle, into mortal combat with an insidious, cruel and merciless enemy.

Then the Great Patriotic War for the honor and independence of our Motherland began.

Millions of people rose to defend the country.

In the war, infantrymen and artillerymen, tank crews and pilots, sailors and signalmen - warriors of many, many military specialties, entire regiments, divisions, ships, were awarded military orders and received honorary titles for the heroism of their soldiers.

When the flames of war raged, together with the entire Soviet people, cities and villages, farmsteads and villages rose to defend the Motherland. Anger and hatred towards the vile enemy, the indomitable desire to do everything to defeat him filled the hearts of people.

Every day of the Great Patriotic War at the front and in the rear is a feat of boundless courage and fortitude of the Soviet people, loyalty to the Motherland.

“Everything for the front, everything for Victory!”

During the harsh days of the war, children stood next to adults. Schoolchildren earned money for the defense fund, collected warm clothes for front-line soldiers, stood guard on the roofs of houses during air raids, performed concerts in front of wounded soldiers in hospitals. The fascist barbarians destroyed and burned 1,710 cities and more than 70 thousand villages, destroyed 84 thousand schools, 25 million people were made homeless.

Concentration death camps became an ominous symbol of the bestial appearance of fascism.

In Buchenwald, 56 thousand people were killed, in Dachau - 70 thousand, in Mauthausen - more than 122 thousand, in Majdanek - the number of victims was about 1 million 500 thousand people, in Auschwitz over 4 million people died.

If the memory of every person who died in the Second World War was honored with a minute of silence, it would take 38 years.

The enemy spared neither women nor children.

May day 1945. Acquaintances and strangers they hugged each other, gave flowers, sang and danced right in the streets. It seemed that for the first time millions of adults and children raised their eyes to the sun, for the first time they enjoyed the colors, sounds, and smells of life!

It was a common holiday for all our people, all humanity. It was a holiday for every person. Because victory over fascism signified victory over death, reason over madness, happiness over suffering.

In almost every family, someone died, went missing, or died from wounds.

Every year the events of the Great Patriotic War recede further into the depths of history. But for those who fought, who drank the full cup of both the bitterness of retreat and the joy of our great victories, these events will never be erased from memory, they will forever remain alive and close. It seemed that it was simply impossible to survive in the midst of heavy fire and not lose your mind at the sight of the death of thousands of people and monstrous destruction.

But the power of the human spirit turned out to be stronger than metal and fire.

That is why with such deep respect and admiration we look at those who went through the hell of war and retained the best human qualities - kindness, compassion and mercy.

66 years have passed since Victory Day. But we have not forgotten about those 1418 days and nights that the Great Patriotic War lasted.

It claimed almost 26 million lives of Soviet people. During these endlessly long four years, our long-suffering land was washed with streams of blood and tears. And if we were to collect together the bitter maternal tears shed for our lost sons, a Sea of ​​Sorrow would form, and rivers of Suffering would flow from it to all corners of the planet.

The future of the planet is dear to us, the modern generation. Our task is to protect peace, to fight so that people are not killed, shots are not fired, human blood is not shed.

The sky should be blue, the sun should be bright, warm, kind and affectionate, people's lives should be safe and happy.

Weekend dress

This happened even before the start of the war with the Nazis.

Katya Izvekova's parents gave her a new dress. The dress is elegant, silk, weekend.

Katya didn’t have time to renew the gift. War broke out. The dress was left hanging in the closet. Katya thought: the war will end, so she will put on her evening dress.

Fascist planes continuously bombed Sevastopol from the air.

Sevastopol went underground, into the rocks.

Military warehouses, headquarters, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, repair shops, even a cinema, even hairdressers - all of this crashed into stones, into mountains.

Sevastopol residents also set up two military factories underground.

Katya Izvekova began working on one of them. The plant produced mortars, mines, and grenades. Then he began to master the production of aerial bombs for Sevastopol pilots.

Everything was found in Sevastopol for such production: explosives, metal for the body, even fuses were found. There is only one. The gunpowder used to detonate the bombs had to be poured into bags made of natural silk.

They began to look for silk for bags. We contacted various warehouses.

For one:

No natural silk.

On the second:

No natural silk.

We went to the third, fourth, fifth.

There is no natural silk anywhere.

And suddenly... Katya appears. They ask Katya:

Well, did you find it?

“I found it,” Katya answers.

That's right, the girl has a package in her hands.

They unwrapped Katya's package. They look: there is a dress in the package. Same thing. Day off. Made from natural silk.

That's it Katya!

Thanks, Kate!

Katino's dress was cut at the factory. We sewed the bags. Gunpowder was added. They put the bags in the bombs. They sent bombs to the pilots at the airfield.

Following Katya, other workers brought their weekend dresses to the factory. There are now no interruptions in the operation of the plant. Behind the bomb is a bomb ready.

Pilots take to the skies. The bombs hit the target exactly.

Bul-bul

The fighting in Stalingrad continues unabated. The Nazis are rushing to the Volga.

Some fascist made Sergeant Noskov angry. Our trenches and those of the Nazis ran side by side here. Speech can be heard from trench to trench.

The fascist sits in his hiding place and shouts:

Rus, tomorrow glug-glug!

That is, he wants to say that tomorrow the Nazis will break through to the Volga and throw the defenders of Stalingrad into the Volga.

Rus, tomorrow gurg-glug. - And he clarifies: - Bul-gur at Volga.

This “glug-glug” gets on Sergeant Noskov’s nerves.

Others are calm. Some of the soldiers even chuckle. A Noskov:

Eka, damned Fritz! Show yourself. Let me at least look at you.

The Hitlerite just leaned out. Noskov looked, and other soldiers looked. Reddish. Ospovat. Ears stick out. The cap on the crown miraculously stays on.

The fascist leaned out and again:

Glug-glug!

One of our soldiers grabbed a rifle. He raised it and took aim.

Don't touch! - Noskov said sternly.

The soldier looked at Noskov in surprise. Shrugged. He took the rifle away.

Until the evening, the long-eared German croaked: “Rus, tomorrow glug-glug. Tomorrow at Volga's."

By evening the fascist soldier fell silent.

“He fell asleep,” they understood in our trenches. Our soldiers gradually began to doze off. Suddenly they see someone starting to crawl out of the trench. They look - Sergeant Noskov. And behind him is his best friend, Private Turyanchik. The friends got out of the trench, hugged the ground, and crawled towards the German trench.

The soldiers woke up. They are perplexed. Why did Noskov and Turyanchik suddenly go to visit the Nazis? The soldiers look there, to the west, their eyes breaking in the darkness. The soldiers began to worry.

But someone said:

Brothers, they are crawling back.

The second confirmed:

That's right, they are coming back.

The soldiers looked closely - right. Friends are crawling, hugging the ground. Just not two of them. Three. The soldiers took a closer look: the third fascist soldier, the same one - “glug-glug”. He just doesn't crawl. Noskov and Turyanchik are dragging him. A soldier is gagged.

The screamer's friends dragged him into the trench. We rested and continued to headquarters.

However, they fled along the road to the Volga. They grabbed the fascist by the hands, by the neck, and dunked him into the Volga.

Glug-glug, glug-glug! - Turyanchik shouts mischievously.

Bubble-bulb, - the fascist blows bubbles. Shaking like an aspen leaf.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” Noskov said. - Russians don’t hit someone who is down.

The soldiers handed over the prisoner to headquarters.

Noskov waved goodbye to the fascist.

“Bul-bull,” said Turyanchik, saying goodbye.

Special task

The task was unusual. It was called special. The commander of the marine brigade, Colonel Gorpishchenko, said this:

The task is unusual. Special. - Then he asked again: - Is that clear?

“I see, Comrade Colonel,” answered the infantry sergeant-major, the senior leader over the group of reconnaissance officers.

He was summoned to the colonel alone. He returned to his comrades. He chose two to help and said:

Get ready. We had a special task.

However, what kind of special thing the foreman did not say yet.

It was New Year's Eve, 1942. It is clear to the scouts: on such and such a night, of course, the task is extremely special. The scouts follow the foreman, talking to each other:

Maybe a raid on the fascist headquarters?

Take it higher,” the foreman smiles.

Maybe we can capture the general?

Higher, higher,” the elder laughs.

The scouts crossed at night to the territory occupied by the Nazis and advanced deeper. They walk carefully, stealthily.

Scouts again:

Maybe we’ll go blow up the bridge like the partisans?

Maybe we can carry out sabotage at the fascist airfield?

They look at the elder. The elder smiles.

Night. Darkness. Dumbness. Deafness. Scouts are walking in the fascist rear. We went down the steep slope. They climbed the mountain. We entered the pine forest. Crimean pines clung to the stones. It smelled pleasantly of pine. The soldiers remembered their childhood.

The foreman approached one of the pine trees. He walked around, looked, and even felt the branches with his hand.

Good?

Good, say the scouts.

I saw another one nearby.

This one is better?

It seems better,” the scouts nodded.

Fluffy?

Fluffy.

Slim?

Slim!

“Well, let’s get down to business,” said the foreman. He took out an ax and cut down a pine tree. “That’s all,” said the foreman. He put the pine tree on his shoulders. - So we completed the task.

“Here they are,” the scouts burst out.

The next day, the scouts were released into the city, to visit the children in the children's preschool underground garden for the New Year tree.

There was a pine tree. Slim. Fluffy. Balls, garlands hang on the pine tree, and colorful lanterns are on.

You may ask: why pine and not Christmas tree? Christmas trees do not grow in those latitudes. And in order to get pine, it was necessary to get to the rear of the Nazis.

Not only here, but also in other places in Sevastopol, New Year trees were lit during that difficult year for children.

Apparently, not only in Colonel Gorpishchenko’s marine brigade, but also in other units, the task for the scouts on that New Year’s Eve was special.

Gardeners

This happened shortly before the Battle of Kursk. Reinforcements have arrived to the rifle unit.

The foreman walked around the fighters. Walks along the line. A corporal is walking nearby. Holds a pencil and notepad in his hands.

The foreman looked at the first of the soldiers:

Do you know how to plant potatoes?

The fighter was embarrassed and shrugged.

Do you know how to plant potatoes?

I can! - the soldier said loudly.

Two steps forward.

The soldier is out of action.

Write to the gardeners,” said the sergeant major to the corporal.

Do you know how to plant potatoes?

I haven't tried it.

I didn't have to, but if necessary...

That’s enough,” said the foreman.

The fighters came forward. Anatoly Skurko found himself in the ranks of skilled soldiers. Soldier Skurko wonders: where are they going to go, those who know how? “It’s too late to plant potatoes. (Summer is already in full swing.) If you dig it, it’s very early in time.”

Soldier Skurko tells fortunes. And other fighters are wondering:

Plant potatoes?

Sow carrots?

Cucumbers for the headquarters canteen?

The foreman looked at the soldiers.

“Well,” said the foreman. “From now on, you will be among the miners,” and hands the mines to the soldiers.

The dashing foreman noticed that those who know how to plant potatoes lay mines faster and more reliably.

Soldier Skurko grinned. The other soldiers couldn't hold back their smiles either.

The gardeners got down to business. Of course, not immediately, not at the same moment. Laying mines is not such a simple matter. The soldiers underwent special training.

Minefields and barriers stretched for many kilometers to the north, south, and west of Kursk. On the first day of the Battle of Kursk alone, more than a hundred fascist tanks and self-propelled guns were blown up on these fields and barriers.

The miners are coming.

How are you, gardeners?

Everything is in perfect order.

Evil surname

The soldier was embarrassed by his last name. He was unlucky at birth. Trusov is his last name.

It's war time. The surname is catchy.

Already at the military registration and enlistment office, when a soldier was drafted into the army, the first question was:

Surname?

Trusov.

How how?

Trusov.

Y-yes... - the military registration and enlistment office workers drawled.

A soldier got into the company.

What's the last name?

Private Trusov.

How how?

Private Trusov.

Y-yes... - the commander drawled.

The soldier suffered a lot of troubles from his last name. There are jokes and jokes all around:

Apparently, your ancestor was not a hero.

In a convoy with such a surname!

Field mail will be delivered. The soldiers will gather in a circle. Incoming letters are being distributed. Names given:

Kozlov! Sizov! Smirnov!

Everything is fine. The soldiers come up and take their letters.

Shout out:

Cowards!

The soldiers are laughing all around.

Somehow the surname does not fit with wartime. Woe to the soldier with this surname.

As part of his 149th separate rifle brigade, Private Trusov arrived at Stalingrad. They transported the soldiers across the Volga to the right bank. The brigade entered the battle.

Well, Trusov, let’s see what kind of soldier you are,” said the squad leader.

Trusov doesn’t want to disgrace himself. Trying. The soldiers are going on the attack. Suddenly an enemy machine gun started firing from the left. Trusov turned around. He fired a burst from the machine gun. The enemy machine gun fell silent.

Well done! - the squad leader praised the soldier.

The soldiers ran a few more steps. The machine gun hits again.

Now it's on the right. Trusov turned around. I got close to the machine gunner. Threw a grenade. And this fascist calmed down.

Hero! - said the squad leader.

The soldiers lay down. They are skirmishing with the Nazis. The battle is over. The soldiers counted the killed enemies. Twenty people turned out to be at the place from which Private Trusov was firing.

Ooh! - the squad commander burst out. - Well, brother, your last name is evil. Evil!

Trusov smiled.

For courage and determination in battle, Private Trusov was awarded a medal.

The medal “For Courage” hangs on the hero’s chest. Whoever meets you will squint his eyes at the reward.

The first question for the soldier now is:

What was he awarded for, hero?

No one will ask for your last name now. No one will giggle now. He won’t drop a word with malice.

From now on it is clear to the soldier: the honor of a soldier is not in the surname - a person’s deeds are beautiful.

Unusual operation

Mokapka Zyablov was amazed. Something incomprehensible was happening at their station. A boy lived with his grandfather and grandmother near the city of Sudzhi in a small working-class village at the Lokinskaya station. He was the son of a hereditary railway worker.

Mokapka loved to hang around the station for hours. Especially these days. One by one the echelons come here. They are bringing in military equipment. Mokapka knows that our troops defeated the Nazis near Kursk. They are driving the enemies to the west. Although small, but smart, Mokapka sees that the echelons are coming here. He understands: this means that here, in these places, a further offensive is planned.

The trains are coming, the locomotives are chugging. Soldiers unload military cargo.

Mokapka was spinning around somewhere near the tracks. He sees: a new train has arrived. Tanks stand on platforms. A lot of. The boy began to count the tanks. I looked closer and they were wooden. How can we fight against them?!

The boy rushed to his grandmother.

Wooden,” he whispers, “tanks.”

Really? - the grandmother clasped her hands. He rushed to his grandfather:

Wooden, grandfather, tanks. Raised old eyes for a grandson. The boy rushed to the station. He looks: the train is coming again. The train stopped. Mokapka looked - the guns were on platforms. A lot of. No less than there were tanks.

Mokapka took a closer look - after all, the guns were also wooden! Instead of trunks there are round timbers sticking out.

The boy rushed to his grandmother.

Wooden, he whispers, guns.

Really?.. - the grandmother clasped her hands. He rushed to his grandfather:

Wooden, grandfather, guns.

“Something new,” said the grandfather.

A lot of strange things were going on at the station back then. Somehow boxes with shells arrived. Mountains grew of these boxes. Happy Mockup:

Our fascists will have a blast!

And suddenly he finds out: there are empty boxes at the station. “Why are there whole mountains of such and such?!” - the boy wonders.

But here’s something completely incomprehensible. The troops are coming here. A lot of. The column hurries after the column. They go openly, they arrive before dark.

The boy has an easy character. I immediately met the soldiers. Until dark, he kept spinning around. In the morning he runs to the soldiers again. And then he finds out: the soldiers left these places at night.

Mokapka stands there, wondering again.

Mokapka did not know that our people used military stratagem near Sudzha.

The Nazis are conducting reconnaissance of Soviet troops from airplanes. They see: trains arrive at the station, bring tanks, bring guns.

The Nazis also notice mountains of boxes with shells. They notice that troops are moving here. A lot of. Behind the column comes a column. The fascists see how the troops are approaching, but the enemies do not know that they are leaving unnoticed from here at night.

It is clear to the fascists: this is where a new Russian offensive is being prepared! Here, near the city of Sudzha. They gathered troops near Sudzha, but weakened their forces in other areas. They just pulled it off - and then there was a blow! However, not under Sudzha. Ours struck in another place. They defeated the Nazis again. And soon they were completely defeated in the Battle of Kursk.

Vyazma

The fields near Vyazma are free. The hills run towards the sky.

You can’t erase the words from there. Near the city of Vyazma large group Soviet troops were surrounded by the enemy. The fascists are happy.

Hitler himself, the leader of the Nazis, calls to the front:

Surrounded?

“That’s right, our Fuhrer,” the fascist generals report.

Have you laid down your weapons?

The generals are silent.

Have you laid down your weapons?

Here is a brave one found.

No. I dare to report, my Fuhrer... - The General wanted to say something.

However, Hitler was distracted by something. The speech was interrupted mid-sentence.

For several days now, being surrounded, Soviet soldiers have been fighting stubbornly. They shackled the fascists. The fascist offensive breaks down. Enemies are stuck near Vyazma.

Again Hitler calls from Berlin:

Surrounded?

“That’s right, our Fuhrer,” the fascist generals report.

Have you laid down your weapons?

The generals are silent.

Have you laid down your weapons?

A terrible curse came from the tube.

“I dare to report, my Fuhrer,” the brave one is trying to say something. - Our Frederick the Great also said...

Days pass again. The fighting near Vyazma continues. The enemies were stuck near Vyazma.

Vyazma knits them, knits them. She grabbed me by the throat!

The great Fuhrer is angry. Another call from Berlin.

Have you laid down your weapons?

The generals are silent.

Have you laid down your weapons?!

No, the brave man is responsible for everyone.

A stream of bad words poured out again. The membrane in the tube began to dance.

The general fell silent. I waited it out. I caught the moment:

I dare to report that my Fuhrer, our great, our wise King Frederick also said...

Hitler listens:

Well, well, what did our Friedrich say?

Frederick the Great said, the general repeated, the Russians must be shot twice. And then push, my Fuhrer, so that they fall.

The Fuhrer muttered something incomprehensible into the phone. The Berlin wire has become disconnected.

For a whole week the fighting continued near Vyazma. The week was invaluable for Moscow. During these days, the defenders of Moscow managed to gather their strength and prepared convenient lines for defense.

The fields near Vyazma are free. The hills run towards the sky. Here in the fields, on the hills near Vyazma, hundreds of heroes lie. Here, defending Moscow, the Soviet people performed a great military feat.

Remember!

Keep the bright memory of them!

General Zhukov

Army General Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was appointed commander of the Western Front - the front that included most of the troops defending Moscow.

Zhukov arrived on the Western Front. Staff officers report to him the combat situation.

Fighting is taking place near the city of Yukhnov, near Medyn, near Kaluga.

Officers find Yukhnov on the map.

Here, they report, near Yukhnov, to the west of the city... - and they report where and how the fascist troops are located near the city of Yukhnov.

No, no, they are not here, but here,” Zhukov corrects the officers and himself points out the places where the Nazis are at this time.

The officers looked at each other. They look at Zhukov in surprise.

Here, here, in this exact place. Don’t doubt it, says Zhukov.

Officers continue to report the situation.

Here, - they find the city of Medyn on the map, - to the north-west of the city, the enemy has concentrated large forces - and they list what forces: tanks, artillery, mechanized divisions ...

“Yes, yes, right,” says Zhukov. “Only the forces are not here, but here,” Zhukov clarifies from the map.

Again the officers look at Zhukov in surprise. They forgot about the further report, about the map.

The staff officers bent over the map again. They report to Zhukov what the combat situation is near the city of Kaluga.

Here, the officers say, south of Kaluga, the enemy pulled up motorized mechanized units. This is where they are standing at this moment.

No, Zhukov objects. - They are not in this place now. This is where the parts have been moved, and shows the new location on the map.

The staff officers were dumbfounded. They look at the new commander with undisguised surprise. Zhukov sensed distrust in the eyes of the officers. He grinned.

Do not doubt. That's exactly how it is. “You guys are great - you know the situation,” Zhukov praised the staff officers. - But mine is more precise.

It turns out that General Zhukov had already visited Yukhnov, Medyn, and Kaluga. Before going to headquarters, I went straight to the battlefield. This is where the accurate information comes from.

General and then Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, an outstanding Soviet commander, hero of the Great Patriotic War. This is under his leadership and under the leadership of other Soviet generals Soviet troops defended Moscow from enemies. And then, in stubborn battles, they defeated the Nazis in the Great Moscow Battle.

Moscow sky

This happened even before the start of the Moscow Battle.

Hitler was daydreaming in Berlin. Wondering: what to do with Moscow? He suffers to make something so unusual and original. I thought and thought...

Hitler came up with this. I decided to flood Moscow with water. Build huge dams around Moscow. Fill the city and all living things with water.

Everything will perish immediately: people, houses and the Moscow Kremlin!

He closed his eyes. He sees: in place of Moscow, a bottomless sea splashes!

Descendants will remember me!

Then I thought: “Uh, until the water comes in...”

Wait?!

No, he doesn’t agree to wait long.

Destroy now! This very minute!

Hitler thought, and here is the order:

Bomb Moscow! Destroy! With shells! Bombs! Send squadrons! Send armadas! Leave no stone unturned! Raze it to the ground!

He threw his hand forward like a sword:

Destroy! Raze it to the ground!

That’s right, raze it to the ground,” the fascist generals froze in readiness.

On July 22, 1941, exactly a month after the start of the war, the Nazis carried out their first air raid on Moscow.

The Nazis immediately sent 200 planes on this raid. The engines hum impudently.

The pilots lounged in their seats. Moscow is getting closer, getting closer. The fascist pilots reached for the bomb levers.

But what is it?! Powerful searchlights crossed sword-knives in the sky. Red-star Soviet fighters rose to meet the air robbers.

The Nazis did not expect such a meeting. The enemy formation has become disordered. Only a few planes broke through to Moscow then. And they were in a hurry. They threw bombs wherever they had to, they would quickly drop them and run away from here.

The Moscow sky is harsh. The uninvited guest is severely punished. 22 planes were shot down.

Well... - the fascist generals drawled.

We thought about it. We now decided to send planes not all at once, not in a single heap, but in small groups.

The Bolsheviks will be punished!

The next day, again 200 planes fly to Moscow. They fly in small groups - three or four cars in each.

And again they were met by Soviet anti-aircraft gunners, again they were driven away by red star fighters.

For the third time, the Nazis are sending planes to Moscow. Hitler's generals were intelligent and inventive. The generals came up with a new plan. They decided to send the planes in three tiers. Let one group of planes fly low from the ground. The second one is a little higher. And the third - both at a high altitude and a little late. The first two groups will distract the attention of the defenders of the Moscow sky, the generals reason, and at this time, at a high altitude, the third group will quietly approach the city, and the pilots will drop bombs exactly on the target.

And now there are fascist planes in the sky again. The pilots lounged in their seats. The engines are humming. The bombs froze in the hatches.

There's a group coming. The second one is behind her. And a little behind, at a high altitude, the third. The very last one to fly was a special plane, with cameras. He will take photographs of how fascist planes destroy Moscow and bring them for display to the generals...

The generals are waiting for news. The first plane is returning. The engines stalled. The screws stopped. The pilots came out. Pale, pale. They can barely stand on their feet.

The Nazis lost fifty aircraft that day. The photographer did not return either. They shot him down on the way.

The Moscow sky is inaccessible. It strictly punishes enemies. The insidious calculation of the fascists collapsed.

The fascists and their possessed Fuhrer dreamed of destroying Moscow to its foundations, to the stone. What happened?

Red Square

The enemy is nearby. Soviet troops abandoned Volokolamsk and Mozhaisk. In some sections of the front, the Nazis came even closer to Moscow. Fighting is taking place near Naro-Fominsk, Serpukhov and Tarusa.

But as always, on this day dear to all citizens of the Soviet Union, a military parade took place in Moscow, on Red Square, in honor of the great holiday.

When soldier Mitrokhin was told that the unit in which he serves would take part in the parade on Red Square, the soldier did not believe it at first. I decided that I had made a mistake, that I had misheard, that I had misunderstood something.

Parade! - the commander explains to him. - Solemn, on Red Square.

That’s right, a parade,” Mitrokhin answers. However, there is disbelief in the eyes.

And then Mitrokhin froze in the ranks. It stands on Red Square. And to his left are troops. And there are troops on the right. Party leaders and government members at the Lenin Mausoleum. Everything is exactly like in the old peacetime.

It’s just a rarity for this day - it’s white all around from the snow. The frost hit early today. Snow fell all night until morning. He whitewashed the Mausoleum, laid it on the walls of the Kremlin, on the square.

8 am. The clock hands on the Kremlin tower converged.

The chimes struck the time.

Minute. Everything was quiet. The parade commander gave the traditional report. The host parade congratulates the troops on the anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Everything was quiet again. One more minute. And so, at first, quietly, and then louder and louder, the words of the Chairman of the State Defense Committee, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Comrade Stalin, sound.

Stalin says that this is not the first time that our enemies have attacked us. That there were more difficult times in the history of the young Soviet Republic. That we celebrated the first anniversary of the Great October Revolution surrounded on all sides by invaders. That 14 capitalist states fought against us then and we lost three-quarters of our territory. But the Soviet people believed in victory. And they won. They will win now.

“The whole world is looking at you,” the words reach Mitrokhin, “as a force capable of destroying the predatory hordes of German invaders.”

The soldiers stood frozen in line.

The great liberation mission has fallen to your lot,” the words fly through the frost. - Be worthy of this mission!

Mitrokhin pulled himself up. His face became more stern, more serious, more stern.

The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war. - And after this, Stalin said: - Let the courageous image of our great ancestors - Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dmitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov - inspire you in this war! Let the victorious banner of the great Lenin overshadow you!

The bits are fascists. Moscow stands and blooms as before. Getting better from year to year.

Incident at the crossing

There was one soldier in our company. Before the war, he studied at a music institute and played the button accordion so wonderfully that one of the fighters once said:

Brothers, this is an incomprehensible deception! There must be some kind of cunning mechanism hidden in this box! I'd like to see...

Please,” answered the accordion player. “It’s just time for me to glue the bellows.”

And in front of everyone, he dismantled the instrument.

"Oh, no," the soldier said disappointedly. "It's empty, like a spent cartridge case..."

Inside the button accordion, between two wooden boxes connected by a leather accordion bellows, it was indeed empty. Only on the side plates, where the buttons are located on the outside, were there wide metal plates with holes of different sizes. Hidden behind each hole is a narrow copper petal strip. When the fur is stretched, air passes through the holes and causes the copper petals to vibrate. And they sound. Thin - high. Thicker - lower, and the thick petals seem to sing in a bass voice. If a musician stretches the bellows too much, the records sound loud. If the air is pumped weakly, the records vibrate a little, and the music turns out to be quiet, quiet. That's all miracles!

And the real miracle were the fingers of our accordion player. Amazingly played, to say the least!

And this amazing skill more than once helped us in difficult life at the front.

Our accordion player will lift your mood in time, and warm you up in the cold - makes you dance, and instills cheerfulness in the depressed, and will make you remember your happy pre-war youth: your native land, mothers and loved ones. And one day...

One evening, by order of the command, we changed combat positions. We were ordered not to engage in battle with the Germans under any circumstances. On our way there flowed a not very wide, but deep river with a single ford, which we took advantage of. The commander and radio operator remained on the other side, they were finishing the communication session. They were cut off by the suddenly arriving fascist machine gunners. And although the Germans did not know that ours were on their bank, the crossing was kept under fire, and there was no way to cross the ford. And when night fell, the Germans began to illuminate the ford with rockets. Needless to say, the situation seemed hopeless.

Suddenly our accordion player, without saying a word, takes out his button accordion and begins to play “Katyusha”.

The Germans were at first taken aback. Then they came to their senses and brought down heavy fire on our shore. And the accordion player suddenly broke off the chord and fell silent. The Germans stopped shooting. One of them shouted joyfully: “Rus, Rus, kaput, boyan!”

But nothing happened to the accordion player. Luring the Germans, he crawled along the shore away from the crossing and again began to play the perky “Katyusha”.

The Germans accepted this challenge. They began to pursue the musician, and therefore left the ford for several minutes without flares.

The commander and radio operator immediately realized why our accordion player started a “musical” game with the Germans, and, without hesitation, they forded to the other bank.

These are the kinds of incidents that happened to our soldier-accordion player and his friend the button accordion, by the way, named after the ancient Russian singer Boyan.

Stories about the Great Patriotic War by Vladimir Bogomolov

Vladimir Bogomolov. An extraordinary morning

The grandfather came up to his grandson’s bed, tickled his cheek with his grayish mustache and said cheerfully:

- Well, Ivanka, get up! It's time to get up!

The boy quickly opened his eyes and saw that his grandfather was dressed unusually: instead of the usual dark suit, he was wearing a military jacket. Vanya immediately recognized this jacket - his grandfather was photographed wearing it in May 1945 on the last day of the war in Berlin. On the tunic there are green shoulder straps with a small green star on a narrow red stripe, and medals on beautiful multi-colored ribbons jingle lightly above the pocket.

In the photo the grandfather looks very similar, only his mustache is completely black, and a thick wavy forelock peeks out from under the visor of his cap.

- Ivan the hero, get up! Get ready for a hike! - Grandfather hummed cheerfully in his ear.

- Is today already Sunday? - Vanya asked. - And we'll go to the circus?

- Yes. “Today is Sunday,” grandfather pointed to a piece of calendar. - But Sunday is special.

The boy looked at the calendar: “What special Sunday?” - he thought. On the calendar sheet the name of the month and the number were printed in red paint. As always. “Maybe today is Victory Day? But this holiday happens in the spring, in May, and now it’s still winter... Why is grandfather in military uniform?»

“Take a good look,” said grandfather and picked Vanya up in his arms, brought him to the calendar and asked:

- Do you see what month it is? - And he answered:

— The month of February. What about the number? Second. And what happened on this day, many, many years ago, in 1943? Forgot? Oh, Ivan, the soldier’s grandson! I told you more than once. And last year, and the year before... Well, do you remember?..

“No,” Vanya admitted honestly. “I was very little then.”

The grandfather lowered his grandson to the floor, squatted down and pointed to the polished yellow medal that hung on his jacket, the first after two silver ones - “For Courage” and “For Military Merit.” Soldiers with rifles were stamped on the circle of the medal. They went on the attack under an unfurled banner. Planes were flying above them, and tanks were rushing to the side. At the top, near the very edge, was extruded: “For the defense of Stalingrad.”

- I remembered, I remembered! - Vanya shouted joyfully. — On this day you defeated the Nazis on the Volga...

Grandfather smoothed his mustache and, pleased, said in a deep voice:

- Well done for remembering! I haven't forgotten, that is. Today we will walk with you through those places where the battles took place, where we stopped the fascists and from where we drove all the way to Berlin!

Let us, reader, follow our grandfather, and remember those days when the fate of our country, our Motherland, was decided near the city on the Volga.

Grandfather and grandson walked through the sunny winter city. The snow creaked underfoot. The ringing trams rushed past. The trolleybuses rustled heavily with their large tires. Cars raced one after another... Tall poplars and wide maples nodded welcomingly to pedestrians with their snow-covered branches... Sunny bunnies bounced off the blue windows of new houses and briskly jumped from floor to floor.

Coming out onto the wide Station Square, the grandfather and the boy stopped at a snow-covered flower bed.

A tall spire with a golden star rose into the blue sky above the station building.

Grandfather took out a cigarette case, lit a cigarette, looked around the railway station, the square, the new houses, and again the events of the distant war years came back to him... a junior lieutenant in the reserve, a veteran soldier.

The Great Patriotic War was going on.

Hitler forced other countries - his allies - to participate in the war against us.

The enemy was strong and dangerous.

Our troops had to retreat temporarily. We had to temporarily give up our lands to the enemy - the Baltic states, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus...

The Nazis wanted to take Moscow. We were already looking at the capital through binoculars... The day of the parade was set...

Yes, Soviet soldiers defeated enemy troops near Moscow in the winter of 1941.

Having been defeated near Moscow, Hitler ordered his generals in the summer of 1942 to break through to the Volga and capture the city of Stalingrad.

Access to the Volga and the capture of Stalingrad could provide fascist troops with a successful advance to the Caucasus, to its oil riches.

In addition, the capture of Stalingrad would have divided the front of our armies in two, cut off the central regions from the southern ones, and most importantly, would have given the Nazis the opportunity to bypass Moscow from the east and take it.

Having transferred 90 divisions and all reserves to the southern direction, creating an advantage in manpower and equipment, the fascist generals in mid-July 1942 broke through the defenses of our Southwestern Front and moved towards Stalingrad.

The Soviet command did everything to detain the enemy.

Two reserve armies were urgently allocated. They stood in the way of the Nazis.

The Stalingrad Front was created between the Volga and Don.

Women, children, and old people were evacuated from the city. Defensive structures were built around the city. They stood in the way of fascist tanks steel hedgehogs and gouges.

At each factory, workers created battalions of volunteer militias. During the day they assembled tanks, made shells, and after the shift they prepared to defend the city.

The fascist generals received an order to wipe out the city on the Volga from the face of the earth.

And on a sunny day on August 23, 1942, thousands of planes with black crosses fell on Stalingrad.

Wave after wave of Junkers and Heinkels came, dropping hundreds of bombs on residential areas of the city. Buildings collapsed and huge pillars of fire rose to the sky. The entire city was enveloped in smoke—the glow of the burning Stalingrad could be seen for tens of kilometers.

After the raid, the fascist generals reported to Hitler: the city was destroyed!

And they received the order: take Stalingrad!

The Nazis managed to break through to the outskirts of the city, to the tractor factory and to the Oak Ravine. But there they were met by battalions of volunteer workers, security officers, anti-aircraft gunners and military school cadets.

The battle went on all day and all night. The Nazis did not enter the city.

Vladimir Bogomolov. Fedoseev Battalion

Enemy soldiers managed to break through to the city's railway station.

Fierce fighting raged at the station for fourteen days. The soldiers of the battalion of Senior Lieutenant Fedoseev fought to the death, repelling more and more enemy attacks.

Our command kept in touch with Fedoseev’s battalion, first by telephone, and when the Nazis surrounded the station, by radio.

But Fedoseev did not answer the call signs of the headquarters. They called him all day, but he was silent. They decided that all the soldiers of the battalion were killed. Morning came, and over the broken roof of one of the houses they saw a red banner waving. This means that the Fedoseevites are alive and continue to fight the enemy!

The army commander, General Chuikov, ordered an order to be delivered to Senior Lieutenant Fedoseev so that he and the soldiers would withdraw to new positions.

Sergeant Smirnov was sent as a liaison. The sergeant somehow got to the ruins of the station and learned that only ten people remained from the battalion. The commander, senior lieutenant Fedoseev, also died.

The messenger asks: “Why are you silent? Why don’t you answer headquarters’ call signs?”

It turned out that the shell had destroyed the radio. The radio operator was killed.

The fighters began to wait until nightfall to retreat to new positions. And at this time the Nazis began to attack again.

There are tanks ahead, and machine gunners behind them.

The Fedoseevites lay in ruins.

Enemy soldiers are advancing.

It's getting closer. Closer.

The Fedoseevites are silent.

The Nazis decided that all our soldiers had died... And, rising to their full height, they rushed to the station.

- Fire! - came the command.

Machine guns and machine guns were fired up.

Bottles with a flammable mixture flew into the tanks.

One tank caught fire, another skidded, a third stopped, a fourth turned back, and behind it came the fascist machine gunners...

The fighters took advantage of the enemy’s panic, took down the banner, pierced by shrapnel, and went to their own basements to new positions.

The Nazis paid dearly for the station.

In mid-September, Nazi troops again intensified their attacks.

They managed to break into the city center. There were battles for every street, for every house, for every floor...

From the station, grandfather and grandson walked to the Volga embankment.

Let's go after them too.

Next to the house where they were staying, there was a tank turret mounted on a gray square pedestal.

Here, during the battles for the city, the headquarters of the main, central crossing was located.

To the right and left of this place there were trenches along the entire Volga bank. Here our troops defended the approaches to the Volga, and repelled enemy attacks from here.

Such monuments - a green tank turret on a pedestal - stand along our entire line of defense.

Here the Stalingrad soldiers took an oath: “Not a step back!” Further, to the Volga, they did not allow the enemy - they protected the approaches to the river crossings. Our troops received reinforcements from that bank.

There were several crossings across the Volga, but near the central one the Nazis were especially fierce.

Vladimir Bogomolov. Flight "Swallows"

Enemy bombers hovered over the Volga day and night.

They chased not only tugboats and self-propelled guns, but also fishing boats and small rafts—sometimes the wounded were transported onto them.

But the rivermen of the city and the military sailors of the Volga flotilla, despite everything, delivered cargo.

Once upon a time there was such a case...

They call Sergeant Smirnov to the command post and give him the task: to get to the other side and tell the army's logistics chief that the troops will hold out at the central crossing for another night, and in the morning there will be nothing to repel enemy attacks. We urgently need to deliver ammunition.

Somehow the sergeant got to the head of the rear and conveyed the order of the army commander, General Chuikov.

The soldiers quickly loaded a large barge and began to wait for the longboat.

They wait and think: “A powerful tug will come, pick up the barge and quickly throw it across the Volga.”

The soldiers look - an old steamboat flops, and it is named somehow inappropriately - “Swallow”. The noise it makes is so loud you can cover your ears, and its speed is like that of a turtle. “Well, they think, you can’t even get to the middle of the river with this.”

But the barge commander tried to reassure the fighters:

- Don’t look at how slow the ship is. He has transported more than one barge like ours. “Swallow” has a fighting team.

"Swallow" approaches the barge. The soldiers are watching, but there are only three people on the team: a captain, a mechanic and a girl.

Before the steamboat had time to approach the barge, the girl, the daughter of mechanic Grigoriev, Irina, deftly hooked the cable hook and shouted:

- Let's get a few people on the longboat, you'll help fight off the Nazis!

Sergeant Smirnov and two soldiers jumped onto the deck, and the Lastochka dragged the barge.

As soon as we reached the reach, German reconnaissance planes circled in the air, and rockets hung on parachutes over the crossing.

It became as bright as day around.

The bombers came after the scouts and began diving first on the barge, then on the longboat.

The fighters hit the planes with rifles, the bombers almost hit the pipes and masts of the longboat with their wings. On the right and left sides there are columns of water from bomb explosions. After each explosion, the soldiers look around with alarm: “Is that really it? Got it?!” They look - the barge is moving towards the shore.

The captain of the Lastochka, Vasily Ivanovich Krainov, an old Volgar, knows that the steering wheel turns left and right, maneuvers, and steers the longboat away from direct hits. And that's it - forward to the shore.

German mortar men noticed the steamboat and barge and also began to fire.

The mines fly by with a howl, splash into the water, and fragments whistle.

One mine hit a barge.

A fire started. Flames ran across the deck.

What to do? Cut the cable? The fire is about to approach the boxes with shells. But the captain of the longboat turned the helm sharply, and... “Swallow” began to approach the burning barge.

Somehow they moored to the high side, grabbed hooks, fire extinguishers, buckets of sand - and boarded the barge.

The first is Irina, followed by the fighters. They put out a fire on the deck. They knock him off the boxes. And no one thinks that every minute any box can explode.

The soldiers threw off their greatcoats and pea coats and covered the flames with them. The fire burns your hands and faces. It's stuffy. Smoke. It's hard to breathe.

But the soldiers and crew of “Swallow” turned out to be stronger than fire. The ammunition was salvaged and brought ashore.

All the longboats and boats of the Volga flotilla had so many such voyages that they couldn’t be counted. Heroic flights.

Soon in the city on the Volga, where the central crossing was, a monument to all the hero rivermen will be erected.

Vladimir Bogomolov. 58 days on fire

From the central ferry to Lenin Square, the main square of the city, it is very close.

From a distance, passers-by from the wall of the house that overlooks the square notice a soldier in a helmet. The soldier looks attentively and seriously, as if asking not to forget about those who fought here in the square.

Before the war, few people knew this house - only those who lived in it. Now this house is famous!

Pavlov's House! House of Soldier's Glory!

This house was then the only surviving house on the square, not far from the crossing.

The Nazis managed to capture it.

Having placed machine guns and mortars on the floors, enemy soldiers began to fire at our positions.

Regimental commander Elin summoned scouts - Sergeant Yakov Pavlov and soldiers: Sasha Alexandrov, Vasily Glushchenko and Nikolai Chernogolov.

“That’s it, guys,” said the colonel, “go visit the Fritz at night.” Find out how many of them are there, how best to get to them and whether it is possible to knock them out of there.

This house is a very important object strategically. Whoever owns it keeps the entire Volga region under fire...

At night at that time the streets were as dark as a cave. Hitler's soldiers were very afraid of the dark. Every now and then they fired flares into the night sky. And as soon as they notice any movement on our part, anything suspicious, they immediately open heavy fire.

On such an alarming night, Sergeant Pavlov and his comrades went on reconnaissance. Some bending over, some crawling on their bellies, they reached the outer wall of this house.

They lay down, not breathing. They are listening.

The fascists in the house are talking, smoking, and firing rocket launchers.

Pavlov crawled to the entrance and hid. He hears someone rising from the basement.

The sergeant prepared a grenade. Then a rocket lit up the sky, and the scout spotted an old woman at the entrance. And she saw the fighter and was delighted.

Pavlov asks quietly:

- What are you doing here?

- We didn’t have time to leave for the Volga. There are several families here. The Germans drove us into the basement.

- It's clear. Are there many Germans in the house?

“We don’t know about those entrances, but there are about twenty people in ours.”

- Thank you, mom. Hide quickly in the basement. Tell the rest: don't go out to anyone. Now we'll give the Krauts a little fireworks display.

Pavlov returned to his comrades and reported the situation.

- Let's act!

The scouts crawled up to the house from both sides, got the hang of it and threw a grenade at the window frames.

Strong explosions were heard one after another. The flames blazed. There was a smell of burning.

Stunned by the unexpected attack, the Nazis jumped out of the entrances, jumped out of the windows - and to their own.

- Fire at the enemy! - Pavlov commanded.

The scouts opened fire with machine guns.

- Behind me! Occupy the floors!..

On the second floor, the fighters threw several more grenades. The enemies decided that an entire battalion had attacked them. The Nazis abandoned everything and ran in all directions.

The scouts inspected the floors in all the entrances, were convinced that not a single living fascist was left in the house, and Pavlov gave the command to take up defense. The Nazis decided to recapture the house.

They shelled the house with cannons and mortars for a whole hour.

The shelling is over.

The Nazis decided that the battalion of Russian soldiers could not stand it and retreated to their own.

The German machine gunners again moved towards the house.

- Don't shoot without a command! - Sergeant Pavlov conveyed to the soldiers.

There are already machine gunners right at the house.

The well-aimed bursts of the Pavlovians mowed down the enemies.

The Nazis retreated again.

And again mines and shells rained down on the house.

It seemed to the Nazis that nothing living could remain there.

But as soon as the enemy machine gunners got up and went on the attack, they were met by well-aimed bullets and grenades from the scouts.

The Nazis stormed the house for two days, but were unable to take it.

The Nazis realized that they had lost an important facility from which they could shell the Volga and all our positions on the shore, and they decided to drive the Soviet soldiers out of the house at all costs. They brought in fresh forces - a whole regiment.

But our command also strengthened the garrison of scouts. Machine gunners, armor-piercers, and machine gunners came to the aid of Sergeant Pavlov and his soldiers.

Soviet soldiers defended this frontier house for 58 days.

You can get to the Red October plant by trolleybus along Lenin Avenue.

Vanya perched himself by the window and every time they drove past tank towers on pedestals, he happily stopped his grandfather and shouted: “More!” Another one!.. Again!.. Look, grandpa! Look!.."

- I see, grandson! I see! This is all the front line of our defense. Here the fighters fought to the death, and the fascist troops were never able to break through further.

The trolleybus stopped.

— Next stop “Red October”! - the driver announced.

- Ours, grandson! Get ready to go out.

Factories of Stalingrad.

In their workshops, city workers stood at the machines for two or three shifts - they welded steel, assembled and repaired tanks and guns disabled by the enemy, and manufactured ammunition.

Militia workers came from the workshops to fight the enemy for their hometown, for their home factory.

Steelworkers and rollers, assemblers, turners and mechanics became soldiers.

Having repelled the enemy's attacks, the workers returned to their machines. The factories continued to operate.

Defending their hometown, their home plant, hundreds of brave workers became famous, and among them was the first female steelmaker, Olga Kuzminichna Kovaleva.

Vladimir Bogomolov. Olga Kovaleva

The enemy is one and a half kilometers from the tractor plant, in the village of Meliorativny.

The militia detachment received the task of driving the Germans out of the village.

The battle broke out near the village, on the approaches to it.

The militia went on the attack. Among them was the squad commander, Olga Kovaleva.

The Nazis opened heavy fire on the attackers from machine guns and mortars...

I had to lie down.

The militia are pressed to the ground and cannot raise their heads. They looked - the Germans went on the attack. They're about to get around them.

At this time, the chain of soldiers reported that the detachment commander had died.

And then Olga Kovaleva decided to mount the fighters on a counterattack. She stood up to her full height and shouted:

- Follow me, comrades! We will not allow the enemy to enter our plant! To our city!!!

The workers heard Olga Kovaleva’s call, stood up and rushed towards the enemy.

- For our native plant! For our city! For the Motherland! Hooray!..

They drove the Nazis out of the village.

Many militiamen were killed in that battle. Died

and Olga Kuzminichna Kovaleva.

In honor of the militia heroes, monuments were erected at the factory entrances.

On the marble slabs are the names of those who gave their lives in battles for the city, for their native plant.

Workers go to the factory and swear to the fallen to work so as not to disgrace their military honor.

When they return from their shift, they mentally report on what has been done during the working day.

At the tractor plant, a real T-34 tank is installed at the central entrance.

Such combat vehicles were produced here during the war.

When the enemy approached the city, the tanks were heading straight from the assembly line into battle.

Soviet tank crews performed many heroic deeds in the days great battle on the Volga.

The happy life of Colonel Shemyakin

Veteran of the Great Patriotic War, holder of 8 orders, Pyotr Shemyakin went through the entire war. The retired colonel has a tenacious, bright memory like a young man: he remembers the numbers of all the battalions and regiments where he fought, the names of all the settlements where he had the opportunity to fight and serve. Pyotr Nikolaevich unfolds a panorama of military and peaceful life sparingly, almost without details, giving dry assessments of events. His memories, which are almost all woven from listings of cities, towns, stations where his units fought, would be enough for an impressive brochure. We tried to extract from them the painful details of the war years. Petr Shemyakin comes from a village of 50 households in the Vologda region. Of the 12 Shemyakin children, seven survived. But the Shemyakins’ troubles did not end there. The family was “grabbed” by consumption, and claimed the lives of five more children. Peter and his older sister Maria remained with his mother. And in 1935 my father died. He worked as a tinsmith, and when he was roofing district hospital, could not resist and fell down.

Real Vologda oil

Since the family had health problems, his mother wanted Petya to enter a medical college. But against his mother’s will, the son graduated from a meat and dairy technical school in Vologda and came to work in his area. He got a job as a technologist in the district plant administration, where he monitored the technology for preparing butter (the same famous one from Vologda) and other dairy products at the district dairies.

“By the way, the secret of Vologda butter is not in some special technology for its production, but in the amazing grass and meadow flowers that Vologda cows eat,” says Colonel Pyotr Nikolaevich today.

Memories of service in tank forces

On the eve of the war, in October 1940, Pyotr Shemyakin was drafted into the army, into the tank forces near Pskov. Recruits who arrived in freight cars in Pskov were greeted by a brass band, then settled in barracks, and army life began: a young soldier’s course, drill training, studying the regulations, etc. And after this, Private Shemyakin was appointed to the crew of the T-7 high-speed tank as a gunner.

The war found Pyotr Nikolaevich in the service. The entire regiment was loaded onto trains and sent to Karelia. The tankers received their baptism of fire in the area of ​​Alakurti station. Then ours did not allow the advancing Germans and Finns into the station and were able to push them back to the border. The tankers “handed over” the battle line to the rifle units, and they themselves headed to Petrozavodsk, where they were marching.

Here it was more difficult to fight with tanks: if near Alakurti there was a free clearing where the tanks had room to turn around, then near Petrzavodsk it was possible to operate only along the roads: there were stones, forests, and swamps all around. The Germans will bypass our units and cut them off. Our people are preparing roads, cutting down forests, bypassing the Nazis, and retreating.

“There were two big troubles in Karelia: fascist “cuckoos” and sabotage groups,” recalls Shemyakin. — “Cuckoos” are machine gunners. They were tied to trees: they literally “mowed down” our fighters. And the Germans sent sabotage groups to the location of our troops, and they “cut out” our troops there. This happened with our medical battalion, after which these bastards also violated the bodies of the wounded and nurses.

After the battles in Karelia, out of a battalion of 30 tanks, only one remained. Pyotr Shemyakin's tank also hit a mine. “It wasn’t scary,” recalls Pyotr Nikolaevich. “It only shook a little, but the crew was not injured, not even shell-shocked.”

A counteroffensive began in 1942

During the war there were moments not only of heavy fighting, but also of rest. All tankers of the regiment who survived were taken to Belomorsk at the beginning of 1942, where the soldiers were able to relax. There was an operetta theater in Belomorsk, and the soldiers visited it with pleasure: “Silva”, “Maritsa”, “La Bayadère”... Front-line soldiers went to some operettas twice or even more. The performances began at 14.00, then there were dances, and the artists who had just played for the fighters danced with them.

And at the end of March, as part of a tank brigade of 70 “vehicles”, Pyotr Shemyakin, already the commander of the T-34 tank, ended up near Kharkov. Our fresh units launched a counterattack and pushed the enemy back 15-20 km.

“But then the Germans concentrated an attack tank group in this direction and gave us a blow,” recalls Pyotr Nikolaevich.

I had to retreat for a long time, and the veteran sometimes still dreams about this retreat. The troops left their native land along with the people who were evacuating. Old people, women, children who did not want to remain under the Nazis left them with their simple belongings. On horses, oxen, bicycles, and some simply dragged their belongings on themselves. The Germans did not spare either servicemen or civilians: they bombed and shot from airplanes. It was especially difficult when crossing rivers.

“There were always a lot of people gathered at the crossings, and the fascist monsters launched raids on them: they threw bombs and sprayed them with machine guns. People scattered. There is a roar all around, screams of horror and pain, many wounded and killed - a terrible thing,” shares Pyotr Nikolaevich.

Lieutenant of tank forces

Then there was the rear again, from where Pyotr Shemyakin’s tank brigade was transferred across the Don to meet the enemy. At first we attacked, but Hitler sent Guderian’s huge army to break through, and our tankers had to repel 5-6 counterattacks per day. I had to go back to Don. Of the 70 tanks of the brigade, three remained, including the KV (Klim Voroshilov) of Pyotr Shemyakin. But these tanks did not last long: in one of the battles, Pyotr Nikolaevich’s combat vehicle was also knocked out. The driver's foot was torn off, and the radio operator-machine gunner was slightly wounded. The tankers climbed out through the landing hatch and pulled out the wounded. Shemyakin was the last to leave. There was only one shell left in the tank, the crew captain fired it at the Nazis, engaged first gear and pointed his empty tank towards the Nazis.

Along the ravine bank of the Don, together with the wounded, the crew of Pyotr Shemyakin retreated to the river. But you can’t swim across the Don with the wounded. They found a wooden sled on the shore, tore off its metal runners, loaded the wounded onto the sled, and, settling down on the side, sailed across the Don to their own.

For these battles, Pyotr Shemyakin was awarded the rank of senior lieutenant and awarded the first military order - the Order of the Red Star.

Five junior officers of the tank brigade, who had not received military education at one time, including Pyotr Shemyakin, were sent to the city for retraining courses in March 1942. Here the cadets studied military equipment, including German. All the teachers went through the front, many were wounded and walked with sticks.

Pyotr Nikolaevich lived at the Automobile Plant at that time, and here he met his future wife, walking along the Striginsky forest.

What a ridiculous death

Pyotr Shemyakin has both the capture of Zhitomir (at that time he was already the commander of a tank platoon) and the Vistula-Oder operation. By the way, he participated in the latter as assistant chief of staff of the regiment for intelligence.

Pyotr Nikolaevich led the reconnaissance platoon, but this did not save him from participating in battles. Together with the scouts, he crossed by boat to the other side of the Vistula, and held the bridgehead from which the Germans wanted to kick them out.

The memoirs of a cavalry regiment commander date back to this period. In general, Pyotr Shemyakin has memories of the cavalrymen as dandies who loved to walk and drink. In the occupied territory there was a train with technical alcohol. To prevent Russian people from getting poisoned, the command ordered these tanks to be shot. But the cavalrymen scooped alcohol from the puddles and drank. The cook gave the regiment commander a drink of this industrial alcohol. Shortly before the tragic dinner, the cavalryman called Shemyakin and invited him to dine with him. Pyotr Nikolaevich apologized and refused, citing the fact that he had already eaten.

And after a while the chief of staff called, asking for an armored personnel carrier: the regimental commander was blind and needed to be sent to the infirmary. Professional doctors were also unable to leave the front-line soldier: he died in the hospital.

Soldier in war and peacetime

Pyotr Nikolaevich ended the war in Prague, but after the front he connected his life with the army. He finished his military career as a regional military commissar in Karaganda with the rank of colonel. And after demobilization he went to his wife’s homeland, Gorky.

“I don’t complain about life,” says the former front-line soldier. – I have three children, six grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren. Two grandchildren from the eldest daughter - Nastya and Timur - candidates biological sciences. By the way, Timur now works at an institute in America. And one of the granddaughters is a 4th year student at the Medical Academy. I hope she will be able to fulfill my mother’s dream of having a doctor in the family.

VIDEO: Great Patriotic War 1941! Color shots!

The Great Patriotic War began on June 22, 1941 - the day when the Nazi invaders and their allies invaded the territory of the USSR. It lasted four years and became the final stage Second World War. In total, about 34,000,000 Soviet soldiers took part in it, more than half of whom died.

Causes of the Great Patriotic War

The main reason for the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War was Adolf Hitler's desire to lead Germany to world domination by capturing other countries and establishing a racially pure state. Therefore, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, then Czechoslovakia, starting World War II and conquering more and more territories. The successes and victories of Nazi Germany forced Hitler to violate the non-aggression pact concluded on August 23, 1939 between Germany and the USSR. He developed special operation called "Barbarossa", which implied the capture of the Soviet Union in a short time. This is how the Great Patriotic War began. It took place in three stages

Stages of the Great Patriotic War

Stage 1: June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942

The Germans captured Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus and Moldova. The troops advanced into the country to capture Leningrad, Rostov-on-Don and Novgorod, but the main goal of the Nazis was Moscow. At this time, the USSR suffered great losses, thousands of people were taken prisoner. On September 8, 1941, the military blockade of Leningrad began, which lasted 872 days. As a result, USSR troops were able to stop the German offensive. Plan Barbarossa failed.

Stage 2: 1942-1943

During this period, the USSR continued to build up its military power, industry and defense grew. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the Soviet troops, the front line was pushed back to the west. The central event of this period was the greatest battle in history, the Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943). The Germans' goal was to capture Stalingrad, the Great Bend of the Don and the Volgodonsk Isthmus. During the battle, more than 50 armies, corps and divisions of enemies were destroyed, about 2 thousand tanks, 3 thousand aircraft and 70 thousand cars were destroyed, and German aviation was significantly weakened. The USSR's victory in this battle had a significant impact on the course of further military events.

Stage 3: 1943-1945

From defense, the Red Army gradually goes on the offensive, moving towards Berlin. Several campaigns were carried out aimed at destroying the enemy. A guerrilla war breaks out, during which 6,200 partisan detachments are formed, trying to independently fight the enemy. The partisans used all available means, including clubs and boiling water, and set up ambushes and traps. At this time, battles for Right Bank Ukraine and Berlin take place. The Belarusian, Baltic, and Budapest operations were developed and put into action. As a result, on May 8, 1945, Germany officially recognized defeat.

Thus, the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War was actually the end of the Second World War. The defeat of the German army put an end to Hitler's desires to gain dominance over the world and to universal slavery. However, victory in the war came at a heavy price. In the struggle for the Motherland, millions of people died, cities, towns and villages were destroyed. All last resort they went to the front, so people lived in poverty and hunger. Every year on May 9, we celebrate the day of the Great Victory over fascism, we are proud of our soldiers for giving life to future generations and ensuring a bright future. At the same time, the victory was able to consolidate the influence of the USSR on the world stage and turn it into a superpower.

Briefly for children

More details

The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is the most terrible and bloody war in the entire USSR. This war was between two powers, the mighty power of the USSR and Germany. In a fierce battle over the course of five years, the USSR still won a worthy victory over its opponent. Germany, when attacking the union, hoped to quickly capture the entire country, but they did not expect how powerful and rural the Slavic people were. What did this war lead to? First, let's look at a number of reasons, why did it all start?

After the First World War, Germany was greatly weakened, and a severe crisis overwhelmed the country. But at this time Hitler came to rule and introduced a large number of reforms and changes, thanks to which the country began to prosper and people showed their trust in him. When he became a ruler, he pursued a policy in which he conveyed to the people that the German nation was the most superior in the world. Hitler was fired up with the idea of ​​getting even for the First world war, for that terrible loss, he had the idea of ​​​​subjugating the whole world. He started with the Czech Republic and Poland, which later developed into the Second World War

We all remember very well from history textbooks that before 1941, an agreement was signed on non-attack by the two countries of Germany and the USSR. But Hitler still attacked. The Germans developed a plan called Barbarossa. It clearly stated that Germany must capture the USSR in 2 months. He believed that if he had all the strength and might of the country at his disposal, he would be able to enter into a war with the United States with fearlessness.

The war began so quickly, the USSR was not ready, but Hitler did not get what he wanted and expected. Our army put up great resistance; the Germans did not expect to see such a strong opponent in front of them. And the war dragged on for 5 long years.

Now let's look at the main periods during the entire war.

The initial stage of the war is June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942. During this time, the Germans captured most of the country, including Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. Next, the Germans already had Moscow and Leningrad before their eyes. And they almost succeeded, but the Russian soldiers turned out to be stronger than them and did not allow them to capture this city.

Unfortunately, they captured Leningrad, but what is most surprising is that the people living there did not allow the invaders into the city itself. There were battles for these cities until the end of 1942.

The end of 1943, the beginning of 1943, was very difficult for the German army and at the same time happy for the Russians. The Soviet army launched a counter-offensive, the Russians began to slowly but surely retake their territory, and the occupiers and their allies slowly retreated to the west. Some allies were killed on the spot.

Everyone remembers very well how the entire industry of the Soviet Union switched to the production of military supplies, thanks to this they were able to repel their enemies. The army turned from retreating into attacking.

The final. 1943 to 1945. Soviet soldiers gathered all their forces and began to recapture their territory at a rapid pace. All forces were directed towards the occupiers, namely Berlin. At this time, Leningrad was liberated and other previously captured countries were reconquered. The Russians decisively marched towards Germany.

The last stage (1943-1945). At this time, the USSR began to take back its lands piece by piece and move towards the invaders. Russian soldiers conquered Leningrad and other cities, then they proceeded to the very heart of Germany - Berlin.

On May 8, 1945, the USSR entered Berlin, the Germans announced surrender. Their ruler could not stand it and died on his own.

And now the worst thing about the war. How many people died so that we could now live in the world and enjoy every day.

In fact, history is silent about these terrible figures. The USSR hid for a long time the number of people. The government hid data from the people. And people understood how many died, how many were captured, and how many people were missing to this day. But after a while, the data still surfaced. According to official sources, up to 10 million soldiers died in this war, and about 3 million more were in German captivity. These are scary numbers. And how many children, old people, women died. The Germans mercilessly shot everyone.

It was a terrible war, unfortunately it brought a lot of tears to families, there was still devastation in the country for a long time, but slowly the USSR got back on its feet, post-war actions subsided, but did not subside in the hearts of people. In the hearts of mothers who did not wait for their sons to return from the front. Wives who remained widows with children. But how strong the Slavic people are, even after such a war they rose from their knees. Then the whole world knew how strong the state was and how strong in spirit the people lived there.

Thanks to the veterans who protected us when they were very young. Unfortunately, at the moment there are only a few of them left, but we will never forget their feat.

Report on the topic of the Great Patriotic War

On June 22, 1941, at 4 a.m., Germany attacked the USSR without first declaring war. Such an unexpected event briefly put Soviet troops out of action. The Soviet army met the enemy with dignity, although the enemy was very strong and had an advantage over the Red Army. Germany had a lot of weapons, tanks, planes, when the Soviet army was just moving from cavalry protection to weapons.

The USSR was not ready for such a large-scale war; many of the commanders at that moment were inexperienced and young. Of the five marshals, three were shot and declared enemies of the people. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was in power during the Great Patriotic War and did everything possible for the victory of the Soviet troops.

The war was cruel and bloody, the whole country came to the defense of the Motherland. Anyone could join the ranks of the Soviet army, young people created partisan detachments and tried to help in every possible way. Everyone, both men and women, fought to protect their native land.

The struggle for Leningrad lasted 900 days for residents who were under siege. Many soldiers were killed and captured. The Nazis created concentration camps where they tortured and starved people. The fascist troops expected that the war would end within 2-3 months, but the patriotism of the Russian people turned out to be stronger, and the war dragged on for 4 long years.

In August 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began, lasting six months. The Soviet army won and captured more than 330 thousand Nazis. The Nazis could not accept their defeat and launched an attack on Kursk. 1,200 vehicles took part in the Battle of Kursk - it was a massive battle of tanks.

In 1944, Red Army troops were able to liberate Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Moldova. Also, Soviet troops received support from Siberia, the Urals and the Caucasus and were able to drive away enemy troops from their native lands. Many times the Nazis wanted to lure the Soviet army into a trap by cunning, but they did not succeed. Thanks to the competent Soviet command The Nazis' plans were destroyed and then they used heavy artillery. The Nazis launched heavy tanks such as the Tiger and Panther into battle, but despite this the Red Army gave a worthy rebuff.

At the very beginning of 1945, the Soviet army broke into German territory and forced the Nazis to admit defeat. From May 8 to 9, 1945, the Act of Surrender of the Forces of Nazi Germany was signed. Officially, May 9 is considered Victory Day, and is celebrated to this day.

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