The Most Russian Person. Владимир Шатакишвили
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don't know such a song, but at the time of my dreamy youth, it was a match.”
“Which song? Maybe I know,” I replied. And he softly sang,
"People dream sometimes about
Young cities
Which have no name…"
“I know, why do you think not? I have heard it, Ivan Nikiforovich. But as far as I remember, there were not “young” cities, but “blue ones”!
“Okay, I do not mean that. I am about those cities that did not have a name like the cities of my fate: Chelyabinsk-40, Chelyabinsk-70, Arzamas-16…”
“Moretea?”apologizing interrupted ourconversation tactful Vera Nikolaevna, the wife and faithful friend of Ivan Nikiforovich, whom he met in 1962.
I was always amazed how this woman managed to become for him such a well-cut half, replace his children’s mother and the first wife Lyubov Alekseevna who had died in the car crash. But she managed! She has been near for forty-four years. She strengthened the family so that the children of Ivan Nikiforovich, Lyalya and Yevgeniy, and her son from her first marriage Mikhail, right away when were still children, did not know the differences in their parents. There were just mom and dad.
“So what about tea?”
I thank and refuse. I say goodbye to the quiet house and beautiful people. Until next interview! And what happened then, we will talk tomorrow.
And tomorrow was war…
I’m giving word to the character of the book – Ivan Nikiforovich MEDYANIK.
“Well, it was in the global calendar sense. World War II was for the whole country. And my war started with the Finnish where I got after several changes in peaceful life. And here they are.
I worked as a garage mechanic at the Pyatigorsk regional executive committee. The executive committee was transferred to Stavropol but they did not part with me and I got an apartment there. The branch office of the Stavropol Tank School conducted classes for the officer school, where I studied at the distribution of the regional draft board and where I received the officer's rank.
Then I graduated with honors from Zhytomyr Tank School and was recommended to the Moscow Tank Academy.
I did not get to the academy because was recommended to serve in the NKVD. I graduated from law school and at the same time from Rostov road technical college.”
I cannot hold it, “Well, how many professions do you have, how many specialties, Ivan Nikiforovich?!”
“A lot, Volodya. And all my life something was added. Here, for example, being a beekeeper – a hobby or profession?”
“I think both. As well as a hunter, a fisherman.”
“That's it! So one can add a lot of things.”
Ivan Nikiforovich thinks for a minute. Then he continues the story, “So the war began for me from December 1939. I’m not the only one to remember it. There were terrible frosts at that time, snow piled above the head, the roads were not visible, a complete white veil! And we, with our BT-7 and BT-8 tanks, turned out to be helpless before the Finns, who very well knew their secret forest paths and roads covered with snowstorms. But against those frosts both people and equipment were powerless.
I do not want to stir up the wound that has long since healed!
It is only on paper that war fits in a few lines. And in fact any of the days of that short war, not even war, but as they called the Soviet-Finnish border dispute, is still experienced personally. And how humiliatingly Finns fooled us with their ski training. They ran like white devils, these famous “cuckoos”, but in fact snipers, elusive, accustomed to their swamps, forests, frost, skis.
What did we seem to them with our clumsy tanks, which even had no heating? Inside in the morning we were covered with frost. We spent half a day to start the engine. We used a blowtorch to heat up the fire bar…
And not to freeze we heated the salt in a tin and filled felt boots with it. Well, in short, it was necessary to finish this “forest tale” and as soon as possible.
A special, selective, mobile detachment of skishooters was sent. And our “skiers” were at their best – a defensive barrier defeated, and the Finnish campaign ended in April in 1940.
Ahead was a year of restless, anxious, but still peaceful life. Stavropol met me with windy spring. As friends were joking, this city is not in the seven, but seventy-seven winds. And nevertheless, it was my own house, it was my family, five-year-old Zhenka walked on the earth, in the evenings we gathered for dinner in the cozy dining room. A soft light poured from under the lampshade. Lyubov Alekseevna tried to keep the mark of a good housewife, a caring wife and mother.
June of 1941! How memorable it is to the present- day old men who have lived to the third millennium!
Light breeze blew on that day, poplar fluff flew, a crazy sweet smell of acacia teased enamored hearts. Life rang in all bells, youth – bright and happy time was spreading its wings, ready for peaceful labor, accomplishments, studies, love.
And no one could have imagined that this bright world and this silence, and this peace with fragrant acacias and poplar fluff would explode unexpectedly with the stern voice of Levitan, who announced Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union.
The strings of this ringing joy broke off on June 22, the date that without a pity cut life to pieces before and after the war…
You know, Volodya, my friend, I have already told everything Alexander Mosintsev, the author of the book “Without Guarantees of the Century”. Why should I tell the same thing again?”
“And still, Ivan Nikiforovich, what's wrong with that? Someone will read the book by Mosintsev, someone mine. And even more people will know about you. In fact, your fate is also the history of the country. I write in my own way. You will agree that repetitions can happen, the facts of your life before the war, during or post-war no one will cancel, change or alter. Do you agree with this?”
“Well, ok, let's do it? Just in general. There are so many books, poems, plays have been written about the war, so much research has been done, so many good and bad films have been shot that we will not repeat,” Ivan Nikiforovich told me. “I can only say about the memorable facts in my life which happened during the war time.
The beginning of the war coincided with my appointment as the head of the autotechnical department in the Stavropol Territory, and it turned out that it was equal to the auto-regiment, and I, so to say, the commander of the regiment of the special autobattalion with three dozen cars. I got this appointment by direct order of Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. He then and almost all of the war was the first secretary of the Stavropol regional party committee, and the whole partisan war in the region was led by him.
We were transferred to the barracks. And we began to live by the laws of war. From the very beginning of the war the Germans began to send paratroops to the Caucasus Mountains, and our units took the fight, catching paratroopers.
December 1941. The Germans were overthrown from Moscow.
But in the rear of the enemy on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus occupied by the Germans General Dovator's cavalry corps fought giving the invaders a lot of trouble.
The corps was formed in the Stavropol region. So, Dovatortsy were fellow countrymen.
From the very beginning of the war to be in the rear of the enemy advancing to the east and not only happen to be, but also to fight was real heroism.
February 1942… Dovatortsy unioned with the operating units of the Red Army. The corps came out having preserved the banner and was not disbanded.
After the death of Dovator, General Pliev took his place as commander. Several wounded Dovatortsy came home to Stavropol. They told about what they experienced: hunger, cold, lack of fodder for horses, lack of weapons, ammunition, medicines. Fellow countrymen required urgent help.
The whole of the Stavropol region responded to the proposal of the regional Committee of