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Maria Batashova:
“This story was told to me by my grandmother when I was still a child. I remember how often I sat on her lap, listening to different (and sad, and sometimes funny) stories about the war. However, my grandmother Vera told me that story only once, but for some reason I clearly remember it.

“We lived then in our village near Smolensk. We had a large family - seven children, however, three boys then went to the front. For us, those who stayed, the time turned out to be difficult, there was almost no food. And then a company of Red Army soldiers came to visit us. One of the guys was wounded in the leg by a German bullet. The bullet was pulled out on the spot, but the soldier's leg was not healed. We had to put the fighter on his feet literally. The Red Army men left our village two days later, and the wounded Nikolai remained for another week. And this week was the happiest in my entire life then. He and I felt in each other something dear, dear. As if fate itself brought us together under such circumstances. And, of course, we really believed that we would be together. Accidents do not happen, ”- said the grandmother.

The first year after the forced separation, young people communicated with letters. Nikolai wrote that everything was in order for him, that the enemy, though slowly, was retreating, that one after another his comrades were dying. In one battle, it happened that so many wounded were taken to the hospital that this column was stretched for several kilometers. And it was impossible to bury all the dead ... The girl read and empathized, waited, hoped that death would bypass her beloved. And in the third year of the war, Vera waited for the most important letter from Nikolai, but, as it turned out later, it was the last ... It was in this letter that Kolya confessed for the first time to Vera how much he loved her, and dedicated his poem to her. As if he felt that later he would never be able to say this ... After 70 years, my grandmother read me a poem from memory, which Nikolai dedicated to her in his last letter. She didn’t even once hesitate as she recited it by heart. I read and cried ... Then Vera found out where Nikolai was buried, and often visited his grave. Once a year, on the day his last letter arrived, Vera came to the grave of her beloved and read her letters aloud to him. Until the last day of her life, my grandmother kept them secret from everyone. Deep in my heart ... "

Flowers in a minefield
One of the most touching love stories in Russian literature also originated in the atmosphere of the Great Patriotic War, which was by no means conducive to warm feelings. More precisely, within the walls of the Military Academy of Armored and Mechanized Forces, where at the very height of the war, in 1943, our fellow countryman and future writer Boris Vasiliev met Zorya Polyak. Whether a feeling flared up between them at first or at second sight is unknown, but three years later the lovers got married and lived together for sixty-six years.

However, the family idyll could well have failed, because the life together began for the spouses with a very dramatic, but only more spectacular episode: picking flowers, young people suddenly found themselves in a minefield. Vasiliev called this case an epigraph to his entire subsequent life. This is how the writer himself recalled it:

“... I had already typed a bunch when I suddenly saw a mine banner. I followed it with my eyes and noticed the mine to which it led. And I realized that I had drifted into an undeveloped area of ​​defense. He turned cautiously to his young wife, and she was in front of me. Face to face.

I know. I was afraid to scream so that you would not rush to me. Now we will carefully switch places and you will follow me. Step by step.

I'll go first. I know how and where to look.

No, you will follow me. I see better than you.

For some reason we spoke very quietly, but Lieutenant Vasilyeva spoke in such a way that it was pointless to argue. And we went. Step by step. And - went out. Since then I have often found myself in minefields ... For more than six decades now I have been walking through the minefield of our life behind Zorina's back. And I am happy. I am immensely happy because I am following my love. Step by step ".

According to the recollections of everyone who at least once in their lives crossed paths with this couple, the spouses managed to maintain an unusually gentle and warm relationship to each other until the end of their lives. And the only thing that could separate them was death. Zorya Albertovna died in January 2013, and two months later her famous husband was gone.

Good german
“This story was often told to me by my mother, because at that time I myself wasn’t even in the world,” recalls Alexey Filimonov. “Our village was completely burned down, and people had to dig dugouts and live there with their whole families. And nevertheless, some lucky ones still managed to save some domestic animals: ducks, chickens and roosters. Well, not far from us, in the only remaining intact buildings, a group of German soldiers was stationed.

And then one day a terrible typhus epidemic broke out in our village. The disease mowed down everyone, not sparing even children, and there was nothing to dream about medicine in our situation. So, probably, everyone would have died if not for the German doctor, who got into the habit of visiting us and treating the sick. And he came openly, during the day: apparently, his own people did not forbid him to save "enemies." I also came to our dugout when my older brother and sister became infected with typhus. Seeing the doctor, my mother immediately rushed to the threshold, closed the entrance with herself and began waving her arms: "You can't, you can't come to us, they are sick!" But the German calmly pushed her aside with the words "Mother, move away!", Went to the bed of sick children and began to give them some kind of powder to drink. After that, he came several more times, and soon both recovered. However, like other patients of the doctor.

The disease began to subside, but the doctor's visits did not stop there. Several times he came just to treat the children to chocolate, unprecedented in those terrible hungry times. It’s a pity that I don’t know how the good doctor’s fate developed further. ”

John's Stolen Heart
text by Elena Khlimanova
This is the story of a very close person to me - my grandmother Anastasia Petrovna Pavlyutskaya. I apologize in advance for some inaccuracies, there is no one to clarify - my grandmother is long gone. The beginning of the war coincided with the beginning of her youth: at the age of 16 she collaborated with the partisans, and at 17 she was taken prisoner in Frankfurt an der Oder, in Germany. My grandmother did not talk about the hardships of camp life, sparing my child's psyche, but she told me about the release. Like a close friend. I remember that I, little, asked her to repeat this story over and over again. I remember how her eyes shone when she talked about her love ... About which for a long time it was simply impossible for her to talk.

At the very beginning of May 1945, young Nastya (this is my grandmother) was awakened by the heart-rending cries of the guards: "Shnelle, shnelle!" All prisoners of war were forced to line up in the street. The last were my grandmother, who knew German quite well, and her friend from the camp, a former German teacher. From the conversation of the guards, they understood that everyone was being led to the bridge, where they would be shot. One of the Germans allowed the grandmother and her friend to escape and even told them where they should hide.

The girls are hiding in the basement of some building. In the evening they were found by American soldiers who had come to free the prisoners. They took the former prisoners of war to their headquarters. They fed. The food seemed insanely delicious. Then they were allowed to wash themselves and were given clean clothes. American soldier John, the one who found the girls in the basement, liked my grandmother. He said that she very much reminds him of his mother. For the first time and, probably, the only time in my life, someone treated my grandmother with such love and tenderness.

When the time came to return home, John suggested Nastya to go to America with him, said that he would settle everything with the documents, promised a happy life for a US citizen. He promised to marry, said that he could not live without her. He said that the Germans destroyed everything, and Nastya had nowhere to return. In spite of everything, the grandmother chose the Motherland, burnt, destroyed, but her own. All these years she dreamed of seeing her mother, little sisters, and nothing could overcome this desire. Even the likelihood that loved ones are gone. And the word "homeland" then had some other meaning. As they said goodbye, John presented her with a golden comb, adorned with diamonds and rubies. This comb belonged to his mother, and he always carried it at his heart. Giving the comb to Nastya, he said that he would give his heart with it, and that he would help her at home: if it was very difficult, she could sell the jewel and get a lot of money for it.

On the way home, on the train, her compatriots stole "John's heart" from her grandmother. So from this hopeless love she has only memories that she cherished all her life. And even if it was not possible to save the precious gift of her beloved, her own heart became the most reliable secret of their love. Then, at home, there were two marriages and four children. But John's warm heart remained with her forever.

When millions die, the happiness of two - so fragile and crystal - becomes almost unreal ...

Hundreds of thousands of books, articles have been written about the Great Patriotic War, and many films have been shot. All this so that we remember how terrible and destructive it can be, how easy it is to cut off a human life. It is not customary to talk about love, and even more so about sex in a war. Like, this is not a suitable topic for discussion, "shameful" ... Nevertheless, this is also a part of our history, and you need to know your history.

This is what our old people remember….

I will never forget you

It was July forty-one. Western Belarus. And we are retreating along the entire front.

We are a five-man artillery crew. We have at our disposal a "lorry" and a "magpie" (45 caliber cannon) attached to it. There are thousands of refugees on the way. They walk, carry, carry ... From time to time Messerschmitts come flying in, bombing and pouring machine guns on the road. Refugees rush from the road into the forest in droves.

Our commander - an elderly, compassionate man who met the third war (he went through the civil, Finnish and now the Great Patriotic War) - put women and children in our car so that it was impossible to move. They put a young girl in my arms, our gunner sits next to me with a boy in his arms ...

And the "lorry" is thrown from side to side, tosses it on bumps ... And the girl sitting in my arms crawls over me so that I can’t at all be able to ... village, no one wore. I spoke to her, asked her name, she said that her name was Olesya and that she was 17 years old. I said that my name was Ivan and that I was 20 ... I need to understand my condition, and I began to persuade her ...

And if, - I say, - now there is a raid, a direct hit and nothing will be left of us ?! But she doesn't agree to any. She clung to her dress, pulls it on her knees and only trembles all over. And suddenly - a powerful explosion behind the car. In the darkness, the "lorry" was thrown to the left. The woman screamed. The beam of our gunner's flashlight slid towards the wounded woman, women helped her ... And then Olesya touched my hand and I realized that she agreed ...

She let go of her dress, I clasped my hands on her stomach and began to slowly act.

It's good that the soldier's pants have only one top button. And so we did it. After the first shock, she calmed down, I realized that she was getting into a rage, she even began to help me on the sly ... And ... a strong explosion on the starboard side. The car was thrown to the left, and I felt that Olesya began to slide off me, but somehow strange. Not in my own voice, I shouted to the gunner to light the lantern. The beam slid across the girl's face.

A black trickle trickled down to his chin. The shard hit right in the temple. Her death was instant.

That was the time. Nobody knew where and how death would have to be met ...

The story of the front-line soldier was recorded by a physical education teacher at secondary school No. 7 in Pyatigorsk

Vladimir Vasilievich DENISOV.

The end of Frau Elsa

My fellow countryman, Pavel Matyunin returned from the front as a hero. When he walked along the village street in chrome boots polished to a shine, in breeches stretched like a string, in a tunic hung with orders and medals and a harness tied, girls and young widows leaned out the windows to their waist and frankly admired the handsome officer. It seemed that the entire female half of the village was head over heels in love with the front-line hero.

We boys accompanied Paul in a gang. Each of us strove to touch his awards, try on a cap with a shiny cockade, walk side by side with the hero.

And how happy I was when Uncle Pavel came to visit us to talk over a glass of moonshine with my front-line father! At the very beginning, my father was seriously injured, remained disabled and knew the whole truth about the war only by hearsay. And Uncle Pavel reached Berlin, and he had something to tell about. I listened to him with bated breath and was convinced once again that Uncle Pavel was a real hero. But one day, after getting drunk, my idol told my father the following story.

It was 1945. The victory was already close. The rifle regiment, in which Lieutenant Matyunin served, crossed the Elbe River, and occupied the city of Dresden with battles. The platoon leader with a group of submachine gunners decided to check the mansion on the outskirts of the city - weren't the Nazis hiding there? The owner of the mansion, a young German woman, came out to knock. She was so beautiful that the officer was speechless. Noticing Paul's confusion, the girl melodiously said: “Their Frau Elsa. Bitte in house ”- and with a gesture she invited the guests into the house.

Having regained consciousness, Pavel instructed the submachine gunners to check the outbuildings and wait for him in the courtyard, while he himself entered the hostess's apartment. She immediately set the table: set the schnapps and appetizers and cordially invited the Russian officer to the table.

Further events developed with catastrophic speed. The drunken hostess clung to the handsome officer and Pavel, who had missed female affection during the long years of the war, could not resist. Taking the beautiful Elsa in his arms, he carried her into the bedroom, where he showed her all his valiant prowess.

When it was all over, and it was time for Pavel to leave, the insatiable mistress did not want to part with the frantic Russian. Taking the initiative in her own hands, the German woman suddenly switched to oral sex. It is known that at that time sex was considered something shameful in our country. For a country boy, such a display of passion was something unheard of and wild. Shocked Pavel took a pistol from his holster and shot at the beautiful German woman ...

When the story was over, the father, without uttering a word, somehow looked disapprovingly at the interlocutor and lowered his head. Noticing his reaction, Uncle Pavel offered to drink one more. And I ran out into the street, huddled in a haystack and cried.

Petr Petrovich KUZNETSOV, Bryansk region.

Wartime romance

When the war began, I was only 14 years old, but despite my age, my peers and I already worked on the collective farm on a par with adults. Of course, they didn't pay us money, but they gave us food, and that meant a lot back then. There were few literate people in the village, and I finished six classes, so they put me as an accountant in the first field-crop brigade. It was also my duty to read the newspaper with the reports of the Sovinformburo to the brigade. Almost every newspaper came across addresses from soldiers asking the girls to write letters to them and get acquainted ...

And we have only women in the brigade, I read to them, and they cry. All of them were married before the war. But the husbands, as they went to the front, disappeared right away - who died, who went missing ... There were children ten years old and old people a hundred years old ... Well, I suggested: “Do not grieve, women, let's all write to the address of the field mail, where my friend serves, perhaps there will be suitors there ”... And I have long been in correspondence with my friend's brother. What kind letters Petya wrote to me! He confessed his love, promised that he would drive away the Fritzes, he would immediately call me to marry ”...

We wrote a collective letter, they say: "Hello, comrades, fighters, with greetings to you, girls ...", and everyone signed up to it. And everyone got the answers ... Thus, I have a new friend, senior lieutenant Alexander Ivanovich Ionin. We started a brisk correspondence with him, and he asked me for a photo. I also sent ... one to Ionin, and the other to Petya. I wanted to support the morale of the guys. But it turned out the other way around ... Petya sent me a letter with the words: “We serve as Sasha in one unit.

Did you think we didn't know each other? Do you know how sick I felt when he showed me a photo of "his girlfriend"? Apparently, you, Ninochka, wanted an extra star ... After all, I am a lieutenant, and he is a senior lieutenant ... Well, consider that you got it ... "

No matter how much I wrote to Peter, trying to explain everything, he did not forgive me. And then they killed him. So I lost a person dear to my heart ... And the correspondence with Ionin continued, until the very end of the war. I felt that he was deeply in love with me. And something awakened in me too ... I began to consider him my fiancé.

Moreover, he introduced me to his relatives in absentia ... His sister and nephew (Volodya) and I often wrote to each other. (They lived in the village of Berezanskaya in the Kuban). Finally, the long-awaited message: he is coming! Volodya invites you to visit. I went ... He met me and said ... So, they say, and so, Sasha is married, and got married before the war. But he doesn't like his wife, so ... As I heard this, everything floated in my eyes. I realized that this was my retribution for Petya's betrayal. I refused to go to Sasha (although I wanted to see him more than anything else), I returned home. I did not even think that it was possible to love a married man - I was brought up in such a way that I considered it impossible.

And in the end I got married only at the age of 32 ... Unmarried men after the war were very rare ... Now I am alone again, I buried my husband ... And I often remember my lieutenants and reflect on our failed love. I console myself with one ... All four years, while Sasha fought on the front line, I was waiting for him and warmed his soul with affectionate letters. Once he said that only thanks to this he remained unharmed - because he wanted to return to his beloved girl. I don’t know if he’s alive? Now he must be 88 years old ...

Nina Savelyevna BORODANOVA (nee CHEKHONINA), Krasnodar.

Looking at you from the sky

The dusty war summer of 1943. Red Army prisoners are wandering along the central street of the village of Ilskaya. Exhausted by the long march, hungry. The sun is blinding, the sweat is blurring the eyes. The thirst becomes unbearable, like pain. The German escorts were also tired: after five hours of a tedious march, their boots became heavy, and the straps of machine guns hurt their shoulders. Near some wattle fence, under a shady mulberry tree, there is a well.

- Halt! - commanded by the corporal.

The Red Army men fall in withered grass. The well gate creaks, the prisoners watch with envy as the Germans pour themselves over with cold water. When their turn comes to them, they arrange a scuffle around the bucket of water. Having got drunk, they sat down who where. The Germans are in no hurry. Uncorked cans of stewed meat. In the ensuing silence, the Fritz spoons clink and the bellies of prisoners of war hum.

The gloomy aunt, watching what was happening from behind the wattle fence, spat in frustration and disappeared into the hut. A minute later, she brought out a loaf of bread, pinching off small pieces, tried to treat everyone. Hands reached out to her from all sides, there was not enough bread. My aunt brushed aside a tear and, muttering angrily, went into the hut.

You! - are full, and therefore the kinder guard nodded to the young lieutenant. - Stand up! Go! - Kicked open the gate and let the prisoner forward.

The hostess ordered to give the guy more food, otherwise "the hungry Rusish won't get it." And in the house, after the advance units of the invaders have passed through the village, at least by rolling.

The cow was stolen, everything was taken out of the cellar clean, ”the aunt shook her head, and the lieutenant did not take his eyes off her beautiful black-browed daughter. Having received a poke in the stomach with an iron barrel, he did not even frown, but when leaving, he carefully looked at the house number.

A few days later, our units freed the prisoners and the lieutenant visited the inhabitants of the coveted house. Ivan had catastrophically little time - he only declared his love, and it's time ...

A string of letters “with a secret” stretched from heart to heart - inside each message Masha found a dried flower. The girl was waiting for the victory, and with it - for the funny lieutenant. But one day the postman, instead of a letter, brought a notice to receive money.

As many as two thousand! And who is this money from? - the mother rejoiced.

And Masha's eyes came up with a line from Vanya's last letter: “If I come back, I will give you flowers every day, and if they kill me, they will send you money, at least occasionally buy the bouquets yourself. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than a beautiful girl with flowers. And I will look at you from the sky and smile. "

The story of her aunt's unfulfilled love was told by Valentina Gavrilovna Shastina from the village of Ilskiy, Krasnodar Territory.

Favorite guest

This story began in 1942, when a 25-year-old soldier, shell-shocked and wounded in the leg, was returning home from the hospital. Somehow I got to Pskov, and there the station was bombed and the trains run very badly. And there are thousands of kilometers to the house. What is a soldier to do? He turned into a street near the station, knocked on the first house he came across and asked to spend the night. The hostess with her daughter (the girl was 13 years old), greeted the guest cordially.

And the mistress of the house, her name was Grunya, turned 32 years old, the very juice ... Her husband was killed in 41st. It’s not sweet for a woman alone ... But the soldier is fine: tall, black-haired, mustachioed, with blue eyes ... And he also yearned without a woman ... In general, everything was settled on the very first night ... Grunya invited Nikolai to stay, and he stayed.

The wounds bothered him, but Nikolai helped Grunya with the housework as best he could: he would chop wood, bring water, cook dinner ... All the women envied Gruny happiness: such a prominent man, and he came to the house himself! So they lived for about three years, and then Nikolai suddenly noticed that Grunin's daughter had turned into a beautiful girl. Nikolai did not even notice how he fell in love. And Tonya, still a girl, looked at him ... Secret love broke out between them. But can you hide your shining eyes?

When everything was revealed, Grunya cried bitterly, cursing Nikolai and Tonya ... And as if she brought trouble into the house: not even a week had passed since Nikolai fell ill in delirium and fever - battle wounds made themselves felt. The doctors said that Nikolai was hopeless. Tonya looked after him and cried softly. And Grunya roared out loud ... They buried Nikolai. And Tonya gave birth to a girl from him three months later. She brought her from the hospital and left who knows where. Olesya has grown all into a father, the same beauty. Grunya raised her ... Olesya still does not know who her real mother is.

Olga V. MELENCHUK, Pskov.

Gypsy

It was, I think, in 42nd. And we lived in Altai, in a village near the famous resort of Belokurikha. All the sanatoriums then were packed with seriously wounded soldiers, and the evacuees were housed in almost every house. All local men went to the front, and 14-16-year-old boys fled there. Only old people and children remained. I was 13 then. Mom is on the collective farm from morning till night, and I manage the house ...

I planted a vegetable garden, milked a cow, cooked food, and even looked after my brothers and sisters - I was the oldest. Life was hard for everyone. But life is life, a living person always wants something ... They also found time for entertainment. Gather, there were girls with women, and well, tease each other. One evacuee stood out in particular. She was very beautiful, dark-skinned, like a gypsy girl ... and so lively ... She says: “Mitka rushes after me, does not give a pass. Says: "If you do not agree, I will kill you!" Ha ha ha! Girls! If he kills, bury me on the Krasny Yar, please (as we called the cemetery), but closer to the edge ... so that I could see you fucking around here! Ha ha ha! "

And Mitka is still a fruit. He had three wives, and each had children. Why they didn’t take him to the front - I don’t know ... He worked as an electrician at the resort, and Tsyganochka worked as a nurse. Both lived in Bear Log (the street was called that). The road there is winding, the mountain is steep on one side, and the river on the other…. Every morning our water carrier came to the river on a horse drawn to a cart with a barrel for some water. And then he drives off to the river and sees something strange to the side. He stopped the horse, came up, and these are panties hanging on a bush! Before he had time to be surprised, he saw - and under a bush a woman was killed! And next to her is a man! He did not even remember about water, rather to the village council ...

They identified, of course, Tsyganochka. It was already cold. And Mitka is still alive. After all, after all, he caught up ... At first, apparently, he knocked well, and then dragged him into the bushes and raped And he himself was poisoned after all, he drank acid. Of course, they began to save him. Hurry to rinse the stomach, give medicine ... and he shouts: “I don’t want to live without her, don’t save !!!”. They took him to the hospital, and we, the kids, followed. The curious ... all looked through the window of the ward. And in the evening they told us that he had died.

The whole village saw off Tsyganochka on her last journey. The old women howled - could be heard far away. And her husband was released from the front to the funeral. I remember that he was very handsome, a military officer ... He loved his wife, apparently very much, cried at the cemetery ... And Mitka was buried later, and there were also a lot of people. His three wives followed the coffin with their children, and everyone wept. Apparently, they also loved ...

Alexandra Alekseevna POPRUGA, veteran of the labor front, veteran of labor. Sovetskaya Gavan, Khabarovsk Territory.

Letters were read by Svetlana Lazebnaya

We, the generation living in the 21st century, are accustomed to thinking of the Great Patriotic War as a feat of millions of people. Someone knows more about this, someone less, but for the majority all this has already turned into pages of textbooks. But during the war people not only performed feats, but also simply lived: they met, loved and created families.

A funny and touching love story, however, already in the post-war period, is shown in the TV series "Five Brides". Time of action - May 1945. The war has just ended, but the soldiers-liberators, who reached Berlin with victory, are in no hurry to let go home: the service for them continues. The gallant fighter pilots are very upset by this circumstance, and most of all - the handsome Vadik Dobromyslov, who is impatient to marry his pen pal, Nastya. When his friend Lesha Kaverin is sent on a business trip to his homeland, Vadik asks him for a service: to sign Nastya on his behalf, according to his documents, and bring her to Berlin. While Lesha is resisting the persuasion of a colleague, several more comrades will find out about this scam. And now the soldier has a task to marry five girls. He has a day for everything. Watch the television series Five Brides on MIR on June 17 at 10:10.

Of course, love during the war was not absolutely happy and cloudless. And yet, on the eve of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, we also decided to remember this human, not heroic side of wartime.

Sexual question, or where can you kiss?

In the rear there were very few men and many young single women; at the front, the opposite was true. And all the girls and women from the close male attention felt like real beauties. At the same time, there were not only courtship, but also novels, and great real feelings.

This is what Olga Sergeevna Lugovaya, a native of Leningrad, whose parents fought from 1941 to 1945, told the MIR 24 correspondent:

- My mother served as a signalman. And when the war began, she was already married. And her unmarried communication girlfriends flirted as best they could. But it was still very chaste, they did not allow anything superfluous either to themselves or to the men around them.

In those days, there was a completely different morality. No one trumped his love, everything was very intimate, secret. You couldn't walk down the street hugging. And publicly kissing was simply unthinkable. It got to the point of ridiculousness: lovers came to the station, to any train, especially to kiss. Everyone there is saying goodbye, kissing, which means - you can. And now the train is leaving, and they are standing.

Or on the stairs: you entered the staircase - you hear a zapoloshny rustle. These two lovers shied away from each other. And there is no other place: everyone lived in communal apartments, several generations in a room.

Newlyweds - and they did not have their own rooms, their corner was fenced off with a screen. And those who just met had nowhere to retire. Moreover, all this was viewed as moral decay and was punished along the lines of the Komsomol. Therefore, young people were very serious about manifestations of love. Either everything is serious, and then get married, or no flirting!

Nevertheless, nature took its toll. All these are not love stories, but rather, breathing, whispering, living every minute anew in memory, and long memories, and the pain of loss.

Photo: From the personal archive of G. Korotkevich

Cost of war

However, there were many cases when the romance ended with the war. For example, a man says that his family is missing. And it's true - evacuation. Sometimes there were front-line romances and new families were created. And after the war, the former families were often found, and front-line love was left behind. Or vice versa - families, having barely found the father of the family alive, immediately lost him, since front-line love turned out to be stronger, brighter.

My mother's friend, - says Olga Sergeevna, - communications operator Raechka Lukatskaya corresponded with a certain Dima throughout the war. She dreamed that after the war they would get married. It was a beautiful novel. Then they met after the war, but there was still nowhere to live, and they just met. When his family was found and returned from evacuation, he did not admit it to her. And one day she met him walking down the street with his family. And immediately crossed over to the other side of the road. This was a terrible blow for her, she remained lonely for the rest of her life. It is still unknown whether he deliberately concealed that his family was found, or for some other reason could not explain to her in time. And there were many such stories.

Outhouse theme

My mother's friends Adochka Svindler and Raechka Lukatskaya, the very ones who flirted with young guys at the front, when the war ended, graduated from institutes, many went in the scientific field, became professors. And at the front there was so much! Mom said, punning the fact that they are Ada and Raya, "the whole war passed between hell and heaven, and I have not been there or there."

Since the lovers did not have any chance of retirement, and the novels were played anyway, there were also curiosities involved in the unsettled military life. Somehow the unit where the communication girls served was located for quite a long time in a two-story building on the outskirts of Leningrad. The girls have four bunks and a bucket in the room, since it is cold to run outside in winter, and the sewage system does not work. They took out the bucket in turn.

All of them ended their duty at different times, and for one of them, Nina, the duty ended, and she had already gone to bed. And before the lights out, a young soldier named Blinov went to see her. He sits in the dark on her bed, kisses her hands, and then the matter does not go - and the girl is strict, and he himself understands that he will not allow himself anything.

Suddenly another signalman flies in, and, not understanding the darkness, rips off his cotton trousers and sits down over the bucket. And Nina, in order to somehow save the situation, suddenly hugs the guy, draws him to her, presses her head to her chest so that he doesn't hear a sound! And, of course, leaves in complete bewilderment, where did such passion and impetuosity come from, if earlier it was only possible to secretly kiss fingers.

Sometimes they also poured this bucket right out the window when no one saw it. The window looked out onto the backyard, where no one walked. And then one of the girls, Raechka, bursts in and laughs so that she literally slides down the wall laughing. It turns out that they were whispering there under the window with their boyfriend, when suddenly the window opened and the characteristic tinny rattling of a bucket was heard. She barely had time to pull at his sleeve with all her might, and with him to hide around the corner. And he asks: "What are they pouring out the tea?"

Ada Swindler was unusually intelligent and sublime, and then she remained the same: a doctor of sciences at the Academy of Arts, all the bohemians of St. Petersburg visited her home. They had a terribly disgusting commander who, as an educational sketch, forced her to take out a bucket of feces after him. And she - not in any! Earned several outfits out of turn for disobedience.

And then my mother says: “So, let’s you and I together now pass him by, decorously walk with this bucket, let him be ashamed himself. Moreover, we will say to everyone we meet: take care, we are carrying the comrade commander's toilet! "

Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Scouting and bathing negligee

In general, the discipline was more than serious, and the service of the signalmen was not sugar. We went to the front lines, under fire, and to reconnaissance on enemy territory. They dragged a coil of wire behind them, attached themselves to the enemy connection, and, unwinding the coil, returned back.

Once, my mother was on an intelligence mission. And suddenly there was a solar eclipse, and she lost all landmarks, because the shadows disappeared and everything began to look different. She was very frightened, because she was on Finnish territory, and getting into the hands of the Finns was worse than the Germans - they were scared, they were skinning the living. But nothing happened, she lay down until the end of the eclipse and was able to complete the task and return.

And once a friend of my mother with one of the young signalmen was returning from reconnaissance and not far from their unit they decided to swim, because they were walking by the lake, and it was very hot. Actually, this is a crime, for it could be punished very seriously. From reconnaissance it is supposed to go straight to the unit. In order not to embarrass each other, they decided to swim from different sides of the lake, although now such conventions may seem strange. She did not know how to swim and was mistaken: she did not understand that the bottom was sinking sharply into the depths. And he just heard a splash, and thinks: how diving! There is no and it is not. Then, when he caught himself, he barely pulled it out. And still not a single extra touch, although the situation was more than conducive to intimacy. And they are 19 years old, and there they were in love with any girl, since there were few girls on the front line. And he, poor man, only thought that she would not let anyone know about the fact that they were swimming in violation of military discipline.

Family at war

Parents met a few years before the war, he came from Riga to Leningrad to visit relatives. There was almost no courtship, he immediately said "marry me." Let's go and get married. I was born in 1939. Dad loved and was jealous of mom, I realized this later when I grew up.

Dad went with the troops to Austria, mom served in the group of forces of the Volkhov direction. And I, two years old, stayed with a still not old grandmother, who was only 48 years old, in besieged Leningrad. My grandmother died of hunger in the first blockade winter. But no one was going to demobilize my mother - they only let her go for a few days, to attach her daughter to the first nursery that came across.

I remember how I sit there and cry - I want to go home. And the children surrounded me and sang a song:

Will you go home
There's a lame man sitting there.
He dries his shoes,
He will strangle you.

From such a promise, I immediately got sick of going home. Then she settled down and lived in this kindergarten, which had already become an orphanage, until the end of the war. I remember that because of the bombing, all the ceilings in the garden were cracked. From the drawing of these cracks on the ceiling, I composed such castles, such pictures, something fantastic! And the ceilings without cracks seemed unusually boring to me. I thought: "how can you live here with such uninteresting ceilings?"

Once every four months, my mother was released from the unit to visit me. She took me home for just one night. And then I started having hungry diarrhea. Mom was called to take me to die at home, because it was impossible to allow a lethal outcome in the kindergarten. And she took me to the front line. There, everyone honestly pretended as if there was no girl here, since the child was not supposed to be in the unit. They fed me a little there, and I survived.

I remember the room in which the communication girls lived, the round table at which they were preparing for political studies. I walked around this room, and then suddenly I was frightened by my shadow. And they explained to me what a shadow is, and showed funny pictures on the wall. And I, enriched with this knowledge, returned back to kindergarten. I remember my mother's tunic, an overcoat on a belt, and how my knees touched the belt plate with my knees when she carried me in her arms.

Military secret and maiden honor

A completely different girl, named Olga Martyanova, who served at the headquarters, said that everything was strict with them with love: they flirted, but she came to Berlin as a girl. Although this did not stop her from being a terrible swearing woman.

All the girls at the headquarters lived in the same room and made fun of each other, of course. Olga said that in the corner of the room there was a basin with water under the sink, and every morning her felt boot for some reason swam in this basin. Once she expressed herself on this in such a three-story way that the girls complained to the commander that Olya Martyanova was swearing.

Olga liked this commander very much. He put all the girls in a circle, and said: "Olya, get up and tell us all what words you say that girls are complaining about you." She, of course, stood crimson, and did not utter a word, and when they all returned to the room and were alone, she overlaid everyone even more intricate than before.

Olga also had very good handwriting. There was no multiplication technique then, and she copied all important documents with her beautiful handwriting at the headquarters. She moved with the headquarters following the advancing troops across Europe. Then she proudly said that she kept all secret documents secret and inviolable, as well as her maiden honor.

A life-long romance

There was also true love at the front, which united people for life. Lyudmila Davidovna Linkova, who was born in the besieged Leningrad in 1944, told the story of just such love of her parents to the correspondent of MIR.

When the war began, her mother, Nina Artamonova, was 19 years old. They, students, were sent to dig trenches and then were not taken out from the front line. They walked back home as best they could. It turned out that her mother had managed to take her two younger children outside the encirclement line and left them in the village. She herself returned to Leningrad for her eldest daughter. Nina took a truck driver course to earn a working bread card. She worked at a car depot, along with men. The work was very hard: the motor depot served, among other things, the Road of Life. Mom also drove along this legendary road, but only once or twice. And then an instruction came out that forbade girls from being sent there.

My father was from Cherkassy, ​​he graduated from the Kharkov Automobile and Road Institute in 1939 and came to work on assignment to Kronstadt. He served as the head of a motor depot, which was transferred to Leningrad during the Finnish War. Later, this motor depot was combined with a military unit, they added road equipment: bulldozers, graders, dump trucks. The motor depot was assigned a military unit number. Mom was a freelance civilian driver among many of his subordinates. But they did not see each other at once.


Somehow mom and her friend Grusha were guilty, and the boss, my dad, called them to his place "for pick-up." It was under such circumstances that they met. She later admitted that her boss simply amazed her: he was handsome and respectable. And they ran in, girls of 19 years old, and froze in the middle of the room - confused. And all the enthusiasm went somewhere. He scolded them for something, and then slowly began to track mom's routes and find out if she returned to the base on time, if something had happened to her.

Green lamp and ration on the table

The period of courtship was not long, and it was not customary then to meet in secret, and there was no time - war, everyone fell from their feet from fatigue.

Dad sent people every day to where they could not return, and among them was Mom. They met in September 1942. And in November they got married.

The head of the car depot was given a room in a four-story building at the car depot. There he invited the future mother-in-law for acquaintance and matchmaking. She and her mother came on foot in the rain. “Rain, coldness, galoshes in clay. We come in, and he has a green table lamp and food on the table! ”, - later told my mother’s mother to her grandchildren. The grandmother, who was still not at all an old woman at that time, was impressed by what a prominent groom her daughter was: young, with a military bearing, reliable and strong-willed.

She was shocked that he had both of them immediately invited to live in his room, and that he had put on the table all his carefully saved officer rations: bread, canned food, real tea and sugar.

It was a matchmaking and a wedding - all at the same time. They sat at the table, ceremoniously said that they had decided to get married, and the next day he took both of them with all the belongings that fit in one suitcase and a blanket in which grandmother tied some things.

Parents kept their love story so secret, it was so unacceptable to talk about feelings that they would be very surprised if they were asked to tell about the romance of a relationship. All this generation were people of action. But they loved each other very much, it was evident! Such tenderness was between them! But sometimes they made fun of each other.

Child as a blockade miracle

In January 1944, they had a daughter, me. The baby weighed only 1 kg 800 g. There were very few women in labor in besieged Leningrad. The maternity hospital was located on Okhta, the winter was frosty, the windows in the windows were knocked out during the bombings, so the windows were covered with mattresses and everyone lived in one room in order to somehow warm up. Yes, and milk, in fact, the women in labor almost did not have, since everyone was exhausted to the limit.

Milk, as much as anyone had, was decanted into one kettle, which was on the table in the middle of the room. They poured out a little bit of it for all the babies, and the rest of the time they did it like this: chewed black bread, tied it in gauze, dipped this gauze in breast milk and stuffed the mouth of hungry babies with such a homemade nipple, who did not even scream out of weakness, but only squeaked a little ...

My mother and I stayed in the hospital until April. Women in labor were kept there for a very long time, so that babies could somehow come out. But all this time they were not swaddled: it is cold and still there is no cloth for the diapers, there is no water to wash them, there is no chance to dry them in such cold.

Therefore, at home, when the child was deployed, it turned out that he had practically no skin! A solid piece of bleeding. Dad rushed, found a famous homeopathic doctor, Doctor Grekov. She gave a black, like tar, odorous ointment and warned that she did not wash herself - all the diapers soiled by her should be thrown away. And then the whole motor depot began to collect undershirts, sheets, pieces of fabric - what anyone had left. Everyone knew that the boss had a child, and everyone was taking what they could. They came, brought them and stamped on the doorstep: everyone wanted to see this miracle - a child born in the middle of the blockade in the winter of 1944!

And gradually a thin pink film began to grow on the sides and back of the child - the future skin. So I stayed alive.

After the war

At the end of the war, my father's part went along with the advancing troops across the Baltic. They provided the construction of temporary bridges, crossings, gateways for the advancement of all military equipment. They took part in the storming of Konigsberg and from there they were recalled to serve in the newly occupied Revel - Tallinn.

Mom stayed in Leningrad. In 1945 she had a boy, my brother. And only after the war in 1946, dad took the whole family to Tallinn. My first post-war memory is very bright green grass and many yellow dandelions.

Dad always brought home rations solemnly. I remember a wooden suitcase, knocked down with small carnations, in which he brought flour in a linen bag, a briquette of butter, canned food. I remember the first sweets in my life on November 7 - they were multi-colored pills, very beautiful, my brother and I were sorry to eat them. Mom in 1948 went to work as a radio announcer - she read the news in Russian.

My father served for 25 years in the ground forces as part of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, then retired as an engineer-colonel, and worked for 13 years in the Estonian Ministry of Construction. Mom raised the children, and when we graduated from school, she went to study herself - she graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology, worked in the editorial offices of several newspapers and magazines. This is how they lived their entire lives in Estonia. And even many years later, they treated each other very tenderly and were surrounded by many friends: colleagues, blockademen - they gathered together for all the holidays, prepared a table in a club, sang songs, and were very close to each other.


Love is a wonderful word. In this word, warmth and tenderness, joy and fun, happiness and life. War is a terrible word. It contains grief and suffering, longing and sorrow, misery and death. Love and war are incompatible concepts. But what gave the soldiers to fight, resist, endure incredible suffering, survive in the terrible hell of war? Love for the Motherland, for the home, for those who stayed at home and were waiting for a soldier from the war. During the war, every soldier lived in the hope that his mother, wife, and bride were waiting for him.

An example of great and pure love is the story of the relationship between Valentin Nikitich Kangin and Anna Danilovna Solovieva, who met on December 10, 1942. On this day, Valentin Nikitich received a letter from an unknown girl from the city of Kalinin.

A lively correspondence began between the young people. Every week Valentine received letters from his stranger. December 10 will be the happiest date for them. This day will be the day of the beginning of friendship, which will grow into love.

Every day Valentine looked forward to letters from Anna. From a letter from Valentine dated January 5, 1943:

“If you knew how I await your letters, how dear they have become to me and how close you become to me…”.

Anna was also looking forward to letters from Valentine, and having received the letter, she considered herself the happiest girl. She went to work with joy, smiled at everyone she met.

Soon Valentin and Anna exchanged photos. In the photo, Valentine saw a cheerful girl with long blond braids, with spring freckles on her cheeks, only from a black and white photo he could not determine the color of her eyes. A real Russian beauty.

Anna saw in the photograph a handsome young man with expressive eyes.

Each of them in the letter hoped for a meeting, but these were dreams. At the front, earning a government award was easier than getting a vacation to go home. Valentin Kangin was lucky: for the difference in the battle for Ptakhinskaya heights, the command encouraged the lieutenant with a short leave to go home.

On September 30, 1943, Valentin Kangin arrived in Kalinin, went to Anna at the address: Pushkinskaya Street, house 7. On a sunny warm day, the long-awaited meeting between Valentin and Anna took place, which they had dreamed of in letters for almost ten months. In the evening, Valentine and Anna noticed a large number of stars in the sky. Anna offered to choose a bright star and consider it hers. This is how their common star appeared.

Soon Valentin Kangin came home, where his mother and sisters met him, they could not believe this happiness. From his home on October 7, 1943, Valentine wrote to Anna:

“... And now I will add that during this time I have never been alone. You were constantly mentally with me. And now it seems to me that you are sitting opposite me and smiling and illuminating the surrounding space with your bright image ... ”.

A week later Kangin V.N. it was necessary to return to the front. The train passed Kalinin, where another short meeting of young people took place. A few days later, Valentin received another letter and a photograph from Anna.

"Favorite! This smile will always remind you of October 1943, the platform of the Kalininsky railway station on a dark, cold night and Anka escorting you to the front after happy days ... a short meeting. "

From the memorable evening of farewell on the platform in October 1943, the period of friendship between Valentine and Anna begins. On November 20, 1943, Valentine wrote to Anna:

“... not a single clear night passes without me looking at the star. When I look at her, it seems to me that you are looking, and we meet with gazes. Our star moves up and to the left across the sky. Did you notice it or not? ... ".

“… I can well imagine our walk today. The dense forest. I love this forest. Here we go, the giants-trees part. And some tree no, no, and will sprinkle us with sparkling snow. We have fun and warmth at heart ... You will help me choose the most beautiful Christmas tree. And then we will celebrate the new year ... ”.