2013-01-11 16:15
Through the pages of the Pravda newspaper, Vladislav Sherstyukov

Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina, the first tractor driver of the USSR... One cannot write about this person without surprise, admiration and even delight. I am happy that fate brought me to the daughter of this legendary worker of the 20th century...

What was she, her mother? I learned a lot about this by talking with her for a long time.

They also talked about Angelina in books and newspapers of the Soviet era.

The daughter of a laborer gained all-Union fame

Galina Burkatskaya, chairman of the Club of Women Machine Operators named after her, wrote brightly and objectively about her:

“Pasha Angelina... In the thirties, this name became a banner in the countryside, under which stood those who asserted the strength of the still young collective farm system, the beauty of collective labor, the beauty of the moral principles of our socialist life.

Pasha Angelina... Having organized and led the country's first women's tractor brigade, she is an ever-calling example of selflessness in work, innovative flair, motherly love for the land.

I had to meet with Praskovya Nikitichnaya... Most of all I remember her swiftness - in her gait, her gaze, in her peculiar ability to carry on a conversation. And I also remember that young people were always crowding around her. Questions poured in, someone reached out with his hand to her hand, someone carefully touched her stars on her jacket. Twice Hero of Socialist Labor!

And also a communist. And also - the winner of the State Prize of the USSR. And also - a strong, beautiful, cheerful person. Our contemporary."

Pasha was born on December 30, 1912 (January 12, 1913) in the village of Starobeshevo in Ukraine (now Donetsk region), in a small house under a thatched roof large family Efimiya Fedorovna and Nikita Vasilyevich Angelins.

Education for the children of the poor was then unavailable. We have already forgotten the meaning of the painting by V. Semisenko “At the Threshold of the School”. But 70 percent of the population was illiterate.

Residents of Starobeshev had no idea about medical care. Many died from smallpox, dysentery, typhoid fever ... In 1889, diseases were registered: dysentery - 61, typhoid fever - 53, measles - 30, chickenpox - 6. Of the ten children of the Angelinas, ten-year-old Fedor and three-year-old Lena died of typhus. Ivan, Kharitina and Pasha herself suffered from smallpox (traces on her face remained).

The family worked hard. Life was difficult. From the age of five, Pasha, together with the whole family, worked for the kulak.

I will quote the words from Demyan Bedny's poem "Flowers and Roots", written, as I read, according to the memoirs of Pasha's brother Angelina Vasily:

Our hut is a barn more precisely,

Where the bug reigned and tyrannized us, -

My grandfather couldn't tell about her

Who and when bungled it.

In it, obsolete for a long time,

As the time came for the night

Family of ten

We went astray like herrings in a barrel,

Everyone slept together. Tightness…

“Is it just enough to feed ten mouths?”

So we all have plenty of stale bread

Never ate.

By the way, Nikita Vasilievich Angelin was one of the first to join the TOZ (association for cultivating the land), and later became the chairman of the Lenin collective farm. In 1927 he joined the ranks of the CPSU (b). Pasha's elder brother was elected secretary of one of the first Komsomol organizations.

Pasha worked on the collective farm, shepherded calves, cows, and worked in a field team. And in 1929, the first equipment appeared in the countryside - four Fordzones. The first training courses for tractor drivers were created in Yuzovka. Recommend the most capable, the most courageous for training new profession. Pasha's brother Ivan also got there. He became one of the first tractor drivers in the village, and his sister was proud of him. It was then that she had a dream: to lead the iron horse across the field herself!

When courses for tractor drivers were opened in the village of Styla, Starobeshevsky district, the only girl among the students was Pasha Angelina ...

Success was not long in coming. The very first year of work on a tractor - and the first record in my life: I exceeded the norm by 30 percent! A seventeen-year-old Komsomol member at a meeting of MTS was awarded a drummer ticket, an honors badge Agriculture, a valuable gift.

The star of the worker did not go out all her unusually radiant life. The number of female tractor drivers grew next to her: Natasha Radchenko, Vera Anastasova, Vera Kosse, Lyubov Fedorova, Vera Zolotopup, Nadezhda Biits, Maria Radchenko ... In 1933, the first in the country (probably in the world) female tractor brigade loudly declared itself: the field work was carried out, not allowing a single downtime of equipment for the entire season. In 1934, the output for each tractor was already 795 hectares instead of the planned 497. The team did not forget about the quality of land cultivation, which led to an unprecedented harvest at that time. Angelina's brigade was presented with the challenge Red Banner of the district committee of the party. Then labor was the mirror of society. There was also poetry of labor ...

The first women's tractor brigade was spurred to new achievements, of course, by the Stakhanov movement in the USSR. Girlfriends become his initiators in agriculture! At the II All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers (1935), Pasha Angelina promises on behalf of the brigade to plow 1,200 hectares of land with each tractor.

And these were not empty words. They were based on a well-thought-out organization of labor. The brigade introduces innovations: the exact schedule of tractor work, plowing at night, refueling tractors right in the furrow, scheduled repairs of machines ... The world's first women's tractor brigade kept its word. On the night of November 12, 1935, the last hectare of land was plowed. A telegram went to the Kremlin: “The promise given at the congress of collective farmers-shock workers, the Starobeshevskaya women's tractor brigade has fulfilled. Each KhTZ tractor worked 1,225 hectares of land and saved over 20,154 kilograms of fuel.” Such was the bond between people, honor and government...

Former museum director P.N. Angelina Lidia Pavlovna Dotsenko (I will refer to her facts below) wrote about the winter All-Union Conference of Agricultural Leaders: “Member of the brigade P.N. Angelina V.E. Mikhailova-Yuryeva recalls: “We, simple peasant girls, were given so much attention and respect! We couldn't dream of it. For the rest of their lives they remembered the meeting with N.K. Krupskaya. She received us in her office, seated us in armchairs, on the sofa. She came up to each of us, stroked our hands and said: “Such small hands - how do you turn such a heavy tractor?” Many kind words were told to us by M.I. Kalinin, S.M. Budyonny, K.E. Voroshilov. We visited museums, theaters, plants and factories. At the furniture factory, we were presented with a wardrobe, beds and six chairs each.

The labor glory of the first tractor driver blazed and blazed ...

January 6, 1936 M.I. Kalinin presented Pasha Angelina with the Order of Lenin, and other orders for her friends. On that day, Pasha gave her word to bring the output of the tractor to 1600 hectares, to create ten women's tractor brigades in the region. Upon arrival from Moscow, the women were sent to foreman courses, after which they headed tractor brigades. There were ten of them!

For her there was a front in the rear

The initiative of Pasha Angelina received wide support in the country: women's tractor brigades were created in many parts of the Soviet Union. She, the first tractor driver, in 1936 was elected a delegate to the VIII Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, which adopted the Stalinist Constitution of the USSR. And in 1937, Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Veski memoirs of the former first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee (1938-1952) N.A. Mikhailova: “When the first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR took place in 1937, I worked in Pravda as the head of the group preparing for the elections. We prepared abundant information, essays on candidates for deputies, materials on how the country is meeting the first elections. Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina became a deputy. At that time she was 25 years old. Energy bubbled through her. In the life of Pasha Angelina happened an important event- in the same 1937, she joins the ranks of the Communist Party. The Soviet people were building a new life. Designers created the best machines to save people from hard manual labor, agricultural specialists were looking for ways to increase productivity in order to give people plenty of bread, meat, milk, scientists worked on the problem of prolonging human life.

Stop the pen: it was the USSR! And I will continue Mikhailov: “At that time, clouds were gathering in the West, the flames of a new world war were flaring up in Europe. Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina understood well that if fascist Germany attacked the USSR, male tractor drivers would go to the front and then women should replace them. In a number of major cases, it was planned to organize the training of 100,000 women machine operators in the countryside. On this topic, I had a conversation with Pasha Angelina when she arrived in Moscow. The fact is that there were skeptics who believed that it was hardly possible to train, and whether so many female machine operators were needed. "Who is speaking? Pasha asked angrily. - Yes, if something happens, even a hundred thousand will not be enough for us. We know what they said at the congress about Nazi Germany. If you need to keep your eyes open, then it means that you need to prepare for everything.

And then Pasha Angelina, other noble tractor drivers shouted: “A hundred thousand girlfriends - to the tractor!” This was the beginning of the all-Union campaign of girls to master the art of driving a tractor. Newspaper reports of that time are interesting: “800 collective farmers of Khakassia decided to become tractor drivers”, “In the Nikolaev region, all tractor drivers undertook to teach their wives and sisters their profession.” IN Central Asia female tractor drivers appeared: in Kyrgyzstan - 1087, in Turkmenistan - 1306 ... But in general, after the call of Pasha Angelina and her associates, more than two hundred thousand girls and women mastered the profession of a tractor driver in a few months.

One cannot omit such an episode from the biography of my heroine: in September 1939, in order to get an agricultural education, Pasha Angelina entered the All-Union Academy of Socialist Agriculture. She handed over her brigade to her younger sister Elena for the duration of her studies.

The beginning of the war found Pasha in his native collective farm. Her speech at the rally was fiery. She called for a resolute rebuff to the enemy, triple efforts in labor, and timely harvest. On June 26, 1941, the Socialist Donbass newspaper publishes an appeal by the three Angelina sisters to housewives, state farm workers, and collective farmers with a proposal to quickly master the profession of a machine operator. The result: in the three MTS of the Starobeshevsky district, 170 tractor drivers and 15 combine operators were trained in the shortest possible time! The farms of this region have successfully completed field work, handed over grain of seed, fodder and other funds to the state, and large cattle and sheep were evacuated in an organized manner to eastern regions Union.

In this formidable time hanging over the country, Angelina proved herself a true patriot. Praskovya Nikitichna on August 21, 1941 (this is recorded on the receipt) handed over 4840 rubles to the National Defense Fund. She wrote about those days: “Humming and trembling, NATI walked. In Belaya Kalitva, I handed over to the Red Army a detachment of powerful, serviceable vehicles, seven wagons and fourteen horses.

After the evacuation, the labor and moral feat of Pasha Angelina continued. Her front line now passed through the Budyonovsky MTS of the Terektinsky district of the West Kazakhstan region. It was very difficult! Burning winds (and I felt them when I served in this republic) dried the lands of the collective farm named after S.M. Budyonny. Harvest before her arrival - seven to eight centners per hectare. But Pasha was an experienced grain grower and was always convinced that it is possible to grow the desired crop on any land if you seriously follow the rules of advanced agricultural technology and, of course, work sparingly.

Here is how L.P. Dotsenko: “Now must be carried out in as soon as possible, after the seeder, launch light harrows to plant seeds deeper, loosen the ground. After that, immediately destroy the formed crust, close all the ways of evaporation of moisture.

Yes, the development of virgin lands in Kazakhstan for Pasha Angelina's brigade began back in the war years. Recalls assistant foreman G.T. Danilova: “I had to work day and night. In the first year alone, we developed 1,200 hectares of virgin lands. Before us, winter wheat was not cultivated in Kazakhstan. Pasha asked permission from the Ural Regional Party Committee to sow this crop. She received permission, but no seeds. Pasha goes to Saratov and from there comes with seeds of winter wheat, which gave an excellent harvest in the first year.

She did not tolerate a passive attitude to business, firmly believed in the victory of reason and diligence. In 1942, Angelina's tractor brigade completed the agricultural work plan by 156.4 percent, saving almost 13.5 tons of fuel. Instead of 2100 hectares, she cultivated 5401 hectares! Feat? Feat! Any reader will be delighted with her dedication to achieving a noble goal on mother earth. P.N. herself Angelina recalled: “But the most encouraging thing is that we helped the Budyonovskaya MTS to grow new female personnel, which she did not have before us. Now, by right, MTS can be proud of such combine operators as Katya Holot, Motya Tarasenko and others.”

The news of the miracle spread throughout Kazakhstan. Still, the team of Pasha Angelina collected 150 pounds of grain per hectare! Delegates came, learned from her the advanced methods of cultivating the land. And she willingly shared her experience. In the regional newspaper "Leninsky Way" her appeal to all tractor drivers and tractor drivers of Kazakhstan was published with an appeal to participate in the All-Union competition for increasing assistance to the Red Army in defeating the enemy. The shock work of Pasha Angelina's brigade was awarded the title of Guards.

I cite surprising in content the memoirs of the assistant foreman G.T. Danilova: “One morning we were told that there was no gasoline, everything was going to the front. And the harvest of 1942-1943 was very high. We did not have the right to lose a single grain, the combines were idle, and then Pasha suggested making additional barrels for gasoline in order to only start the combines, and work ... on kerosene. I worked as a machine operator for many years, but I did not hear that it was possible to harvest crops on kerosene. It was a bold move, a bold move by our brigadier. In one day, the tractor drivers of our brigade made these barrels themselves. The next day, at our initiative, everyone in Budyonovskaya MTS switched to kerosene.

What kind of workers were in the Land of Soviets - I write and I myself am surprised ...

The initiative of my heroine continued to multiply the ranks of women machine operators, which is difficult to overestimate during the years of the Great Patriotic War. Four hundred thousand of them raised and harvested bread for the army in the rear!

Without a book, like without a tractor, she could not live.

In the fall of 1943, Donbass was liberated from the Nazi invaders, and in early 1944, Praskovya Nikitichna returned to Starobeshevo. It was destroyed, the reference and indicative MTS of Ukraine was overshadowed by ruins. And the brigade of Pasha Angelina returned life to the wounded earth. In 1944, on an area of ​​693 hectares, they received 133 poods of winter wheat per hectare ...

The famous tractor driver again introduced a lot of new things into agriculture. On her initiative in the Donbass in 1945-1946, snow retention was carried out for the first time. It is known that in 1946 a great drought broke out, not a drop of rain fell all summer, and thick, solid wheat was earing on the fields of her collective farm. As a result, an average of 17 centners of grain was collected from all areas. It is no coincidence that in November 1946, Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina was awarded the Stalin Prize for the improvement of labor in agriculture and excellent performance in the production of grain crops.

In December 1947, she was invited to a board meeting of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, where she made a presentation. For more than a quarter of a century (!) her brigade has been participating in VDNKh every year. During this time, 200 thousand hectares of land have been cultivated, 6 million poods of grain have been grown, and 52 annual norms have been met! And this is not a fairy tale, but a real labor result based on thought, diligence, love for the land. In February 1958, for obtaining high and stable yields, the daughter of a former farm laborer, who became an innovator of collective farm production under Soviet power, was an active party, state and public figure, was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the second time.

The legendary tractor driver was a delegate of the XVIII, XIX, XX congresses of the CPSU, a number of congresses of the Communist Party of Ukraine, a member of its Central Committee.

But it's time to touch on other interesting points in her biography. Praskovya Nikitichna was the mother of four children - Svetlana, Valery, Stalin (her relatives) and the adopted Gennady - the son of the deceased brother Ivan. Here is what Svetlana Sergeevna Angelina, who graduated from Moscow State University, told me about her mother’s culture: “She had an amazing passion for books. This is not yet an open topic. We must not forget for a moment that she was a machine operator, she worked in the field. And when she sent parcels from Moscow, none of them contained anything but books. They were books, books, books. Truth: most better education- books. Mom understood this with all the fibers of her soul, and we have formed an amazing library, probably no worse than the district one. She also subscribed to a lot of newspapers and magazines. So many! She was modern smart person: I couldn't live without reading, just like without a tractor. And that was the time."

Svetlana Sergeevna also spoke about such an order, amazing to tears: “In the tractor team of Angelina, in this field camp, hygiene and beauty were lovingly observed. There were men different ages and they all called her Aunt Pasha. I was amazed that the visiting delegations from the Union and from abroad, especially women, were interested in what kind of sheets tractor drivers sleep on. I can assure you that the linen was always amazingly clean. There was a woman in the brigade who washed clothes. Mom loved cleanliness and watched it. And more importantly, my mother loved flowers. She brought roses and planted them in the brigade. These roses bloomed, which no one had planted here before and had not even seen, in the steppe expanse. Roses were never plucked, even for the dearest guests.

Another detail: “When she became famous throughout Soviet Union, she was invited to work in Donetsk, and in Kyiv, and in Moscow, but my mother believed that you should be engaged in the business for which you are intended. She often repeated: “My destiny is to grow bread. This is my destiny." She never left the ground. Never. Its goal is land, arable land, bread.

During a conversation with Svetlana Sergeevna, I asked the question: “The modern reader knows little whether your mother met I.V. Stalin? Her answer: “Of course, I met, and many times. For the first time she saw Stalin in 1933 at a meeting of agricultural leaders. In 1935, during the work of the II All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers, Stalin received in the Kremlin her entire female tractor brigade, as they were then called - "nine girls in green berets" (she was then 22 years old). And Stalin personally received her ... Minister Ilya Pavlovich Lomako told me something that I did not know before: my mother was one of those few people of her rank (for example, Stakhanov) who could always call Stalin ... "

Praskovya Nikitichna died on January 21, 1959 and, according to her will, was buried in the cemetery in Starobeshevo. In 1962, her bronze bust was installed in the center of the village of Starobeshevo, and a memorial museum was located nearby in the building. It contains the entire biography of the heroine: personal belongings, numbers of victories, dates, reviews, numerous photographs ... By 1988, about 300 thousand people visited the museum. In November 2012, I called the director of the museum, Evgeny Evgenyevich Kotenko. He said that the historic house is still operating today. Since 2000, 40,000 visitors have been here.

History knows many outstanding women. Among them will forever remain a great name from the Soviet era - Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina, a unique grain grower, communist, innovator, a wonderful woman who never abandoned the steering wheel of a tractor and remained true to the moral principles of socialist labor. She - worthy representative Soviet socialist civilization, which, of course, belongs to the future.


Now few people remember the legendary tractor driver Pasha Angelina. And in Stalin's times, her name thundered throughout the country just like the legendary names of Chkalov, Stakhanov, Papanin. But even then it was difficult to imagine that the leader of production, the Stakhanovite, the “man in a skirt” was a normal, ordinary woman. Moreover, not very happy and not very healthy.

Soviet propaganda was always looking for those whom the youth could look up to. Those who fell into the field of view of the "PR people" of the Stalinist regime were made leaders, heroes of labor, idols. Only the advertising machine of the Stalinist system did not spare its heroes, who became cogs in its rigid mechanism. This is exactly what happened with the legendary tractor driver Pasha Angelina.

young rebel

Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina took the first step on her way to the “title” of an example for the youth of the whole country on her own. This is worth noting especially, because there were those who were artificially chosen and literally forced to perform various labor feats. And Pasha from childhood was sincerely interested in technology and various mechanisms.

By the end of the 20s of the last century, the fashion for sophisticated beauties of the Art Nouveau era died completely. Now, from the pages of periodicals, thick, full-legged, wide-hipped peasant women smiled broadly. It is not surprising - after the destruction of the peasantry during the years of dispossession, the leadership came to its senses. It became clear that we needed to somehow raise the economy. And this should be done by young, strong and healthy people. The type of powerful rural worker has come into fashion: let us recall at least the muscular heroine of Vera Mukhina's famous composition "Worker and Collective Farm Woman".

True, according to one parameter, Pasha did not fit into the heroes of labor: she was a Greek by nationality. She grew up in a Christian, very patriarchal family. Women in their family since ancient times were engaged in housework and children. That is why Pasha's interest in the miracle machine, the tractor, horrified her father and brothers. But Praskovya from childhood was considered a kind of "boy in a skirt." And the family had to put up with it: in 1929, 16-year-old Pasha Angelina successfully completed the courses of tractor drivers and began working in the fields of her native Donetsk region.


Soviet journalists could not fail to notice the strong, pretty, smiling tractor driver. She was forgiven for belonging to a national minority. And it started...
The widely promoted social movement was called "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!". In 1933, Angelina led the first female tractor brigade. From the pages of Soviet newspapers did not leave her cheeky smiling face, which has become, in a modern way, a symbol of Soviet feminism.
Not a hundred, but two hundred thousand women of the USSR followed the example of the charming Pasha!

So she was remembered by her contemporaries: healthy, pretty, smiling, saddling her iron horse. I wanted to ask: was Angelina a living person, did she have feelings? There were feelings. And they did not bring much joy to her.

Mother, wife and drummer

Everyone who dealt with Pasha remembered her as a kind, sympathetic person, always ready to help.
And she was able to help: in the end, all possible and impossible blessings fell on her head. Position of the deputy of the Supreme Council, higher education, which she was given to receive in absentia and without any problems, awards, government awards ...


But the fact of the matter is that the legendary tractor driver could not stop working, could not become something like a wedding general under the government of the country. From meetings in the capital, where she was often seated next to Stalin, Pasha rushed to her native fields and served her work shift from morning to night. The villagers were amazed at her energy, knowledge of technology and ... interest in literature. Angelina wanted to match the title of a highly educated village worker. From Moscow, to her address in her native village of Starobeshevo, there were endless parcels with books ordered by a well-deserved tractor driver.

What was the personal life of Pasha Angelina? It's hard to even imagine, but this "woman of iron" was married - unfortunately, unsuccessfully. She raised four children: three of her own and a nephew, whom she accepted into the family without hesitation when her mother abandoned the boy.

Her husband was Sergei Chernyshev - a party leader. He was described as a capable man, but painfully proud. Even before the war, he rolled scary scenes to his wife when invitations came to government receptions. After all, it was written in them: “Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina with her husband.” He felt like some insignificant "trailer" to the legendary Pasha. And it hurt his male ego.

The older children, Svetlana and Valery, were born before the war. Youngest daughter, named after the leader Stalin, was born in 1942. The history of her birth vividly characterizes the mores of the era, the heroes of which became her own victims. When Angelina was nine months pregnant, she was summoned to the capital for a session of the Supreme Council. And she went, afraid to disobey. And on the way back on the train, she gave birth to her youngest daughter. Then the train was bombed - Angelina with a baby got home for several months. The sister said to Pasha:
- It is necessary to name the child Stalin.
- Call me at least a pot, - answered Pasha, exhausted by the terrible road.
The girl in the family was called Stalochka.
During the war, Pasha Angelina raised virgin soil in the fields of Kazakhstan. She worked from morning till night, slept four hours a day. It was necessary to have time to set labor records. The fact is that the drummer often learned about her exploits from the press. She understood: this is how the authorities sent her signals for action. The figures indicated in the journalistic materials had to be matched.

A victim of time

The husband returned alive - after the war, the family gathered in his native Donetsk region. But Sergei did not stop being jealous of his wife for her fame. Yelled at her:
- I returned from the war, and you get up at four o'clock for work!

In addition, at the front, he became addicted to alcohol. Relations between spouses became worse and worse. Finally, it came to the point that, in a drunken stupor, Chernyshev tried to shoot his wife. But he missed - then for a long time they could not remove the bullet from the wall of the house ...
Pasha, like a real village woman, endured for a long time and forgave her husband a lot. For example, the mistress he took at the front. She even financially supported her and the child she gave birth to from Chernyshev!

But Pasha did not forgive her wife for this evil drunken trick: she kicked him out of the house, refused alimony and changed the children's surname. They all became Angelinas. Chernyshev later died of alcoholism.
After the war, when the propaganda campaign ended, Angelina began to be offered high official positions. She wisely refused:
- Hold on to the ground. The tractor is low, you can't fall lower.

Her daughter Svetlana said that her mother knew perfectly well the value of the time in which she lived. She took one of the children with her on all trips. And once in a Moscow hotel, during a serious conversation, she whispered to her daughter:
- Let's go outside. Here every cell hears everything.

Praskovya Nikitichna did not marry again, although they wooed her more than once. More than anything, she was afraid that some strange man would offend her children.

Angelina's relatives prayed for her, believing that only her name saved religious family from repression. Only Praskovya Nikitichna's brother was arrested. She managed to rescue him, but too late: during interrogations, his lungs were beaten off, and he did not live long after his release.


The legendary tractor driver has died at the age of 46. And she died terribly. From constant contact with fuels and lubricants, Angelina fell ill with cirrhosis of the liver. The body could no longer get rid of excess fluid. Once a week, a bucket of water was pumped out through an incision in the stomach of the unfortunate woman ...

And Praskovya Nikitichna joked about her huge, swollen belly:
- I became pregnant, I will soon give birth to the fourth. I got blown away by the wind!
And she laughed.

In the end, she decided to have an operation. After her, she fell into a coma and died soon after.

Today, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Pasha Angelina live in the Don region and in Moscow.

Her children remember their mother with love. They believe that the era drove a tractor along Praskovya Nikitichna, depriving her of health and personal happiness.

I could move my iron horse with my hands

Pasha Angelina was known by the entire Country of Soviets. Pasha Angelina smiled from the front pages of newspapers and magazines. She was not an actress. She was a symbol of the Soviet attitude to work. A simple Donetsk girl, who tamed the miracle of overseas technology - the Fordson tractor, created the world's first women's tractor brigade and personally promised Comrade Stalin to organize ten more of the same. She kept her word, of course. Thanks to the initiative of the drummer, 100 thousand of her friends replaced the men at the heavy steering wheels. So that the great Motherland blooms like a spring garden, and on its fertile fields iron machines rumble peacefully, obedient to gentle female hands.

Pasha Angelina is like a revived sculpture of Vera Mukhina - a strong, broad-shouldered peasant woman, with hard-working arms, hardy legs and an open weathered face. It seems that she could easily take a place next to the worker, pushing a steel collective farmer on a pedestal.
From severe hunger
... In the winter of 1933, Donetsk Starobeshevo, like all the surrounding villages, was severely starving. If it weren’t for the pieces of bread that were brought once a week by fathers and brothers who went to the mines, by spring, probably, not only would there be any able-bodied, but even alive. When the villagers were unable to go out into the fields, the long-awaited food loan finally arrived - several sacks of flour. Dumplings or mash were prepared from it on field camps. Anyone who reached the cauldron was given a bowl of this brew. The revived people reached for the seeders and harrows - sowing began. Here, in the camp, they spent the night, buried in straw.
Dobrela here and Pasha. At first she helped keep the fire under the boiler and cook food, then she carried the seed grain to the seeders. I didn’t have the strength to lift the bag, so I dragged buckets around.
The first tractors arrived from the MTS for grain harvesting. An inquisitive, brave girl did not leave the outlandish cars. There were not enough tractor drivers, and courses had to be organized to train them. Pasha was the first to sign up for them. The tractor driver from Angelina came out noble. She plowed so that the furrows that she laid in the field could be measured with a ruler.
Catch up and overtake the men
From the local girls who were drawn to technology like a magnet, the energetic Pasha organized a brigade. Collective farmers worked with enthusiasm, on the rise, trying in no way to yield to men.
“It seems to me that it was a great thing,” recalls ordinary plowman Georgy Terentyevich Danilov, who serviced the equipment of Pasha's brigade. - And we all understood this during the war, when the peasants were called to the front. It was the girls, and even teenagers, who fed the country.
Georgy Danilov was eager to go to the front, but he was seconded to the first brigade of female tractor drivers that was going to the rear, to Kazakhstan.
- When the German approached Starobeshev, - says Georgy Terentyevich, - they gave me a rifle and told me not to step aside from the foreman. And even then, after all, how many people, including dashing ones, rolled across the country. There was even a rumor that the Nazis equipped a sabotage group to capture Angelina. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I firmly decided to myself: in which case I will fight to the last. This is what he lived until they got to Kazakhstan.
Maiden's tears sunk into the soul of the machine operator.
- Previously, we at least took care of them, which is heavier - we took it upon ourselves. And here the compatriots, one might say, were thrown into hell. What did it cost to start the tractor with a heavy handle. Even the men were crippled there. But the girls endured and did not even swear. What a cry, go away a bit and again for the damned pen.
“Until 1945, Pasha’s brigade was really purely female,” says the brigade’s accountant Maxim Yuryev. - Then the women's husbands from the front returned and replaced them at work, giving their wives the opportunity to give birth. Because the longer a woman sat on those tractors, the less were her chances: the tractors were not on caterpillars and not on wheels with rubber tires, but on the needles. Shake on your knitting needles on arable land - you can recapture everything for yourself!
A jealous husband is worse than a drunkard
The brigadier and the deputy of the Supreme Council Angelina did not indulge in female happiness. With her husband Sergei Fedorovich Chernyshov, former first secretary of the district party committee of the Starobeshevsky district, she broke up - kicked out of the house after numerous scandals. The husband was so jealous of Pasha that he once went after the tractor drivers to VDNKh in Moscow, where he made a scandal. For such an encroachment on the honor of a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, another would have been assigned to the Lubyanka, but he was simply escorted home peacefully.
- How true daughter of the Greek people, Praskovya Nikitichna, until the last moment, endured the tricks of her husband in order to save her family, - recalls the director of the Starobeshev Museum, Lydia Donchenko. - But a domestic quarrel in 1947, when in the presence of children the husband shot at the ceiling, overflowed the cup of patience.
- Aunt Pasha (that was her name in the brigade) gave her wife five thousand rubles (at that time a fortune), - says Maxim Yuryev, - and ordered to get out anywhere. He tried to return, but then settled in a neighboring area. In the brigade and in the collective farm in general, no one dared to mention his name, as if he had died.
Angelina herself did not marry again - she alone put her three children and her adopted son Gennady on her feet. Praskovya did not change her maiden name. They say she wanted to remain a symbol forever. Therefore, she also refused offers to head party committees. different levels, become chairman of the collective farm "Zavety Ilyich". And in the position of foreman of the first women's tractor, she had considerable weight both in her homeland, where not a single wedding and christening could do without her, as without a priest, and in the highest echelons of power. Otherwise, Angelina was an ordinary, hardworking, intelligent woman. Even when she was at the very top, she still didn’t rise up in front of us, she helped, remember the old-timers-fellow villagers.
The whole village was waiting for the deputy
From all over the Donetsk region, they went to Angelina for ... a page from her deputy notebook, which for many was really worth its weight in gold. It turns out that at that time the deputies were supplied with personal notebooks, a sheet of which was a kind of order, binding.
- My former classmate survived thanks to Aunt Pasha, - says Lydia Donchenko. - The boy had bone tuberculosis, and thanks to Angelina's petition, he got the opportunity to undergo treatment twice a year in the Crimea. Until he is completely healed.
Thanks to this leaflet, one dispossessed family also survived: they were given 100 kilograms of flour. And another girl, who, according to a slander, was convicted of allegedly committing theft.
It was thanks to Pasha Angelina that the children from vocational school learned what duvet covers are, and her son Valery's classmates tried tangerines and candies in boxes. Neither these nor other "miracles" were seen in the Starobeshevsky district until the year 1950. Each time the whole district was looking forward to the return of the permanent deputy from Moscow, because not a single request of the voter passed her ears. All the boys from the class where Valera studied alternately wore his uniform school jacket. And the tractor brigade, which practically lived on the field camp, really did not need anything.
In the brigade as in space
- We were selected for Angelina's brigade, as in a team spaceship: physically healthy, non-smokers, with related specialties (or a welder, or a locksmith), and even ... singing, dancing, playing the guitar or the button accordion and ... football, - recalls Maxim Panteleevich. - Here I, for example, could lift the back of a stuck "Moskvich" alone until the age of fifty. And what were the hefty women, even Aunt Pasha herself - she moved the tractor from its place, if necessary.
Related specialties were needed in order to repair equipment. There was little technology. Tractors did not stand idle day or night, they worked in two shifts. And besides, Angelina's brigade served three collective farms and was an experimental enterprise, where they sent the latest equipment for testing. And after the tests and proposals submitted after these tests to the Timiryazev Academy in Moscow, the equipment was finalized, put into mass production and sent to all the farms of the Union.
But each member of the communist labor brigade had to be able to sing, dance, play chess and football, because tractor drivers actually lived for weeks in a house on a field camp. Everything was there: a rich library, and a buffet with a kitchen, where after work the workers really ate themselves, like at a wedding. There was also a game room - checkers, chess, dominoes and even a billiard room. Aunt Pasha herself played chess well, but did not like to lose. And when they played football in a brigade, Maxim Yuryev, as a rule, was the captain of one team, and Aunt Pasha was the other.
driver-ace in a skirt
Technique was Angelina's true passion. She did not let anyone drive her "Victory" and made sure to stop if she saw someone fiddling with her car on the road. So, one day, a still young accountant Yuryev witnessed a phenomenal scene. Aunt Pasha stopped her "Victory" near the truck that got up for repairs, pushed the driver away, who was busy in the engine, and a minute later asked the poor fellow: "Give me 20 kopecks." With a coin, she cleaned the contacts and ordered: "Start!". The car started up! And the dumbfounded driver stood for a few more minutes, watching the Pobeda with his eyes: he recognized the legendary tractor driver.
Of course, with such a field life of the family, it was not easy for the girls (after the fiftieth year there were much fewer of them in the brigade than the peasants) and for the peasants - members of the tractor brigade - it was not easy to keep. Therefore, Aunt Pasha invited tractor drivers along with their families for all holidays either to the camp, where real celebrations were held with concerts and a generous feast, or to her home, where on this occasion she very quickly sculpted and fried chir-chirs - Greek pasties. And in Everyday life the foreman tried to ensure that her subordinates did not need anything. You could ask for whatever you want. Somehow tractor drivers asked for motorcycles - the first domestic "K-700" could be issued only through Moscow at the request of a deputy. Angelina ordered 10 motorcycles for the brigade. And already before her death, she asked for Moskvich cars for her brigade. However, the brigade did not have time to receive them: the deputy Angelina died. Her request went unanswered.
Praskovya Nikitichna burned down quickly. Worked until last day. Arriving at the session of the Supreme Council, she suddenly felt unwell. In the Kremlin clinic, they could no longer save the famous tractor driver. The hard work on the tractor affected the liver - after all, the fuel had to be pumped through the hose through the mouth.
Praskovya Nikitichna died not in complete obscurity.
- When I arrived at the Kremlin hospital with a couple of our tractor drivers, I saw: Budyonny and Papanin looked into her room, like a good friend, - Yuryev recalls. - And in those days, she was well received by Stalin and easily communicated with Kalinin ...
Saying goodbye to her workmates, Pasha gave several orders that were to be executed by her arrival - after treatment in Moscow. Then she called Maxim aside and with tears in her eyes ordered, if anything, to bury her in her homeland. After the death of their mother, the children inherited only a hefty bundle of government bonds.
Approximately in 1978, the tractor brigade of communist labor named after P. Angelina ceased to exist.



A Ngelina Praskovya Nikitichna (Pasha Angelina) - foreman of the tractor brigade of the Staro-Beshevskaya MTS of the Stalin Region of the Ukrainian SSR; one of the pioneers of socialist competition in agriculture in the USSR.

She was born on December 30, 1912 (January 12, 1913) in the village (now an urban-type settlement) of Starobeshevo, Stalin's now Donetsk region of Ukraine. “... Father - Angelin Nikita Vasilyevich, a collective farmer, in the past a farm laborer. Mother - Angelina Evfimiya Fedorovna, a collective farmer, in the past a laborer. The beginning of the "career" - 1920: she worked with her parents at the fist. 1921-1922 - a peddler of coal at the Alekseevo-Rasnyanskaya mine. From 1923 to 1927 she again worked for the kulak. Since 1927 - a groom in a partnership for the joint cultivation of the land, and later - on a collective farm. From 1930 to the present (break two years - 1939-1940: studied at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy) - tractor driver ". This is how Pasha Angelina wrote about herself in 1948 in a questionnaire received from the editors of the World Biographical Encyclopedia, published in the USA (New York), which informed one of the first women tractor drivers that her name was included in the list of the most prominent people all countries.

In 1929, Pasha Angelina graduated from the courses of tractor drivers and began working as a tractor driver at the Staro-Beshevskaya Machine and Tractor Station (MTS). In 1933, she organized a women's tractor brigade in this MTS and headed it. Member of the CPSU (b) / CPSU since 1937.

In 1933-34, the women's tractor brigade took first place in the MTS, fulfilling the plan by 129 percent. After that, Pasha Angelina becomes the central figure in the campaign for the technical education of women. In 1935, she spoke at a meeting in Moscow, giving from the Kremlin rostrum an obligation "to the party and Comrade Stalin" to organize ten women's tractor brigades.

In 1937, Pasha Angelina was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and in next year she appealed to Soviet women: "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!". Two hundred thousand women responded to the call of Pasha Angelina.

During the Great Patriotic War, P.N. Angelina, together with the whole brigade and two trains of equipment, goes to Kazakhstan - to the fields of the Budyonny collective farm, which has spread its lands near the village of Terekta in the West Kazakhstan region. Working here, Pasha Angelina's tractor brigade donated 768 poods of grain to the Red Army fund.

The tanks built with these funds smashed the Nazi invaders on the Kursk Bulge, liberated Poland, participated in the assault on the capital of Nazi Germany - Berlin ...

Being far from the front line, on the Kazakh soil, not sparing their strength, the girls-tractor drivers fought a battle for bread - and won it. And therefore, it is no coincidence that the tank soldiers of one of the guards tank brigades, fully formed from former tractor drivers, decided to add Pasha Angelina to their lists and give her the honorary title of guardsman.

After the liberation of Donbass from the Nazi invaders, and returning home to Ukraine, every single woman from Pasha Angelina's brigade left, taking up purely female work: they got married, gave birth and raised children, kept housekeeping...

Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 19, 1947 for obtaining a high harvest in 1946 Angelina Praskovya Nikitichna, which received a wheat harvest of 19.2 centners per hectare on an area of ​​425 hectares, was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

The rich experience in organizing work, accumulated by P.N. Angelina, her progressive method of cultivating the land is widely used in agriculture. On her initiative, a movement was launched in the USSR for the high-performance use of agricultural machinery and an increase in the cultivation of fields. Her numerous followers waged a resolute struggle for high and stable yields of all agricultural crops.

For the radical improvement of labor in agriculture, the introduction of new, progressive methods of cultivating the land in 1948, P.N. Angelina was awarded the Stalin Prize.

Despite leaving the women's brigade, P.N. Angelina continued to lead the tractor brigade, in which male tractor drivers worked. Her subordinates - men obeyed her unquestioningly, as she knew how to find a common language with them, while never allowing herself a swear or rude word. Earnings in the tractor brigade P.N. Angelina were tall. Tractor drivers built solid houses and bought motorcycles. Especially for the workers of the brigade entrusted to her, P.N. Angelina "ordered" twenty units of Moskvich cars at the deputy's request. However, after her death, the cars did not reach their destination for some reason ...

By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 26, 1958, for outstanding success in obtaining high and stable yields of grain and industrial crops, the production of livestock products, the widespread use of scientific achievements and best practices in the cultivation of agricultural crops and the rise of livestock breeding, and the skillful management of collective farm production leadership for twenty-five years of the tractor brigade and high performance in agricultural production was awarded the second gold medal "Hammer and Sickle".

A few days before the start of the XXI (Extraordinary) Congress of the CPSU (held from January 27 to February 5, 1959 in Moscow), P.N. Angelina, she was urgently hospitalized in the Kremlin hospital with a serious diagnosis of cirrhosis of the liver. The hard work on the tractor had an effect - after all, in those days, fuel had to be pumped through a hose by mouth ... Medicine could not cope with the illness of a noble tractor driver.

Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-5th convocations, delegate of the XVIII-XXI congresses of the CPSU (b) / CPSU, twice Hero of Socialist Labor Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina died on January 21, 1959.

She was to be buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery. But at the insistence of relatives, the funeral of the 46-year-old tractor driver and foreman of the first brigade of communist labor in the Soviet Union, famous throughout the country, took place on her small homeland- in the village of Staro-Beshevo, now in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Certificate of assignment to the tractor brigade P.N. Angelina honorary title Tractor drivers accepted the “Communist Labor Brigade” without their foreman ... And in 1978, the Pasha Angelina Tractor Brigade of Communist Labor ceased to exist ...

She was awarded 3 orders of Lenin (12/30/1935, 03/19/1947, 02/08/1954), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (02/07/1939), medals. Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the 3rd degree (1946).

Bronze bust of twice Hero of Socialist Labor P.N. Angelina was installed in her homeland - in the urban-type settlement of Starobeshevo, where the avenue bears her name, and where the museum of the famous countrywoman is open.

Composition:
People of collective farm fields, M., 1950

In 1928, a foreign "miracle of technology of the 20th century" appeared in our backward village, rattling throughout the entire district. The tractor not only increased the speed of tillage, but also changed the whole habitual patriarchal way of life of rural residents. Even women's emancipation in the countryside went along the tractor track: there appeared Pasha(Praskovya) Angelina, a pretty girl who for the first time in history Russian village engaged in "not a woman's" business. Hundreds of thousands of other women followed her.

Why Pasha Angelina at 16 she dreamed of becoming a tractor driverN Why did she organize the first female tractor brigade in the USSR at the age of 20, instead of quietly getting married, having children and poking around in her gardenN

Our correspondent Dmitry Tikhonov talks with the nephew of the legendary tractor driver - Alexei Kirillovich Angelin.

My father, Kirill Fedorovich, and Praskovya Nikitichna are cousins. My grandfather, Fyodor Vasilyevich, died very early due to a wound received in the First World War, and Praskovya Nikitichna's father, Nikita Vasilyevich, actually adopted his brother's children. Grandfather Nikita treated our family as his own.

We were all born in the regional village of Staro-Beshevo, Donetsk region. My mother, brother and son of Praskovya Nikitichna, Valery, still live there. By the way, Valery and I studied at the same institute, and I always go to him when I am in those parts.

Praskovya Nikitichna's husband worked in party bodies, and during the war he was badly wounded and died in 1947. She did not marry again, she said that the main thing for her was to put her three children on their feet. Eldest daughter Svetlana graduated from Moscow State University and has been living in Moscow for a long time, already retired. The middle son Valery remained, as I said, at home. Stalin's youngest daughter graduated from medical school, but died early. There was also an adopted son Gennady - the son of her brother. When the brother died, his wife abandoned the child, and Pasha adopted him.

What kind of person was she

They say about such women: a man in a skirt. She really had male character. She was directly drawn to tractors! But then in the village it was not very welcome. Those women who dared to sit on a tractor were subjected to real persecution. She even described it in her memoirs. In addition, Praskovya Nikitichna is Greek by nationality, and among them women were generally forbidden to get into men's affairs. Her father and the whole family were categorically against it, but in spite of everything she mastered this purely male specialty and became first a machine operator, and then the foreman of the first female tractor brigade in the USSR.

In 1938, attention was drawn to her. She got into the groove. As a result, she appealed to all Soviet women: "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!". And 200 thousand women followed her example.
She was a purposeful person, assertive, demanding, even tough, but very fair. And, of course, a great organizer. The team is always in perfect order and cleanliness. By the way, the women's brigade was from 1933 to 1945, but when they returned from Kazakhstan, from the evacuation, the women fled, and only men remained in the brigade. And Praskovya Nikitichna is their foreman. They called her Aunt Pasha.

I must say that she was a real ace driver: she drove both a tractor and a car, she practically did not get out of her "Victory" and did not want to change it for a new fashionable at that time "Volga".

Really, except for tractors, she was not interested in anything else in lifeN

She had a great passion for books. And although she did not receive a higher education, she loved to read terribly. When she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, she sent dozens of parcels with books from Moscow. And all the neighbors thought that she was sending all sorts of scarce things from the capital. Her library was excellent. I subscribed to a whole pile of different newspapers and magazines. The postman brought them in bags.

By the way, at that time Praskovya Nikitichna was quite famous, or, as they said then, a noble person. It helped her in life

She never used her opportunities and connections for herself personally. Although she had great connections. Judge for yourself - a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Stalin Prize, had several Orders of Lenin, 20 years in a row - a deputy of the Supreme Council, knew Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, met Stalin several times. But until the end of her life she remained a foreman, although she was repeatedly offered to become the chairman of the collective farm.

I remember such a case. She, as a deputy of the Supreme Council, had a personal driver. He once broke some rules, so she made him apologize to the sentry. She did not allow anyone to use her connections. Her family often resented her because of this. I think that the famous surname helped us in only one thing - our family escaped repression.
- Praskovya Angelina died in January 1959, when she was only 46 years old...
- She had cirrhosis of the liver, which is not surprising with such work. The constant presence of fuels and lubricants in the body affected. Previously, fuel was sucked through a hose. She died very quickly, within a few months, and literally worked to the last. I arrived at the session of the Supreme Council, felt bad, turned to the doctors. She was treated in a Kremlin clinic, but it was no longer possible to save her. The second star of the Hero of Socialist Labor was awarded to her when she was already in the clinic, almost before her death. They wanted to bury him in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery, but at the request of relatives they buried him at home, in Staro-Beshevo. There is still a monument to her and an avenue named after her.
- Why did you connect your life with agricultureN
- My father was also a machine operator and worked as a foreman of a tractor brigade in a neighboring farm. And we, children, followed in his footsteps. I am the eldest son. Initially, he worked as a mechanic at MTS, then he graduated from the Melitopol Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture, and became a mechanical engineer. He worked in the Kuban, was the chairman of the collective farm. My younger brother is also a mechanic. True, my children are no longer connected with the village. The granddaughter generally studies at MGIMO.
- What do you think, in modern conditions, the experience of Pasha Angelina applicableN
- All is well in due time. Then it was simply necessary, especially during the war and after it. And today, it seems to me, it is not necessary to involve women en masse in such a difficult task. There is no need for this. The men can do it themselves