I was 1.5 years old when the war began, and 5 years old when the Victory came. Children's memory turned out to be tenacious to some events and - especially - to the state in which civilians were when they met the enemy.

My roots are in the Kuban, in the Abinsk region of the Krasnodar Territory. My grandfathers, great-grandfathers, parents lived there. In the same place, in the village of Mingrelskaya, I was also born (as written in the documents). More precisely, the maternity hospital was in the village of Abinskaya (now the city of Abinsk), and my grandmother lived in Mingrelskaya, to whom my mother came from Leningrad before giving birth.

I was born on January 10, 1940 in the Krasnodar Territory, and soon my mother left with me for the city of Krasnogvardeisk (now Gatchina) near Leningrad, where my father Kravets Alexey Grigoryevich served since 1938. Mom, Kravets Efrosinya Mikhailovna, arrived there in 1939, rented a room, got a job as a teacher in kindergarten No. 4 and entered the evening department of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. She went to give birth to my mother and now she has returned. I found a nanny - a girl of 14 years old. Mom worked, studied, raised me. Dad served in the Red Army, he was already the commander of the 2nd division of the 94th IPTAP (anti-tank artillery regiment). I grew up as a healthy strong child.

But in May-June, I fell ill with a then intractable disease - dyspepsia (now called dysbacteriosis). She was in the hospital for a long time. And suddenly this terrible war began. I, like other similar children, was discharged as hopeless. What was the mother's despair! Dad, at her insistence, turns to a military doctor, and he decides on a bold and risky method: full direct blood transfusion from donors, if any. Dad turned to colleagues: volunteers are needed. Many responded. The doctor selected four and performed this operation in a military hospital. Everything worked out, my blood was replaced with a donor one, and I started to recover. So death passed me by for the first time.

The Germans were advancing rapidly and within a month they were on the outskirts of Leningrad. A hasty evacuation of state valuables from museums, as well as factories and industrial equipment, began. Residents were not evacuated, because. there were not enough trains. Many people left and left as best they could. Mom, having taken a certificate that she was the wife of an officer, with incredible persistence made her way through the cordoned off platform to the already crowded train, holding me, one and a half year old and weak, in one hand, in the other - a bundle with clothes and crackers. She managed to give me and the bundle to the people through the window of the car, and then - to break through the besieging door and squeeze into the vestibule and the car, to find me. The train was already heading to the Volga, to the east. We were lucky, we did not fall under the bombing, as my mother's younger brother Zhora got and was mortally wounded. My mother and I “ran away” from the hostilities, but not from the war.

Then new difficulties began. Everyone was necessarily taken beyond the Urals, and my mother decided to get to her home, to the village of Mingrelskaya. We left the train before the Volga. Along the river, on passing boats, barges and so on, bypassing control posts in every possible way - only military cargo and soldiers were allowed to go west - we nevertheless reached Stalingrad. Further, also on hitchhikers, we got a month to my grandmother's house. They ate - as they had to, soldiers and other people they met helped. And I was saved by crackers and water - there was nothing else to eat. The pain went away and hasn't returned. This overcoming - the way home - was my mother's victory in the war, her feat. She saved both of us.

We lived in the village of Mingrelskaya with my grandmother Polina Ivanovna, treated ourselves with home remedies, gained strength and did not yet know what lay ahead for us.

We hoped that the war would end soon, we were waiting for a meeting with dad. We did not know anything about him, because. he defended the city of Leningrad, which was under blockade. The mail didn't arrive. Anxiety for him, for my mother's brothers who fought: Sergei, Gabriel, Nikolai, Zhora was constantly with us. But the war did not subside, the Germans approached Stalingrad and captured the North Caucasus.

Since the autumn of 1942, we also fell into the occupation. Life immediately turned upside down: my mother has no job, no money, the necessary products could only be exchanged for other products or things. Adults tried to make supplies from the garden and orchard, carried the harvest to the market in the village. Sometimes my mother got to the market in Krasnodar. There, one day, my mother got into an “action” - intimidation of the population for sabotage by partisans. It was a raid - the people surrounded in the market were driven with dogs to the parked cars - "gas chambers". People already knew that everyone who got into them was suffocated with gas. Then they were taken straight to the pits, where they dumped everyone, people were already dead.

Mom miraculously escaped this fate by falling in this run. German soldiers and dogs ran past. She was often exposed to such mortal risk.

For a whole year we lived in occupation. Probably my earliest memories are from the autumn of 1943, when I was about 4 years old. Two episodes I remember connected with my strong fear. We have always been afraid of the Germans. After all, in our family there were six men with a partisan grandfather who fought in the Red Army. Such families, especially officer families, if the Germans found out, could be arrested, taken away and even killed. Here was the case. Grandmother went to the market, and she locked me and my mother in the hut, hanging a big padlock so that it could be seen that there was no one in the house. Suddenly we hear voices breaking the door. My mother hid in the bedroom with me. They climbed into bed. I was under the covers, and my mother put a wet towel on her forehead: she pretended to be sick. The Germans entered the kitchen and began looking for food in the stove. They pulled out cast iron with boiled corn, cabbage soup. They ate everything and went into the bedroom. We were taken aback, did not expect to see anyone. Mom explained with signs that she was sick, at her own peril and risk. After all, the Germans were very afraid of getting infected and, if they suspected cholera or plague, they burned houses along with people. But God kept us. Mom and I are alive again. The Germans just left.

There was another case. I, having heard the barking of neighbors' dogs, hung on the boards of the gate, curious about who was walking along the street, usually deserted. I look, men are coming: young, cheerful. Approaching. Suddenly, the thought flashes through my mind: “These are the Germans!” Head over heels I fly off the gate and run - into the shelter, under the lilac bush. She froze. Passed by. But fear settled in my head, and for many years later I dreamed at night that the Germans were coming, and I had to run, hide. War is scary!

My toys during the war were multi-colored glass from bottles and jars, some boxes, wooden blocks. I hid all this “wealth” under a lilac bush. There was my "home". I had a rag doll sewn by my mother with a celluloid head and a pre-war bear trimmed with blue fabric. I learned about sweets and white rolls much later, after the war, in 1946.

When in the fall of 1943 our army won in Stalingrad, surrounding the German army of Paulus, the Germans fled. They rolled back from the North Caucasus beyond the Don, fearing encirclement. And the Germans somehow suddenly disappeared from our village. None of the local residents then knew what was happening, everyone sat quietly and waited a day or two. Suddenly, other Germans appeared - in black uniforms. They fussed, looking for something and quickly, finding nothing, left. Much later it became clear that this was a punitive SS unit, and they were looking for prepared lists of people to be shot. But it turned out that they were carried away by the retreating units. These lists were found later by villagers. Apparently, the Germans left them and other documents on the road when they fled. Our family, as it turned out, was also on these lists. So, once again, death passed me and my mother by.

When the war ended, the soldiers began to return to their families. And we were waiting for dad. But when he finally arrived, this is what happened. I see the military uncle has come. Everyone is happy to meet him, treat him. But not me. I observe from a distance, I am surprised, I hide. This uncle says to me: “I am your dad!” I didn't know him, so I didn't believe him. I say: “You are not my dad, I have a different dad” and ran away. Everyone is perplexed. And I took from the chest of drawers the only photograph of my father, a small one, he is there with a beard. I carry it, I show it: “Here is my dad.” Everyone laughed, and I was offended and cried.

Dad brought me a gift, some kind of white object. Gives, and I hide and ask: “What is this?” "Bulka, eat!" So I first saw and tried white bread.

It was 1946, and dad, a soldier, came only to take us to him, to his place of service - in the city of Omsk, in Siberia. We got on the train, and everything was unusual.

At first we were settled in a woodshed, in a fenced-off room. Then we moved to another room - in the basement. We lived in a real dugout. Once there was a heavy downpour, and we were flooded. It was both scary and interesting at the same time. Later we were given a tiny room on the third floor of a 3-storey building in a military camp. I slept on moved chairs, and when sister Lyudmila appeared, she was sleeping in a trough. For the summer, dad took us "to the camps." This military unit went to the exercises.

In the winter of 1947, in Omsk, I went to the first grade of an elementary school in a military town. After the 2nd grade, we moved to the Far East, to a military camp near the city of Iman. There, in 1950, my brother Zhenya appeared. In the town, I graduated from elementary school, and in the 5th grade, in secondary school, I went to the city of Iman. We were taken there every day in a large military vehicle with a canvas top. And a year later - another school again.

In 1952, my father was transferred to serve in the GDR. They didn’t take families, and my mother went with us, 3 children, to her homeland, to Krasnodar. She rented a room in a private house, placed me in a girls' school, in the 6th grade. Soon we had to change the room and the school. After the 7th grade - moving again. In the GDR, servicemen were allowed to bring their families. I studied in the 8th and 9th grades in Stendal. Despite frequent moving, I always studied well. I attended a photo club, a dance club, went in for sports, read a lot ... My parents decided that I should finish the 10th grade in Russia in order to go to college later. Therefore, the last year I studied in Krasnodar. She graduated from high school with a gold medal.

In 1957 she entered the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. She graduated from it in 1963. During her studies, she married a student of the same institute, Ivan Ivanovich Tatarenkov, and in 1962 gave birth to a son, Alexei.

My husband graduated from the institute with honors, and he himself chose the place of distribution - the city of Serpukhov. He worked as the head of the boiler room at the MUZ plant (assembly units and blanks). Later, the plant became known as KSK (Building Structures Combine). Here, to my husband, I came in 1963, after graduating from the institute. In 1964 our daughter Tatyana was born. Now our children live in Moscow with their families.

From 1963 to 1998 I worked at the Metalist plant. She worked for 22 years as a design engineer, then as a team leader, head of a bureau, head of a section.

She was always engaged in social work: trade union group, wall newspaper, participation in tourist meetings. For the last 15 years at the plant, she was the head of the culture section at the party office. I went to seminars on cultural issues in Moscow. Conducted classes with political informants of workshops and departments on all types of culture: art (literature, music, fine arts, cinema), family and child rearing, relations in society, in the workforce. She was a lecturer of the society "Knowledge". She gave lectures on art in workshops and departments, in dispensaries, at propaganda sites, in courtyards. For 10 years she sang in the choir of the Teacher's House under the direction of Inna Evgenievna Pikalova.

After finishing work at the plant at the end of 1998, social work continued in the House of Veterans, in the Mashinostroitel club. From 2000 to 2007, she was a member of the Council of Veterans of the Metallist plant, and since 2007 I have been the chairman of the Druzhba club.

The material was provided by Tamara Alekseevna Tatarenkova.

The material was processed by Olga Anatolyevna Bautina.




Your child forgot the poem about the sun and found out only during his speech at the matinee. He also doesn't remember where he puts his pants, scoops and toys... The reason is simple: children's memory is arranged a little differently than ours!

journalist

When we count on a child's "good" behavior, we completely lose sight of the fact that children are organized in unexpected ways. We demand awareness, common sense and endurance. We give some arguments, persist, and get a dubious result: the guy is still tapping his grandmother's service on the battery. Knowing the features of the processes occurring inside an incomprehensible creature that runs around the apartment in your shoes is what will help maintain your health and even good mood at the ill-fated matinee.

Of course, we need memory not only in order to clearly know exactly where we touched the keys. Memory helps us accumulate experience, recognize a variety of situations, link individual signs into a clear picture, and anticipate events based on initial signals. For example, to guess by the sound of the voice of a traffic police officer that he is not carrying the world, but a fine for improper parking.

Memory is of two types: short-term (you quickly reproduced a one-time five-digit pin code, but after five minutes nothing could make you remember this set of numbers) and long-term (it includes a bunch of important information from the unconscious about motor skills and ending with lines from Tatyana's letter to Onegin, which you learned at school and can still recite if you have to). That is, for the formation of short-term memory, you need to glance at an article in a magazine once, for a long-term one, you will have to torment your loved ones many times with a free interpretation of Pushkin or by playing the Dog Waltz.

When it comes to mental abilities, which include memory, one cannot miss the fact that the human brain grows strongly even after birth. If in a chimpanzee the size of the brain after birth increases by 1.6 times, then in humans the gray matter grows by 4 times! A long childhood and three years on maternity leave were given to us for a reason. Probably, it is the rapid growth that can explain the strange work of the beloved curly head.

Features of the work of children's memory:

1. Children under the age of three form "emotional memories".

No one remembers what happened to them at the age of 6 months. It is rather difficult to reproduce the words of a nanny who fed you semolina porridge in a manger when you were 2 years old. And in general, we know the events before the three-year milestone only from photographs and the words of my mother, who for some reason, when visiting, begins to tell how you once described yourself on the bus. However, this does not give us the opportunity to leave the upbringing of babies to the discretion of fate. It turns out that their unconscious emotions are imprinted in the brain and even affect the rest of their lives.

Until the age of three, we don’t remember that stupid story on the bus, because until that time the hippocampus (this is the part of the brain that is involved in the formation of long-term memory) has not yet matured. Scientists believe that emotional memories can be stored in the amygdala, which already works with might and main in newborns. "The genes of well-fed rat pups work differently than those of their less well-cared for identical twins, so that changes occur in the brains of well-fed rat pups that lead to less anxiety. Results from a study of brain cells of suicidal adults who were victims of childhood abuse, lead to the assumption that such phenomena are also characteristic of humans,” writes science journalist Rita Carter in her book How the Brain Works.

From how we communicate with the baby in the first years of our acquaintance, his well-being in adulthood depends neither more nor less. Let it not be deposited in a person’s head how he was once offended by a rattle, but what he will surely remember is your sensitive treatment of him, friendly intonation and a general pleasant impression of the world around him.

2. The memory of a child is connected with his physicality.

If an adult can hover in some abstractions for a long time and not pay attention to a damp sock, then children, on the contrary, are terribly bodily creatures. They comprehend the world by crawling, with their stomach under the table, they try all sorts of rubbish on their tongues (darling, spit out the shoe cream soon!), Grab frogs and other puddles with their hands, pinch and bite friends in the sandbox, climb on your neck and cling to your hair. The main breakthrough in understanding your body falls on the age of 3-5 years. It is then that the main motor skills inherent in a person are formed, including somersaults, which will later come in handy for the lower break dance.

What is not obvious to the parent is that the mental abilities of children are strongly interconnected with their physicality, sensations in space, physics and sensory. Sensory integrators solve developmental challenges with bean baths, weighted blankets, cocoon chairs, and swings, and it really works. There are studies that show a strong relationship between mastery of one's body and the development of a child's memory. So if it's important for your baby to remember valuable information, link it to his motor skills, coordination, or sense of rhythm. Children learn what they live in the body.

3. In children, information is quickly erased from memory.

"Don't you really remember how you solved this problem at your grandfather's dacha last summer?" Yes, he did forget. It is more difficult for children to keep in memory events that were not colored by vivid emotional experiences, and, surprisingly, the task is not one of those things that he will remember with nostalgia for many years.

So that you are not surprised once again by the forgetfulness of a child, a Japanese-Canadian group of neuroscientists published the results of their study. True, the experiments were carried out on mice, and not on children, but scientists managed to prove that the active growth of neurons stimulates forgetting. Neurons, of course, grow faster in young individuals, no matter if this individual has a tail or sandals. For growth, you have to pay with memory loss.

The experiments compared very young mice with adult rodents. Both have formed a reaction of fear (it’s better not to even know how), and then the scientists are left to observe how it is erased. Adult mice remembered the danger for the next month, and young mice completely forgot about it after two weeks.

This knowledge will help the parent to calm himself at every opportunity: “Aha, the child forgot the shift again! Well, that means that his neurons are actively growing!” Also, keep in mind that strong shocks and mice, and people do not forget, no matter what happens to their neurons. In order for the information to be assimilated by the child, help him connect it with the emotional side of life: let the fact bring joy or excitement.

4. Children's memory is delayed.

If we have just left the performance, we remember well what happened there, but after a week, the details will disappear from memory. The child has an inverted picture: he will remember today's event better only after a few days. Scientists from Ohio State University tell about it. The researchers played a game with children 4-5 years old, where they had to understand how different objects are related to each other. Psychologists were able to observe a remarkable effect: the information that the children did not remember well when repeated on the first day, miraculously resurrected in their head a few days later.

So if you are disappointed to find that the child left the theater and no longer knows who sang Chanterelle's aria, then there are two options: either he will remember about it in a couple of days and you will discuss the performance with pleasure, or you took him to the modern production for adult theatergoers, and he slept well there.

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Decided! You are going to the theatre! At first glance, everything is quite simple. The choice of children's performances is tempting and varied, and now your smart preschooler is proudly sitting in the front rows of the stalls ... Take your time. A theater for a child is not just another "object" in a series of various cultural entertainments, and buying a ticket for even the most "fashionable" children's performance does not always mark the birth of a new avid theatergoer. The teacher of RAMT A.E. tells about how to make the first meeting with the theater meaningful and memorable. Lisitsina.

What age of a child is favorable for systematic communication with the theater? The "age of the theater" comes when the need for transformation and imitation is manifested, when the child's ability to perceive theatrical conventions has already been trained in the process. Simply put, as soon as your child has started playing "princess" or "princes" and mother's hats, scarves, "heels" are used, you should think about visiting the theater.

In front of you is a theater poster. What to choose for the first trip? Of course, it is better if it is a children's performance of a traditional, academic theater. In Moscow, for example, there are few such theaters, but they still exist. Stop your choice at the Russian Academic Youth Theater (RAMT), which has been staging performances for children for over 80 years. Today's playbill for young preschoolers has two performances - "Dunno Traveler" (N. Nosov) and "Dream with Continuation" (S. Mikhalkov) based on the tale of the Nutcracker.

If you're lucky, you can get to the "Spectator Initiation Celebration", which takes place 3 times a year during the school holidays. As a rule, in the autumn and spring holidays there are two, and in the winter - three or four such holidays. Then a special exhibition exposition is set up for children - "Magicians creating a fairy tale". On it, small guides (children from the audience) talk about the creators of the performance, show the scenery, lighting installations, costumes, make-up, props. And in the auditorium, just before the start of the performance, the leading artists of the theater play the interlude "Initiation into the Spectators". Such holidays leave vivid impressions in children for many years and provide an opportunity to touch the secret of the creation of the play.

If you did not manage to attend the holiday, there is another opportunity to make your visit to the theater unforgettable. The theater has spectator clubs for children and teenagers. The smallest spectators come to the "Family Club". At the end of the performance, the kids, together with their parents, have the opportunity to take a picture (and then receive photos by mail) on the stage with the artists in the scenery, and after a short rest and tea drinking, the theater teacher unobtrusively, in a playful way, will help you and the children to understand your impressions and pay attention to the main thing in the play. Children will be happy to draw the brightest and most memorable images of the performance for the artists. Such a first visit to the theater will not be forgotten!

But, perhaps, you did not manage to get either to the holiday or to the "Family Club". How to get your computerized, TV child interested in theater? What questions to ask to arouse interest and imagination?

The most common parenting question is: "Did you like the performance?". As a rule, children unequivocally answer: "Yes-ah-ah!". And this answer no longer requires discussion. But a topic for conversation can be found after any performance.

The very first question that the director asks himself when starting work is: "What will I stage this performance about? About friendship, love, loneliness, justice?" Ask this question to the child, and immediately there will be a reason for the conversation. I will allow myself to give you a small list of questions that are universal, suitable for any performance, hoping that you yourself will choose the right direction for the conversation.

  • What is the name of the performance? What is the name of the main character in the play? What are the names of the main character's friends and does he have enemies? Who would you like to be friends with?
  • What act of the main character did you like (did not like)? Who was sorry?
  • What would you do in a similar case?
  • What was the hero (anti-hero) like at the beginning of the performance and what did he become by the end? Did the clothes of the characters in the play change?(This can be associated with the characters of the characters and their change.)
  • Who, besides the actors, is involved in the play?(Look at the program, select, for example, an artist.)
  • What colors in the costumes and scenery of the performance do you remember, and why are they like that?
  • Did colors affect your mood? And the music? How did they influence?
  • Do you think the name of the performance is correct, or could it be called something else? How? Which of your friends would you recommend to watch it?

You can talk about all this on the way home. During this time, the performance will "ripen" in the soul of the child. And at home, all your impressions can be translated into drawings with paints, pencils, crayons. Invite your child to draw the hero he likes and at the same time remember what clothes he was wearing and what color. Or maybe you will try to come up with a poster for this performance together? Or do you want to make a gift to your favorite hero with your own hands? And what? After all, it can be transferred to the theater. And how proud your baby will be!

Many parents have another question: do you need to prepare your child to watch the play, do you need to read or re-read the fairy tale you are going to see? If this is for ballet, then, yes, it is necessary, there is a special "language" here - the language of dance. A dramatic performance, for example, in our theater can be watched without any preparation. In conclusion, I want to remind you that a child is a tireless researcher not only in life, but also in the theater. And if he asks you a thousand "why" and "how" questions, then he wants to study theater theatre.


Without going into details about the reasons for the appearance of these lines, I only want to assure those who see them that I am far from trying to convince (or convince) anyone of anything or give any assessment of events. Simply because at the time these events took place, I was too small.

So, briefly about the reasons for the appearance of these lines.

The more we move away from the war years, the more there are those who want to re-evaluate and revise the events of that time. What is questioned is what was, in the full sense of the word, sacred to the people of my generation.

What goal can be pursued by "dealers from public education", offering students of the eleventh grade an essay on the topic: "Was it necessary to storm Sapun Mountain in May 1944?" What kind of patriotic education can we talk about? Who needs to sow doubt and nihilism in the souls of the younger generation? Basically, these are people who know about the war only from books and movies.

My generation is the generation of "CHILDREN OF WAR"! And we don't know much about her.

My favorite very good American novelist Oh Henry said: "... he did not live a full life who did not know poverty, love and war." I read this relatively recently and tried it on for myself: I survived the war, poverty too, but love lives in me and with me even now ...

And now - about the war.

On June 22, 1941, I was 5 years old without a month. Ask yourself: what do you remember about being five years old? Not all, but first of all, everything unusual, extreme is remembered. And this extreme began on the night of June 21-22, 1941: searchlights rummaging through the night sky, the rumble of aircraft engines, the barking of anti-aircraft guns, the sound of fragments falling on the metal roof and, finally, two powerful explosions, one of which thundered a few hundred meters from our home. In the afternoon, when we learned from the conversations of the elders that people had died, I realized for the first time that they could also kill me. And I became afraid. It turns out that even very young children really want to live! And they understand that every bomb, every shell can take this life from them. I had to be afraid for a long time: it lasted 250 long days and nights of the defense of Sevastopol!

Of course, I didn’t see much of what I’m talking about here with my own eyes, but I heard about it from the elders then, back in 1941-42. And the fact that we, the children (my brother and I are 7 years older), were going to be evacuated from Sevastopol literally in the first days of the war, I remember.

In the book of memoirs of the Secretary of the Sevastopol City Party Committee B.A. Borisov "The Feat of Sevastopol" says this: "... the regional committee of the party demanded that we immediately evacuate mothers with children. The headquarters created for this purpose by the city committee of the party attracted a large asset of housewives, teachers, Komsomol members and took them out of the city on the very first day of the war several thousand women and children. The trouble is that the children were evacuated most often without their mothers, as they worked and were needed by the city. And who and where were waiting for these refugees? (Then this word was firmly in use). Omitting details, B. Borisov himself concludes: "Many of us said goodbye to our families that day for many, many years."

My mother became the guardian angel of our entire family: she quickly took my brother and me to Bakhchisarai, where her own sister lived, and left it there until the situation changed. In the future, she always opposed the evacuation, believing that we all should be together. She herself worked in Voenflottorg (current Voentorg). At the beginning of the war, my father worked in the Repair Department of Krymenergo and had a reservation. In December 1941, he was transferred to the position of repairman for high-voltage equipment of the Elektrosnabzhenie communal trust. Translated into simple language, the trust was engaged in ensuring uninterrupted power supply to the city, which, in the conditions of constant bombing and shelling, was a very difficult task.

The elder of our family was my paternal grandmother Olga Grigorievna, the widow of my grandfather Ivan Nikolayevich, whose last name I bear. The non-commissioned officer of the Russian Imperial Fleet, who served on battleships urgently and rose to the rank of a mine-machine quartermaster of the 1st class, after retiring worked in a military port as a stoker, died literally in the first days of the defense of Sevastopol at the age of 66 years. Here is an example of how you can fit the entire biography of a person into one phrase. Grandmother inherited a house (loudly, since it was a typical house for Sevastopol, which, however, stood on a basement) along Drozdova Street, 14. Directly opposite, in house number 15, our family lived, also in a small house, taken by my father on lease from the state. It came out as follows.

Before the war, many Greeks lived in Sevastopol, some of whom were subjects of the Republic of Greece. After the restoration of the monarchy in Greece in 1935, all of them were asked to either accept Soviet citizenship or leave the country. Those who left left their homes to the state. We lived in one of these houses. The fact that our houses were located directly opposite each other turned out to be very useful, since my grandmother had a cellar in the yard (we called it the basement), in which we hid during the bombing. The basement was dug under the street at a depth of about 2 meters. Of course, he could not save from a direct hit by a serious high-explosive bomb. And yet it was YOUR bomb shelter. Why do I talk so much about this notorious basement? Now he is "notorious". And then it was my life, my hole! When I was in my basement holding my mother's hand, I was, of course, afraid, but ... not really.

In addition to basements, Sevastopol residents hid from bombing in bomb shelters. These were solid, sometimes even with filter-ventilation installations, structures from gas attacks), but there were very few of them. They mostly hid in crevices. These were simply trenches, closed from above by some kind of rolling of boards or logs. And there were a lot of them.

Until the end of October 1941, German aircraft regularly made raids on Sevastopol. The airfields were located far from Sevastopol. An air raid signal was given 10-15 minutes before the start of the raid. It was a very long beep of the Morzavod (plant named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze) and a powerful siren installed at the SNIS (surveillance and communication service) post located on the building of the hydrographic department of the Black Sea Fleet. This service is now located in the same building on Suvorov Street (formerly Proletarskaya), literally a hundred meters from our former house on Drozdov Street.

In addition, the radio sounded: "Air raid!". Our fighters appeared in the sky, anti-aircraft artillery began to work, preventing the Germans from carrying out aimed bombing and sometimes shooting down bombers. Air battles began between our fighters and Me-109 escort fighters, which we boys watched with interest.

By the beginning of November, when German aviation began to be based on airfields near Sevastopol, large formations of heavy bombers began to appear over the city at any time of the day and often without warning. Often the alarm signal was given after the Germans, having bombed, flew away. It was very unpleasant.

The war taught us children things that modern children have never heard of. For example, how to quickly and correctly put on a gas mask (fortunately, this was not needed), to know what to hide during the bombing, if you are at home, you need to hide under the bed, under the table or in the doorway. I knew how to distinguish my planes from German ones by the sound of the engines, I knew that if a bomb separated from the plane above you, then it would fall far, but if the whistle of the bomb turns into a loud hiss when it falls, this bomb can be yours. And he clearly distinguished Junkers-87 from Junkers-88 and Me-109 from Heinkel-111.

Of course, during the defense of Sevastopol, only a small group of the command and leadership of the city knew the true situation on the front line, the plans of the Germans, and the population of the city felt those very three assaults by the amount of "iron" that rained down on our heads. We did not know about the landing operations that were carried out with the aim of releasing Sevastopol, we only felt that we were being bombed more or less.

The second assault on Sevastopol (and this is the second half of December 1941) was remembered for the fact that we had to live in the basement in the full sense. The bombings followed one after another, the city was constantly bombarded with heavy artillery. Constant stay in the basement did not add health to anyone, especially to us - children.

And the New Year of 1942 was also remembered by the fact that we met it at home, where almost all the windows were broken. The glass was broken by the main caliber of the battleship "Paris Commune", which on December 29, along with several other ships that came from the Caucasus, fired at German positions on the Mekenziev mountains and other critical areas of defense, anchored in the South Bay near the refrigerator.

For us, these volleys were music.

Then came a period of relative calm. For five whole months! How did the city live at that time, what did the inhabitants do, what was the situation on the front line? It is very well and fully written about this in the book of the secretary of the city party committee during the defense period B.A. Borisov, which he titled simply and modestly - "The Feat of Sevastopol. Memoirs." I re-read it several times, and it caused a certain resonance in me as a person of THAT generation. I do not want to retell or quote anything from this book, except for a few figures, which I will name a little later. Anyone who wants to can read it himself. For me, it became clear why Sevastopol was able to resist the colossal Nazi machine for 250 days!

Nothing grows from scratch - the people of Sevastopol had a great inspiring example of the first heroic defense. And this example served as a role model. The descendants were worthy of their ancestors!

And finally, the third assault.

Historians write that it began on June 2, 1942. I can't help but believe them. I remember that from a certain moment the bombardments followed one after the other almost continuously - the air raid alert was not announced, since the previous one was not released. And so for days! They bombed with high-explosive bombs, incendiary ones, and at the same time they were shelling with long-range heavy artillery. In order to psychologically influence the defenders of the city, the Germans began to use sound sirens when diving at the Yu-87 target, and also dropped various metal objects (rails, leaky metal barrels, etc.) from a great height, making heartbreaking sounds when they fall.

And here I want to quote B.A. Borisova: “From the second to the seventh of June, according to conservative estimates, enemy aircraft made nine thousand sorties on the city and the combat formations of our troops, dropping forty-six thousand high-explosive bombs. During the same period, enemy artillery fired over the city and our troops hundred thousand shells.

What did they see, what did they hear, what did we, those who were sitting in the basement, feel?

Didn't see anything. Heard a total roar. We felt that the earth was not just trembling, but literally swaying and bouncing from close gaps. And then even we, the children, understood how unsteady and unreliable our shelter was.

According to the stories of the elders, the day of June 19 turned out to be the most difficult. Bombing and shelling began at 5 o'clock in the morning. Obviously, the Germans set a goal to destroy and burn the city on that day. Lighters rained down on the city center by the thousands. We were forced to look for another shelter, as the burning house of my grandmother threatened to block the entrance to our basement. What I remember well: my mother grabbed me in her arms, wrapped me in a blanket and jumped out into the street. From this place, we could see the houses on Tolstoy Square (now Lazarev) and the adjoining Karl Marx and Frunze streets (now B. Morskaya and Nakhimov Ave, respectively). All this and our street was on fire too! We ran along the street for several tens of meters and found shelter in a standard bomb shelter. My father and my brother, who was not even 13 years old, remained on the roof of my grandmother's house, dropping lighters that continued to fall down.

Borisov's book describes the facts that my father and brother told us that day: German fighters flew at low level over the city and shot those who were on the roofs and tried to fight the fire. From one of these "hunters", the father and brother managed to hide behind the chimney, through which the "Messer" slashed with a burst.

Then the fight against the fire became useless, as the house was already on fire from the inside. Our house was also burned down. After some time, my father and brother were brought to us in a bomb shelter by a man who happened to be on our street and saw two "blind men" sitting under the supporting wall - smoke and fumes completely blinded them for several hours.

And a few more words about our guardian angel - my mother. As soon as there was a relative lull (and it came when the Germans were transferring the main air strike from the city to the front line, and undertaking regular offensive attempts), my mother insistently demanded that my father clear the entrance to our basement and return there. So we did not stay long in the bomb shelter. The whole family returned to their shelter.

And the bombing and shelling continued. And what was it like for us to learn that in one of the next raids, with a direct hit by a heavy bomb, everyone who was in the bomb shelter was killed!

On the night of June 30 to July 1, when our troops retreated to Cape Khersones, and the Germans were not on their shoulders, the city remained for some hours a draw.

On the morning of July 1, two German machine gunners appeared in our yard. They took and took away with them all the men. And so on throughout the city. All the men were driven to Kulikovo Field - it was an airfield that started from the recent DOSAAF building and stretched to the recent Okean store. Some space was promptly fenced off by the Germans with barbed wire, and the entire male population of the city was driven there (and there were very few of them left), prisoners were also driven there from Cape Khersones for several more days.

One can only imagine the whole nightmare of those days: July, the heat, the mass of the wounded and the worst thing - the lack of water.

By the way, water (or rather, its absence) is one of the reasons why the city could not hold on any longer. By the end of the last assault, the city was left without water supply: only wells remained. Plus, it must be added that as the prisoners of war arrived, the Germans immediately shot the commissars and Jews right there. It didn't lift my spirits either.

Then all civilians were sorted by age, announced that for any underground activity and sabotage - execution on the spot, and partially released. My father also got into this "part".

And then many months of the same occupation dragged on, which, with the seal of Cain, fell not only on my parents, but also on my older brother, who, I repeat, at the end of the occupation was not even 15 years old. Officials from the authorities just told my parents on occasion: "You must atone for your guilt" (?!).

Well, that was the time...

So, in conclusion, once again (now in a little more detail) about the reasons for the appearance of these lines.

Recently I saw a documentary in which the author (or authors), in strict accordance with the wise saying from Sh. Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin": "Everyone fancies himself a strategist, seeing the battle from the side ...", tries to prove that Sevastopol could have resisted if not for ... And two circumstances are called that led to the surrender of the city: the death of the 35th battery of coastal defense and the explosion in Inkerman adit with naval ammunition (there was also a special plant No. 2 and a factory for the production of champagne wines ).

With regard to Sevastopol, we are more familiar with the word "defense". The first defense, the second defense ... So, in the first defense, the Russian troops left Sevastopol, and in the second the Germans occupied Sevastopol. The reason for this was the blockade. The city was blocked from land and sea, the defenders were deprived of the most important thing: the supply of ammunition, replenishment of people, the evacuation of the wounded (in the last days of the blockade, the wounded who could not be evacuated accumulated about 23 thousand people).

In principle, the abandonment of Sevastopol was a surprise both for the high command and for the defenders themselves.

Here is a timeline of directives and responses over the past week of defense. On the afternoon of June 22, the commander of the SOR received a directive from S.M. Budyonny, Marshal, Commander of the North Caucasian Front: "Your task remains the same - a solid defense of Sevastopol. Stop further withdrawal ... You need to speed up sea transportation ... Everything you need is concentrated in Novorossiysk. "Douglas" (only at night). Ensure landing, speed of unloading and loading. " According to the content of the directive, it can be judged that the front command and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, despite the German breakthrough to the North side, considered it possible to keep Sevastopol.

On the same day, Oktyabrsky sent a telegram to the Caucasus for orientation: “Most of my artillery is silent, there are no shells, a lot of artillery has died.

Enemy aviation flies all day at any altitude, looking for floating craft in all bays, sinking every barge, every boat.

Our aviation, in essence, does not work, continuous shelling, Me-109s are constantly flying.

The entire southern shore of the bay is now the front line of defense.

The city is destroyed, destroyed hourly, burning.

The enemy is choking, but still advancing.

I am fully confident that by defeating the 11th German Army near Sevastopol, we will achieve victory. Victory will be ours. She's already with us."

Judging by the telegram, the SOR command also did not consider the situation of Sevastopol hopeless.

On June 23, 1942, Oktyabrsky reported: “Budyonny, Kuznetsov, the General Staff: ... The most difficult conditions for defense are created by enemy aircraft; aviation paralyzes everything with thousands of bombs every day. It is very difficult for us to fight in Sevastopol. 15 aircraft are hunting for a small boat in the bay. All ships (watercraft) are sunk."

In fact, during the last 25 days of the siege, as is clear from reliable sources, German artillery fired 30,000 tons of shells at the fortifications, and aircraft of Richthofen's 8th Air Fleet carried out 25,000 sorties and dropped 125,000 heavy bombs.

The forces of the defenders of the city were thinning, there were no reserves, and the delivery of reinforcements and ammunition could not make up for the losses. The enemy managed to actually blockade Sevastopol from the sea by the actions of a strong aviation group, deprive the city of fuel and supplies from the mainland.

Despite heavy losses in manpower and equipment, ships, despite the overwhelming superiority of the Germans, the defenders of Sevastopol, the command of the fleet and the Primorsky Army did not think about leaving the city, everyone was convinced that Sevastopol would stand. But hopes were not destined to come true.

After capturing the Northern Side, the enemy, without easing up his strikes on the city's targets, secretly prepared an operation to land an amphibious assault across the bay using improvised means to the rear of the main defense centers, where he was not expected.

On the night of June 28-29, after heavy fire on the southern shore of Severnaya Bay, the Germans, under the cover of a smoke screen, began landing on boats and boats in the direction of Troitskaya, Georgievskaya and Sushilnaya beams in order to break through to the rear of the main strongholds of our defense. The possibility of landing across the bay using improvised means was considered unlikely. The element of surprise kicked in. A sudden, small amphibious assault did its job: it caused panic and confusion in some sectors of the defense. Subsequently, powerful blows from the front and rear disrupted communication and interaction between defense units. The leadership of the SOR and the Primorsky Army lost control of subordinate troops in a few hours. The enemy broke through to the city.

In the memoirs of the People's Commissar of the Navy N.G. Kuznetsov there is a phrase that is key to understanding the current situation: "The enemy's breakthrough from the North side to Korabelnaya turned out to be unexpected for us."

That's where the "dog is buried"!

In the June bloody battles, moral superiority was undoubtedly on the side of the defenders of the city. But as soon as shouts were heard in the battle formations: "The Germans are all around! We are surrounded!", A spontaneous and irreparable violation of the defense began. The brave defenders, deprived of reliable information about the enemy, were forced to leave their inhabited impregnable fortifications and seek salvation in the area of ​​​​Cape Chersonesus, on the last piece of Soviet land not occupied by the enemy.

So much has been written about this that I really have nothing to add.

The line from the famous song "The last sailor left Sevastopol ..." can be considered purely conditional and pathetic. According to some estimates, about 40 thousand of these "last" remained in captivity of the Germans in Sevastopol. They are not to blame for anything.

The people are the hero!

Vladimir Pavlovich TKACHENKO, retired captain of the 2nd rank, resident of the besieged Sevastopol, member of the Military Scientific Society of the Black Sea Fleet


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