Heroes of the Great Patriotic War and their exploits (briefly). Heroes of our time - the exploits of ordinary people

The true abilities, capabilities and character of a person often manifest themselves in emergency situations, in difficult times for the country, society, and people. It is in moments like these that heroes are born. This happens everywhere. The heroes of Russia and their exploits have forever entered the history of the Fatherland, people remember them for many years, and tell them to subsequent generations. Every hero is worthy of respect and honor. Feats are not performed in the name of glory and honor. At the moment of their accomplishment, people do not think about their own benefit; on the contrary, they show courage for the sake of other people or in the name of the Motherland.

Be that as it may, back in the last century our country was called the USSR, and people born in this state do not forget and honor their heroes who had the title of Hero of the USSR. This highest award was established in the Soviet Union in 1934. It was given for special services to the Fatherland. It was made of gold, had the shape of a five-pointed star with the inscription “Hero of the USSR”, and was complemented by a red ribbon 20 mm wide. The star appeared in October 1939, by which time several hundred people had already been awarded this insignia. Along with the star, the Order of Lenin was also awarded.

Who was awarded the star? The person had to accomplish a significant feat for the state. Descriptions of the exploits of the heroes of Russia and the Soviet Union can now be found not only in textbooks and books: the Internet allows you to find out interesting information about each hero of both the last century and the present. Hero of the USSR is an honorary title and award sign of the same name, which some individuals have been awarded several times. But of course there are few of them. Since 1973, when re-awarding, the second Order of Lenin was awarded along with the star. A bust was erected in the hero’s homeland. The first stars were awarded back in 1934 to pilots (there were seven of them) who played a major role in rescuing the icebreaker Chelyuskin, which was trapped in ice.

The appearance of the “Hero of Russia” award

The Soviet Union collapsed, and in the 90s we “moved” to live in a new state. Despite all the political troubles, heroes have always been and are among us. Thus, in 1992, the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation introduced the Law “On Establishing the Title of Hero of Russia.” The award was still the same Golden Star, only now with the inscription “Hero of Russia” and with a ribbon in the form of the Russian tricolor. The award of the title of Hero of the Russian Federation by the President of Russia is carried out only once. A bronze bust is erected in the hero’s homeland.

Modern heroes of Russia and their exploits are known throughout the country. The first to receive this title was S.S. Oskanov, Major General of Aviation. Unfortunately, the title was awarded to him posthumously. On February 7, 1992, during a flight mission, an unexpected situation occurred - equipment failure, and the MIG-29 rapidly fell into a populated area in the Lipetsk region. To avoid tragedy and save human lives, Oskanov diverted the plane to the side, but the pilot himself was unable to escape. The pilot's widow received Gold Star No. 2. The country's leadership decided that Hero No. 1 should be alive. Thus, medal No. 1 was awarded to pilot-cosmonaut S.K. Krikalev. He completed the longest space flight at the Mir orbital station. The list of those awarded the title of Hero is long - these include military personnel, cosmonaut pilots, participants in the Second World War and hot spots, intelligence officers, scientists, and athletes.

Heroes of Russia: list and photos, their exploits

It is impossible to list all the heroes of Russia: at the beginning of 2017, there were 1,042 people (474 ​​people received the title posthumously). Russians remember each of them, honor their exploits, and set them as an example for the younger generation. Bronze busts have been installed in the Homeland of Heroes. Below we list just some of the exploits of the Heroes of Russia.

Sergei Solnechnikov. Everyone has heard and remembers the feat of the major, who saved the lives of young, inexperienced soldiers. This happened in the Amur region. Due to inexperience, an ordinary soldier unsuccessfully threw a grenade; the ammunition ended up on the edge of the parapet that protected the firing position. The soldiers were in real danger. Major Solnechnikov made an instant decision; he pushed the young guy away and covered the grenade with his body. An hour and a half later he died on the operating table. On April 3, 2012, Major Solnechnikov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia.

North Caucasus

The heroes of Russia showed themselves in battles in the Caucasus, and their exploits should not be forgotten.

Sergey Yashkin - commander of the Perm special forces detachment. In the summer of 2012, special forces deployed in Dagestan in a gorge near the village of Kidero. The task is not to let a gang of militants cross the border. This gang could not be eliminated for several years. The militants were discovered and a battle ensued. Yashkin was shell-shocked during the battle, received burns and wounds, but did not leave his post until the end of the operation. He himself personally destroyed three of the five militants. For courage and heroism, on June 14, 2013, he was awarded the title Hero of Russia. Currently lives in Perm.

Mikhail Minenkov. Served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation since 1994. In 1999 he fought in Dagestan against the gangs of Khattab and Basayev. He commanded a reconnaissance group and inflicted significant damage on the militants while carrying out important missions. Already in Chechnya in the same 1999, returning from a reconnaissance mission from the village of Shcheglovskaya, he received an order to help out a group of special forces surrounded by militants. The battle was difficult, many guys were injured. The commander himself was seriously wounded in the leg, but continued to command the detachment and remove wounded soldiers. The Airborne Forces groups successfully escaped the encirclement. Minenkov was carried out from the battlefield by his comrades. At the hospital, the leg was amputated. But Mikhail survived and even returned to his regiment, where he continued to serve. For heroism, on January 17, 2000, he was awarded the title Hero of Russia.

Heroes of Russia 2016

• Oleg Artemyev - test cosmonaut.
• Elena Serova is a female cosmonaut.
• Vadim Baykulov is a military man.
• Alexander Dvornikov - commander of the Armed Forces group in Syria until July 2016, now - Russian military leader, commander of the troops of the Southern Military District.
• Andrey Dyachenko - pilot, participant in the operation in Syria.
• Viktor Romanov is a military navigator, a participant in the operation in Syria.
• Alexander Prokhorenko. All heroes of Russia who posthumously received the title have a special place. In a peaceful life, they left their parents, families and gave their lives for the ideas of the Motherland. Alexander died during the battles in Syria for Palmyra. Surrounded by militants, the soldier, not wanting to surrender, took the fire on himself, died heroically, and the militants were also destroyed.
• Dmitry Bulgakov - Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation.
• Valery Gerasimov - Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
• Igor Sergun is a military intelligence officer. The title was awarded posthumously.
• Marat Akhmetshin is a participant in combat operations in Syria. He died in the battle for Palmyra.
• Ryafagat Khabibullin is a military pilot. He died in Syria, the plane was shot down in militant territory.
• Alexander Misurkin - test cosmonaut.
• Anatoly Gorshkov - Major General, WWII participant.
• Alexander Zhuravlev is the head of the military operation in Syria.
• Magomed Nurbagandov is an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He received the title of Hero posthumously. Died at the hands of militants.
• Andrey Karlov - Ambassador to Turkey. Died at the hands of a terrorist.

Women heroes of Russia

Below are the female Heroes of Russia. The list and their exploits only briefly introduce the heroic representatives of the fairer sex. Since 1992, 17 women have received the honorary title.

• Marina Plotnikova is a young girl who saved three drowning children at the cost of her own life.
• Ekaterina Budanova - pilot, WWII participant.
• Lydia Shulaikina is a pilot in naval aviation. WWII participant.
• Alexandra Akimova - pilot. WWII participant.
• Vera Voloshina - Soviet partisan. WWII participant.
• Lyubov Egorova is a 6-time Olympic champion. Skier.
• Elena Kondakova - pilot-cosmonaut.
• Valentina Savitskaya - pilot. WWII participant.
• Tatyana Sumarokova - pilot. WWII participant.
• Leontina Cohen - Soviet intelligence officer. WWII participant.
• Natalya Kochuevskaya - medical instructor. WWII participant.
• Larisa Lazutina - skier, 5-time Olympic champion.
• Irina Yanina is a nurse. She died during the Second Chechen War. She saved the soldiers at the cost of her life.
• Marem Arapkhanova - died at the hands of militants, defending her family and her village.
• Nina Brusnikova is a milkmaid at the Aurora collective farm. Saved a livestock complex during a fire.
• Alime Abdenanova - Soviet intelligence officer. WWII participant.
• Elena Serova - cosmonaut.

Children-heroes of Russia and their exploits

Russia is a great power, rich in heroes not only among adults. Children in emergency situations show heroism without hesitation. Of course, not everyone has the title of Hero of Russia. In addition to this badge, the country awards heroes with Orders of Courage, as well as medals “For saving the dead.” Among us there are such heroes of Russia of our time, and their exploits are known and honored in the country. Someone deserved the award posthumously.

• Zhenya Tabakov is a hero of Russia. Died at the age of 7 years. Saved his sister Yana when a robber broke into the house. Yana managed to escape, but Zhenya received eight stab wounds from which he died.
• Danil Sadykov. A 12-year-old teenager saved a boy who fell into a fountain and received an electric shock. Danil was not afraid, he rushed after him, managed to pull him out, but he himself received a powerful shock, which is why he died.
• Vasily Zhirkov and Alexander Maltsev. Teenagers who received awards for saving the dead - a drowning grandmother and her eight-year-old grandson.
• Sergey Krivov is an 11-year-old boy. Rescued a drowning friend from the waters of the icy Amur.
• Alexander Petchenko. During the accident, the boy did not leave his mother and pulled her out of the burning car.
• Artem Artyukhin. Risking his life, he rescued a 12-year-old girl from the eighth floor during a fire.

What categories of citizens were awarded the award?

The title of Hero of Russia was awarded to:

• participants in hostilities in the North Caucasus;
• WWII participants;
• test pilots;
• persons who have distinguished themselves in the fight against terrorism;
• astronauts;
• military sailors, submariners;
• participants in the 1993 events in Moscow;
• people who saved the lives of others;
• participants of hostilities in Ossetia;
• participants of hostilities in Tajikistan;
• senior officials of ministries and departments;
• designers of the Armed Forces;
• scouts;
• participants of the war in Afghanistan;
• athletes, travelers;
• liquidators of the Chernobyl accident;
• participants of Arctic expeditions;
• participants of the operation in Abkhazia4
• civil aviation pilots;
• ambassadors;
• participants in the fighting in Syria.

Titles of heroes at the time the award was awarded

Not only military personnel, but also ordinary citizens join the “Heroes of Russia” list. Photos and their exploits are published and described in books, magazines, and many presentations on this topic are posted on the Internet. The title of Hero was indicated at the time the President signed the Decree on the award; for civilians, the civilian rank is designated. Who is awarded the title of hero, in what categories? There are many of them: privates, sailors, corporals, sergeants, junior sergeants, senior sergeants, warrant officers, foremen, midshipmen, lieutenants, junior and senior lieutenants, lieutenant colonels, colonels, captains, major generals, lieutenant generals, rear admirals, vice admirals, army generals, and civilians. The only marshal in Russia, Igor Sergeev, also has the “Hero of Russia” star.

People are heroes of two countries

There are individuals in our country who have been awarded two titles - Heroes of the USSR and Heroes of Russia. The list and photos of their exploits cannot be contained in one article. We list only the most famous:

• Mikhail Kalashnikov - gunsmith and designer. He also has the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
• Cosmonaut pilots V.V. Polyakov and S.K. Krikalev, helicopter pilot Maidanov - Heroes of the Russian Federation and Heroes of the USSR.
• A. N. Chilingarov - polar explorer, Hero of the Russian Federation and Hero of the USSR.
• T. A. Musabaev, Yu. I. Malenchenko - cosmonauts. People's Heroes of Kazakhstan and Heroes of Russia.
• S. Sh. Sharpov - cosmonaut. Hero of Kyrgyzstan and Hero of Russia.
• V. A. Wolf - sergeant of the Airborne Forces. Hero of Russia and Hero of Abkhazia.

As of January 2017, 1,042 people were awarded the Hero of Russia star. 474 from this list received the award posthumously. Usually, lists of Heroes and most Decrees are not officially published. Information about heroes may be scattered and contradict each other, but we all remember their exploits and collect information piece by piece.

Privileges

The heroes of Russia and their exploits are of special importance to the state. Those who have this honorary title have a number of benefits that they have the right to enjoy without limit:

• Monthly pension.
• Free medical care.
• Exemption from state duties and taxes.
• 50% discount on tickets for any type of transport (once a year) in both directions.
• 30% discount on utilities.
• Free travel on public transport.
• Free education for children.
• Once a year, a trip to a sanatorium.
• Free home repairs.
• Free home phone.
• Out-of-turn service in medical organizations.
• Improving living conditions
• Free funeral with honors.

During Soviet times, their portraits hung in every school. And every teenager knew their names. Zina Portnova, Marat Kazei, Lenya Golikov, Valya Kotik, Zoya and Shura Kosmodemyansky. But there were also tens of thousands of young heroes whose names are unknown. They were called “pioneer heroes”, Komsomol members. But they were heroes not because, like all their peers, they were members of a pioneer or Komsomol organization, but because they were real patriots and real people.

Army of Youth

During the Great Patriotic War, a whole army of boys and girls acted against the Nazi occupiers. In occupied Belarus alone, at least 74,500 boys and girls, young men and women fought in partisan detachments. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia says that during the Great Patriotic War, more than 35 thousand pioneers - young defenders of the Motherland - were awarded military orders and medals.

It was an amazing “movement”! The boys and girls did not wait until adults “called” them, they began to act from the first days of the occupation. They took a mortal risk!

Likewise, many others began to act at their own peril and risk. Someone found leaflets scattered from airplanes and distributed them in their regional center or village. Polotsk boy Lenya Kosach collected 45 rifles, 2 light machine guns, several baskets of cartridges and grenades from the battlefields and hid it all securely; an opportunity presented itself - he handed it over to the partisans. Hundreds of other guys created arsenals for the partisans in the same way. Twelve-year-old excellent student Lyuba Morozova, knowing a little German, engaged in “special propaganda” among the enemies, telling them how well she lived before the war without the “new order” of the invaders. Soldiers often told her that she was “red to the bone” and advised her to hold her tongue until it ended badly for her. Later Lyuba became a partisan. Eleven-year-old Tolya Korneev stole a pistol with ammunition from a German officer and began looking for people who would help him reach the partisans. In the summer of 1942, the boy succeeded in this, meeting his classmate Olya Demesh, who by that time was already a member of one of the units. And when the older guys brought 9-year-old Zhora Yuzov to the detachment, and the commander jokingly asked: “Who will babysit this little guy?”, the boy, in addition to the pistol, laid out four grenades in front of him: “That’s who will babysit me!”

For 13 years, Seryozha Roslenko, in addition to collecting weapons, conducted reconnaissance at his own risk: there will be someone to pass on information to! And I found it. From somewhere the children got the idea of ​​conspiracy. In the fall of 1941, sixth-grader Vitya Pashkevich organized a semblance of the Krasnodon “Young Guard” in Borisov, occupied by the Nazis. He and his team carried weapons and ammunition from enemy warehouses, helped underground fighters to escape prisoners of war from concentration camps, and burned an enemy warehouse with uniforms with thermite incendiary grenades...

Experienced Scout

In January 1942, one of the partisan detachments operating in the Ponizovsky district of the Smolensk region was surrounded by the Nazis. The Germans, pretty battered during the counter-offensive of Soviet troops near Moscow, did not risk immediately liquidating the detachment. They did not have accurate intelligence information about its strength, so they waited for reinforcements. However, the ring was held tightly. The partisans were racking their brains about how to get out of the encirclement. Food was running out. And the detachment commander requested help from the Red Army command. In response, an encrypted message came over the radio, in which it was reported that the troops would not be able to help with active actions, but an experienced intelligence officer would be sent to the detachment.

And indeed, at the appointed time, the noise of the engines of an air transport was heard above the forest, and a few minutes later a paratrooper landed in the location of the surrounded people. The partisans who received the heavenly messenger were quite surprised when they saw in front of them... a boy.

– Are you an experienced intelligence officer? – asked the commander.

- I am. What, you don’t look like him? “The boy was wearing a uniform army pea coat, cotton pants and a hat with earflaps with an asterisk. Red Army soldier!

- How old are you? – the commander still could not come to his senses from surprise.

- It's going to be eleven soon! – the “experienced intelligence officer” answered importantly.

The boy's name was Yura Zhdanko. He was originally from Vitebsk. In July 1941, the ubiquitous shooter and expert on local territories showed the retreating Soviet unit a ford across the Western Dvina. He was no longer able to return home - while he was acting as a guide, Hitler’s armored vehicles entered his hometown. And the scouts, who were tasked with escorting the boy back, took him with them. So he was enrolled as a graduate of the motor reconnaissance company of the 332nd Ivanovo Rifle Division named after. M.F. Frunze.

At first he was not involved in business, but, naturally observant, sharp-eyed and memorative, he quickly learned the basics of front-line raid science and even dared to give advice to adults. And his abilities were appreciated. They began to send him behind the front line. In the villages, he, dressed in disguise, with a bag over his shoulders, begged for alms, collecting information about the location and number of enemy garrisons. I also managed to take part in the mining of a strategically important bridge. During the explosion, a Red Army miner was wounded, and Yura, after providing first aid, led him to the unit’s location. For which he received his first medal “For Courage”.

...It seems that a better intelligence officer could not have been found to help the partisans.

“But you, boy, didn’t jump with a parachute...” the intelligence chief said sadly.

- Jumped twice! – Yura objected loudly. “I begged the sergeant... he quietly taught me...

Everyone knew that this sergeant and Yura were inseparable, and he could, of course, follow the lead of the regimental favorite. The Li-2 engines were already roaring, the plane was ready to take off, when the guy admitted that, of course, he had never jumped with a parachute:

“The sergeant didn’t allow me, I only helped lay the dome.” Show me how and what to pull!

– Why did you lie?! – the instructor shouted at him. - He was lying against the sergeant in vain.

- I thought you would check... But they wouldn’t: the sergeant was killed...

Having arrived safely at the detachment, ten-year-old Vitebsk resident Yura Zhdanko did what adults could not... He was dressed in all the village clothes, and soon the boy made his way to the hut where the German officer in charge of the encirclement lodged. The Nazi lived in the house of a certain grandfather Vlas. It was to him, under the guise of a grandson, that a young intelligence officer came from the regional center and was given a rather difficult task - to obtain from the enemy officer documents with plans for the destruction of the encircled detachment. An opportunity arose only a few days later. The Nazi left the house lightly, leaving the key to the safe in his overcoat... So the documents ended up in the detachment. And at the same time, Yura brought grandfather Vlas, convincing him that it was impossible to stay in the house in such a situation.

In 1943, Yura led a regular Red Army battalion out of encirclement. All the scouts sent to find the “corridor” for their comrades died. The task was entrusted to Yura. Alone. And he found a weak spot in the enemy ring... He became the Order Bearer of the Red Star.

Yuri Ivanovich Zhdanko, recalling his military childhood, said that he “played in a real war, did what adults couldn’t, and there were a lot of situations when they couldn’t do something, but I could.”

Fourteen-year-old savior of prisoners of war

14-year-old Minsk underground fighter Volodya Shcherbatsevich was one of the first teenagers whom the Germans executed for participating in the underground. They captured his execution on film and then distributed these images throughout the city as a warning to others...

From the first days of the occupation of the Belarusian capital, mother and son Shcherbatsevichs hid Soviet commanders in their apartment, for whom underground fighters from time to time arranged escapes from a prisoner of war camp. Olga Fedorovna was a doctor and provided medical assistance to the liberated people, dressing them in civilian clothes, which she and her son Volodya collected from relatives and friends. Several groups of rescued people have already been brought out of the city. But one day on the way, already outside the city blocks, one of the groups fell into the clutches of the Gestapo. Handed over by a traitor, the son and mother ended up in fascist dungeons. They withstood all the torture.

And on October 26, 1941, the first gallows appeared in Minsk. On this day, for the last time, surrounded by a pack of machine gunners, Volodya Shcherbatsevich walked through the streets of his native city... The pedantic punishers captured the report of his execution on photographic film. And perhaps we see on it the first young hero who gave his life for his Motherland during the Great Patriotic War.

Die, but take revenge

Here is another amazing example of young heroism from 1941...

Osintorf village. One August day, the Nazis, together with their henchmen from local residents - the burgomaster, the clerk and the chief policeman - raped and brutally killed the young teacher Anya Lyutova. By that time, a youth underground was already operating in the village under the leadership of Slava Shmuglevsky. The guys gathered and decided: “Death to traitors!” Slava himself volunteered to carry out the sentence, as did teenage brothers Misha and Zhenya Telenchenko, aged thirteen and fifteen.

By that time, they already had hidden a machine gun found in the battlefields. They acted simply and directly, like a boy. The brothers took advantage of the fact that their mother had gone to relatives that day and was supposed to return only in the morning. They installed a machine gun on the balcony of the apartment and began to wait for traitors who often passed by. We didn't miscalculate. When they approached, Slava began shooting at them almost point-blank. But one of the criminals, the burgomaster, managed to escape. He reported by telephone to Orsha that the village was attacked by a large partisan detachment (a machine gun is a serious thing). Cars with punitive forces rushed in. With the help of bloodhounds, the weapon was quickly found: Misha and Zhenya, not having time to find a more reliable hiding place, hid the machine gun in the attic of their own house. Both were arrested. The boys were tortured most cruelly and for a long time, but not one of them betrayed Slava Shmuglevsky and other underground fighters to the enemy. The Telenchenko brothers were executed in October.

The Great Conspirator

Pavlik Titov, for his eleven years, was a great conspirator. He fought as a partisan for more than two years without even his parents knowing about it. Many episodes of his combat biography remained unknown. This is what is known.

First, Pavlik and his comrades rescued a wounded Soviet commander who had been burned in a burnt tank - they found a reliable shelter for him, and at night they brought him food, water, and brewed some medicinal decoctions according to his grandmother’s recipes. Thanks to the boys, the tanker quickly recovered.

In July 1942, Pavlik and his friends handed over to the partisans several rifles and machine guns with cartridges they had found. Missions followed. The young intelligence officer penetrated the Nazis' location and kept count of manpower and equipment.

He was generally a cunning guy. One day he brought a bundle of fascist uniforms to the partisans:

- I think it will be useful for you... Not to carry it yourself, of course...

- Where did you get it?

- Yes, the Krauts were swimming...

More than once, dressed in the uniform obtained by the boy, the partisans carried out daring raids and operations.

The boy died in the fall of 1943. Not in battle. The Germans carried out another punitive operation. Pavlik and his parents were hiding in the dugout. The punishers shot the entire family - father, mother, Pavlik himself and even his little sister. He was buried in a mass grave in Surazh, near Vitebsk.

In June 1941, Leningrad schoolgirl Zina Portnova came with her younger sister Galya to visit her grandmother in the village of Zui (Shumilinsky district of the Vitebsk region) for the summer holidays. She was fifteen... First, she got a job as an auxiliary worker in a canteen for German officers. And soon, together with her friend, she carried out a daring operation - she poisoned more than a hundred Nazis. She could have been captured right away, but they began to follow her. By that time, she was already connected with the Obol underground organization “Young Avengers”. In order to avoid failure, Zina was transferred to a partisan detachment.

Once she was instructed to scout out the number and type of troops in the Oboli area. Another time - to clarify the reasons for the failure in the Obol underground and establish new connections... After completing the next task, she was captured by punitive forces. They tortured me for a long time. During one of the interrogations, the girl, as soon as the investigator turned away, grabbed the pistol from the table with which he had just threatened her and shot him. She jumped out the window, shot a sentry and rushed to the Dvina. Another sentry rushed after her. Zina, hiding behind a bush, wanted to destroy him too, but the weapon misfired...

Then they no longer interrogated her, but methodically tortured and mocked her. They gouged out their eyes and cut off their ears. They drove needles under her nails, twisted her arms and legs... On January 13, 1944, Zina Portnova was shot.

"Kid" and his sisters

From a report of the Vitebsk underground city party committee in 1942: “Baby” (he is 12 years old), having learned that the partisans needed gun oil, without an assignment, on his own initiative, brought 2 liters of gun oil from the city. Then he was tasked with delivering sulfuric acid for sabotage purposes. He also brought it. And he carried it in a bag behind his back. The acid spilled, his shirt was burned, his back was burned, but he did not throw the acid.”

The “baby” was Alyosha Vyalov, who enjoyed special sympathy among the local partisans. And he acted as part of a family group. When the war began, he was 11, his older sisters Vasilisa and Anya were 16 and 14, the rest of the children were a little younger. Alyosha and his sisters were very inventive. They set fire to the Vitebsk railway station three times, prepared to blow up the labor exchange in order to confuse the population records and save young people and other residents from being taken to the “German paradise”, blew up the passport office in the police premises... They have dozens of acts of sabotage. And this is in addition to the fact that they were messengers and distributed leaflets...

“Baby” and Vasilisa died soon after the war from tuberculosis... A rare case: a memorial plaque was installed on the Vyalovs’ house in Vitebsk. These children should have a monument made of gold!..

Meanwhile, we also know about another Vitebsk family - Lynchenko. 11-year-old Kolya, 9-year-old Dina and 7-year-old Emma were the messengers of their mother, Natalya Fedorovna, whose apartment served as a reporting area. In 1943, as a result of the failure, the Gestapo broke into the house. The mother was beaten in front of her children, they shot above her head, demanding to name the members of the group. They also mocked the children, asking them who came to their mother and where she herself went. They tried to bribe little Emma with chocolate. The children didn't say anything. Moreover, during the search in the apartment, seizing the moment, Dina took out encryption codes from under the board of the table, where one of the hiding places was, and hid them under her dress, and when the punishers left, taking her mother away, she burned them. The children were left in the house as bait, but they, knowing that the house was being watched, managed to warn the messengers with signs who were going to the failed appearance...

Prize for the head of a young saboteur

The Nazis promised a round sum for the head of Orsha schoolgirl Olya Demesh. Hero of the Soviet Union, former commander of the 8th Partisan Brigade, Colonel Sergei Zhunin, spoke about this in his memoirs “From the Dnieper to the Bug”. A 13-year-old girl at the Orsha-Tsentralnaya station blew up fuel tanks. Sometimes she acted with her twelve-year-old sister Lida. Zhunin recalled how Olya was instructed before the mission: “It is necessary to place a mine under the gasoline tank. Remember, only for a gasoline tank!” “I know what kerosene smells like, I cooked with kerosene gas myself, but gasoline... let me at least smell it.” There were a lot of trains and dozens of tanks at the junction, and you had to find “the one.” Olya and Lida crawled under the trains, sniffing: is this one or not this one? Gasoline or not gasoline? Then they threw stones and determined by the sound: empty or full? And only then they hooked the magnetic mine. The fire destroyed a huge number of carriages with equipment, food, uniforms, fodder, and steam locomotives were also burned...

The Germans managed to capture Olya’s mother and sister and shot them; but Olya remained elusive. During the ten months of her participation in the Chekist brigade (from June 7, 1942 to April 10, 1943), she showed herself not only to be a fearless intelligence officer, but also derailed seven enemy echelons, participated in the defeat of several military-police garrisons, and had to his personal account 20 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers. And then she was also a participant in the “rail war”.

Eleven-year-old saboteur

Vitya Sitnitsa. How he wanted to be a partisan! But for two years from the beginning of the war he remained “only” a conductor of partisan sabotage groups passing through his village of Kuritichi. However, he learned something from the partisan guides during their short rests. In August 1943, he and his older brother were accepted into the partisan detachment. They were assigned to the economic platoon. Then he said that peeling potatoes and taking out slops with his ability to lay mines was unfair. Moreover, the “rail war” is in full swing. And they began to take him on combat missions. The boy personally derailed 9 echelons of enemy manpower and military equipment.

In the spring of 1944, Vitya fell ill with rheumatism and was sent to his relatives for medicine. In the village, he was captured by Nazis dressed as Red Army soldiers. The boy was brutally tortured.

Little Susanin

He began his war against the Nazi invaders at the age of 9. Already in the summer of 1941, in the house of his parents in the village of Bayki in the Brest region, the regional anti-fascist committee equipped a secret printing house. They issued leaflets with reports from the Sovinforburo. Tikhon Baran helped distribute them. For two years the young underground worker was engaged in this activity. The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the printers. The printing house was destroyed. Tikhon’s mother and sisters hid with relatives, and he himself went to the partisans. One day, when he was visiting his relatives, the Germans came to the village. The mother was taken to Germany, and the boy was beaten. He became very ill and remained in the village.

Local historians dated his feat to January 22, 1944. On this day, punitive forces appeared in the village again. All residents were shot for contacting the partisans. The village was burned. “And you,” they told Tikhon, “will show us the way to the partisans.” It is difficult to say whether the village boy heard anything about the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin, who more than three centuries earlier led the Polish interventionists into a swampy swamp, only Tikhon Baran showed the fascists the same road. They killed him, but not all of them got out of that quagmire.

Covering detachment

Vanya Kazachenko from the village of Zapolye, Orsha district, Vitebsk region, became a machine gunner in a partisan detachment in April 1943. He was thirteen. Anyone who served in the army and carried at least a Kalashnikov assault rifle (not a machine gun!) on their shoulders can imagine what it cost the boy. Guerrilla raids most often lasted many hours. And the machine guns of that time were heavier than the current ones... After one of the successful operations to defeat the enemy garrison, in which Vanya once again distinguished himself, the partisans, returning to the base, stopped to rest in a village not far from Bogushevsk. Vanya, assigned to guard duty, chose a place, disguised himself and covered the road leading to the settlement. Here the young machine gunner fought his last battle.

Noticing the carts with the Nazis suddenly appearing, he opened fire on them. By the time his comrades arrived, the Germans managed to surround the boy, seriously wound him, take him prisoner and retreat. The partisans did not have the opportunity to chase the carts to beat him up. Vanya, tied to a cart, was dragged along an icy road for about twenty kilometers by the Nazis. In the village of Mezhevo, Orsha region, where there was an enemy garrison, he was tortured and shot.

The hero was 14 years old

Marat Kazei was born on October 10, 1929 in the village of Stankovo, Minsk region of Belarus. In November 1942 he joined the partisan detachment named after. 25th anniversary of October, then became a scout at the headquarters of the partisan brigade named after. K.K. Rokossovsky.

Marat's father Ivan Kazei was arrested in 1934 as a “saboteur”, and he was rehabilitated only in 1959. Later, his wife was also arrested, but later, however, she was released. So it turned out to be a family of an “enemy of the people” who were shunned by their neighbors. Kazei’s sister, Ariadne, was not accepted into the Komsomol because of this.

It would seem that all this should have made the Kazei angry with the authorities - but no. In 1941, Anna Kazei, the wife of an “enemy of the people,” hid wounded partisans in her home - for which she was executed by the Germans. Ariadne and Marat went to the partisans. Ariadne remained alive, but became disabled - when the detachment left the encirclement, her legs froze, which had to be amputated. When she was taken to the hospital by plane, the detachment commander offered to fly with her and Marat so that he could continue his studies interrupted by the war. But Marat refused and remained in the partisan detachment.

Marat went on reconnaissance missions, both alone and with a group. Participated in raids. He blew up the echelons. For the battle in January 1943, when, wounded, he roused his comrades to attack and made his way through the enemy ring, Marat received the medal “For Courage”. And in May 1944, Marat died. Returning from a mission together with the reconnaissance commander, they came across the Germans. The commander was killed immediately, Marat, firing back, lay down in a hollow. There was nowhere to leave in the open field, and there was no opportunity - Marat was seriously wounded. While there were cartridges, he held the defense, and when the magazine was empty, he picked up his last weapon - two grenades, which he did not remove from his belt. He threw one at the Germans, and left the second. When the Germans came very close, he blew himself up along with the enemies.

In Minsk, a monument to Kazei was erected using funds raised by Belarusian pioneers. In 1958, an obelisk was erected at the grave of the young Hero in the village of Stankovo, Dzerzhinsky district, Minsk region. The monument to Marat Kazei was erected in Moscow (on the territory of VDNH). The state farm, streets, schools, pioneer squads and detachments of many schools of the Soviet Union, the ship of the Caspian Shipping Company were named after the pioneer hero Marat Kazei.

The boy from the legend

Golikov Leonid Aleksandrovich, scout of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad Partisan Brigade, born in 1926, native of the village of Lukino, Parfinsky district. This is what is written on the award sheet. A boy from a legend - that’s what fame called Lenya Golikova.

When the war began, a schoolboy from the village of Lukino, near Staraya Russa, got a rifle and joined the partisans. Thin and short, at 14 he looked even younger. Under the guise of a beggar, he walked around the villages, collecting the necessary data on the location of fascist troops and the amount of enemy military equipment.

Together with his peers, he once picked up several rifles at a battle site and stole two boxes of grenades from the Nazis. They then handed all this over to the partisans. “Comrade Golikov joined the partisan detachment in March 1942, the award sheet says. - Participated in 27 military operations... Exterminated 78 German soldiers and officers, blew up 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, blew up 9 vehicles with ammunition... On August 15, in the new combat area of ​​the brigade, Golikov crashed a passenger car in which the general was Major of the Engineering Troops Richard Wirtz, heading from Pskov to Luga. A brave partisan killed the general with a machine gun and delivered his jacket and captured documents to the brigade headquarters. The documents included: a description of new types of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other valuable intelligence data.”

Lake Radilovskoye was a gathering point during the brigade’s transition to a new area of ​​operations. On the way there, the partisans had to engage in battles with the enemy. The punishers monitored the progress of the partisans, and as soon as the forces of the brigade united, they forced a battle on it. After the battle at Lake Radilovskoe, the main forces of the brigade continued their journey to the Lyadsky forests. The detachments of I. Grozny and B. Eren-Price remained in the lake area to distract the fascists. They never managed to connect with the brigade. In mid-November, the occupiers attacked the headquarters. Many soldiers died defending him. The rest managed to retreat to the Terp-Kamen swamp. On December 25, the swamp was surrounded by several hundred fascists. With considerable losses, the partisans broke out of the ring and entered the Strugokrasnensky region. Only 50 people remained in the ranks, the radio did not work. And the punishers scoured all the villages in search of partisans. We had to follow untrodden paths. The path was paved by scouts, and among them Lenya Golikov. Attempts to establish contact with other units and stock up on food ended tragically. There was only one way out - to make our way to the mainland.

After crossing the Dno-Novosokolniki railway late at night on January 24, 1943, 27 hungry, exhausted partisans came to the village of Ostray Luka. Ahead, the Partizansky region, burned by punitive forces, stretched 90 kilometers. The scouts did not find anything suspicious. The enemy garrison was located several kilometers away. The partisans' companion, a nurse, was dying from a serious wound and asked for at least a little warmth. They occupied the three outer huts. Brigade commander Glebov decided not to post patrols so as not to attract attention. They were on duty alternately at the windows and in the barn, from where both the village and the road to the forest were clearly visible.

About two hours later, my sleep was interrupted by the roar of an exploding grenade. And immediately the heavy machine gun began to rattle. Following the traitor's denunciation, punitive forces arrived. The partisans jumped out into the courtyard and through the vegetable gardens, firing back, and began to rush towards the forest. Glebov with a military escort covered the retreating forces with light machine gun and machine gun fire. Halfway there, the seriously wounded chief of staff fell. Lenya rushed to him. But Petrov ordered to return to the brigade commander, and he himself, covering the wound under his padded jacket with an individual bag, again stitched with a machine gun. In that unequal battle, the entire headquarters of the 4th partisan brigade was killed. Among the fallen was the young partisan Lenya Golikov. Six managed to reach the forest, two of them were seriously wounded and could not move without assistance... Only on January 31, near the village of Zhemchugovo, exhausted and frostbitten, they met with the scouts of the 8th Guards Panfilov Division.

For a long time, his mother Ekaterina Alekseevna knew nothing about Leni’s fate. The war had already moved far to the west when one Sunday afternoon a horseman in military uniform stopped near their hut. Mother went out onto the porch. The officer handed her a large package. The old woman accepted him with trembling hands and called her daughter Valya. The package contained a certificate bound in crimson leather. There was also an envelope, which Valya opened quietly and said: “This is for you, mom, from Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin himself.” With excitement, the mother took a bluish sheet of paper and read: “Dear Ekaterina Alekseevna! According to the command, your son Leonid Aleksandrovich Golikov died a brave death for his homeland. For the heroic feat performed by your son in the fight against the German invaders behind enemy lines, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by Decree of April 2, 1944, awarded him the highest degree of distinction - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. I am sending you a letter from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR conferring on your son the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to be kept as a memory of a heroic son whose feat will never be forgotten by our people. M. Kalinin." - “That’s what he turned out to be, my Lenyushka!” - the mother said quietly. And in these words there was grief, pain, and pride for his son...

Lenya was buried in the village of Ostraya Luka. His name is inscribed on the obelisk installed on the mass grave. The monument in Novgorod was opened on January 20, 1964. The figure of a boy in a hat with earflaps and a machine gun in his hands is carved from light granite. The hero’s name is given to streets in St. Petersburg, Pskov, Staraya Russa, Okulovka, the village of Pola, the village of Parfino, a motor ship of the Riga Shipping Company, in Novgorod - a street, the House of Pioneers, a training ship for young sailors in Staraya Russa. In Moscow, at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the USSR, a monument to the hero was also erected.

The youngest hero of the Soviet Union

Valya Kotik. A young partisan reconnaissance officer of the Great Patriotic War in the Karmelyuk detachment, which operated in temporarily occupied territory; the youngest Hero of the Soviet Union. He was born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Kamenets-Podolsk region of Ukraine, according to one information in the family of an employee, according to another - a peasant. Of education, there are only 5 classes of secondary school in the regional center.

During the Great Patriotic War, being in territory temporarily occupied by Nazi troops, Valya Kotik worked to collect weapons and ammunition, drew and pasted up caricatures of the Nazis. Valentin and his peers received their first combat mission in the fall of 1941. The guys lay down in the bushes near the Shepetovka-Slavuta highway. Hearing the noise of the engine, they froze. It was scary. But when the car with the fascist gendarmes caught up with them, Valya Kotik stood up and threw a grenade. The head of the field gendarmerie was killed.

In October 1943, a young partisan scouted the location of the underground telephone cable of Hitler's headquarters, which was soon blown up. He also participated in the bombing of six railway trains and a warehouse. On October 29, 1943, while at his post, Valya noticed that the punitive forces had staged a raid on the detachment. Having killed a fascist officer with a pistol, he raised the alarm, and thanks to his actions, the partisans managed to prepare for battle.

On February 16, 1944, in a battle for the city of Izyaslav, Khmelnitsky region, a 14-year-old partisan scout was mortally wounded and died the next day. He was buried in the center of a park in the Ukrainian city of Shepetivka. For his heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 27, 58, Kotik Valentin Aleksandrovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War,” 2nd degree. A motor ship and a number of secondary schools are named after him; there used to be pioneer squads and detachments named after Vali Kotik. In Moscow and in his hometown in 60, monuments were erected to him. There is a street named after the young hero in Yekaterinburg, Kyiv and Kaliningrad.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

Of all the young heroes, both living and dead, only Zoya was and remains known to the majority of residents of our country. Her name became a household name, just like the names of other cult Soviet heroes, such as Nikolai Gastello and Alexander Matrosov.

Both before and now, if someone in our country becomes aware of a feat that was then accomplished by a teenager or young man killed by enemies, they say about him: “like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.”

...The surname Kosmodemyansky in the Tambov province was borne by many clergy. Before the grandfather of the young heroine, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, about whom our story will go, Pyotr Ivanovich, the rector of the temple in their native village, Osiny Gai, was his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Kosmodemyansky, and before him his grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on. And Pyotr Ivanovich himself was born into the family of a priest.

Pyotr Ivanovich Kosmodemyansky died a martyr’s death, as did his granddaughter later: in the hungry and cruel year of 1918, on the night of August 26-27, communist bandits fueled by alcohol dragged the priest out of the house, in front of his wife and three younger children they beat him half to death, tying him up by the hands to the saddle, dragged through the village and thrown into ponds. Kosmodemyansky’s body was discovered in the spring, and, according to the same eyewitnesses, “it was unspoiled and had a waxy color,” which in the Orthodox tradition is an indirect sign of the spiritual purity of the deceased. He was buried in a cemetery near the Church of the Sign, in which Pyotr Ivanovich served in recent years.

After the death of Pyotr Ivanovich, the Kosmodemyanskys remained in the same place for some time. The eldest son Anatoly left his studies in Tambov and returned to the village to help his mother with the younger children. When they grew up, he married the daughter of a local clerk, Lyuba. On September 13, 1923, daughter Zoya was born, and two years later, son Alexander.

Immediately after the start of the war, Zoya signed up as a volunteer and was assigned to an intelligence school. The school was located near the Moscow Kuntsevo station.

In mid-November 1941, the school received orders to burn the villages in which the Germans were stationed. We created two divisions, each with ten people. But on November 22, near the village of Petrishchevo there were only three scouts - Kosmodemyanskaya, a certain Klubkov and the more experienced Boris Krainov.

They decided that Zoya should set fire to the houses in the southern part of the village, where the Germans were quartered; Klubkov was in the north, and the commander was in the center, where the German headquarters was located. After completing the task, everyone had to gather in the same place and only then return home. Krainov acted professionally, and his houses caught fire first, then those located in the southern part caught fire, but those in the northern part did not catch fire. Krainov waited for his comrades almost the entire next day, but they never returned. Later, after some time, Klubkov returned...

When it became known about the capture and death of Zoya, after the liberation of the village partially burned by the Soviet army by the scouts, the investigation showed that one of the group, Klubkov, turned out to be a traitor.

The transcript of his interrogation contains a detailed description of what happened to Zoya:

“When I approached the buildings that I was supposed to set on fire, I saw that sections of Kosmodemyanskaya and Krainova were on fire. Approaching the house, I broke the Molotov cocktail and threw it, but it did not catch fire. At this time, I saw two German sentries not far from me and decided to run away into the forest, located 300 meters from the village. As soon as I ran into the forest, two German soldiers pounced on me and handed me over to a German officer. He pointed a revolver at me and demanded that I reveal who had come with me to set fire to the village. I said that there were three of us in total and named the names of Krainova and Kosmodemyanskaya. The officer immediately gave some order and after some time Zoya was brought in. They asked her how she set the village on fire. Kosmodemyanskaya replied that she did not set the village on fire. After that, the officer began to beat her and demanded testimony, she remained silent, and then they stripped her naked and beat her with rubber truncheons for 2-3 hours. But Kosmodemyanskaya said one thing: “Kill me, I won’t tell you anything.” She didn't even say her name. She insisted that her name was Tanya. After which she was taken away, and I never saw her again.” Klubkov was tried and shot.

79-year-old Elena Golubeva was the first to come to the aid of the victims of the Nevsky Express crash. She gave all her blankets and clothes to the victims

Students of the Iskitim branch of the Novosibirsk Assembly College - 17-year-old Nikita Miller and 20-year-old Vlad Volkov - became real heroes of the Siberian town. Of course: the guys captured an armed robber who was trying to rob a grocery kiosk.




In Bashkiria, a first-grader saved a three-year-old child from icy water.
When Nikita Baranov from the village of Tashkinovo, Krasnokamsk region, accomplished his feat, he was only seven. Once, while playing with friends on the street, a first-grader heard a child crying coming from a trench. They installed gas in the village: the dug holes were filled with water, and three-year-old Dima fell into one of them. There were no builders or other adults nearby, so Nikita himself pulled the choking boy to the surface




Schoolchildren from the Krasnodar region Roman Vitkov and Mikhail Serdyuk saved an elderly woman from a burning house. While heading home, they saw a building on fire. Running into the yard, the schoolchildren saw that the veranda was almost completely engulfed in fire. Roman and Mikhail rushed into the barn to get a tool. Grabbing a sledgehammer and an ax, breaking out the window, Roman climbed into the window opening. An elderly woman was sleeping in a smoky room. They managed to get the victim out only after breaking the door.




And in the Chelyabinsk region, priest Alexey Peregudov saved the life of the groom at a wedding. During the wedding, the groom lost consciousness. The only one who was not at a loss in this situation was Priest Alexey Peregudov. He quickly examined the man lying down, suspected cardiac arrest and provided first aid, including chest compressions. As a result, the sacrament was successfully completed. Father Alexey noted that he had only seen chest compressions in movies.




And in the village of Ilyinka-1, Tula region, schoolchildren Andrei Ibronov, Nikita Sabitov, Andrei Navruz, Vladislav Kozyrev and Artem Voronin pulled a pensioner out of a well. 78-year-old Valentina Nikitina fell into a well and could not get out on her own. Andrei Ibronov and Nikita Sabitov heard the cries for help and immediately rushed to save the elderly woman. However, three more guys had to be called in for help - Andrei Navruz, Vladislav Kozyrev and Artem Voronin. Together the guys managed to pull an elderly pensioner out of the well.
“I tried to climb out, the well is shallow - I even reached the edge with my hand. But it was so slippery and cold that I couldn’t grab the hoop. And when I raised my arms, ice water poured into my sleeves. I screamed, called for help, but the well is located far from residential buildings and roads, so no one heard me. How long this lasted, I don’t even know... Soon I began to feel sleepy, with the last of my strength I raised my head and suddenly saw two boys looking into the well!” – said the victim.




In Mordovia, Chechen war veteran Marat Zinatullin distinguished himself by saving an elderly man from a burning apartment. Having witnessed the fire, Marat acted like a professional firefighter. He climbed up the fence onto a small barn, and from there climbed onto the balcony. He broke the glass, opened the door leading from the balcony to the room, and got inside. The 70-year-old owner of the apartment was lying on the floor. The pensioner, who was poisoned by smoke, could not leave the apartment on his own. Marat, opening the front door from the inside, carried the owner of the house into the entrance




A housing and communal services employee saved a fisherman who had fallen through the ice. It all happened a year ago - November 30, 2013. A fisherman fell through the ice on the Chernoistochinsky pond. An employee of the housing and communal services emergency service, Rais Salakhutdinov, who was also fishing on the pond and heard cries for help, came to his aid.




A man in the Moscow region saved his 11-month-old son from death by cutting the boy’s throat and inserting the base of a fountain pen there so that the choking baby could breathe. “An 11-month-old baby’s tongue sunk in and he stopped breathing. The father, realizing that seconds were counting, took a kitchen knife, made an incision in his son’s throat and inserted into it a tube he had made from a pen,”




Shielded my brother from bullets. The story took place at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In Ingushetia, it is customary for children to congratulate friends and relatives in their homes at this time. Zalina Arsanova and her younger brother were leaving the entrance when shots were heard. In a neighboring yard, an attempt was made on the life of one of the FSB officers. When the first bullet pierced the facade of the nearest house, the girl realized that it was shooting, and her younger brother was in the line of fire, and covered him with herself.
The girl with a gunshot wound was taken to Malgobek Clinical Hospital No. 1, where she underwent surgery. Surgeons had to assemble the internal organs of a 12-year-old child literally piece by piece. Fortunately, everyone survived

The names of this year's heroes that should not be forgotten

They say that there were too many tragic events in the past year, and there was almost nothing good to remember on the eve of the New Year. Constantinople decided to argue with this statement and collected a selection of our most outstanding compatriots (and not only) and their heroic deeds. Unfortunately, many of them accomplished this feat at the cost of their own lives, but the memory of them and their actions will support us for a long time and serve as an example to follow. Ten names that made a splash in 2016 and should not be forgotten.

Alexander Prokhorenko

A special forces officer, 25-year-old Lieutenant Prokhorenko, died in March near Palmyra while carrying out missions to direct Russian air strikes against ISIS militants. He was discovered by terrorists and, finding himself surrounded, did not want to surrender and drew fire on himself. He was awarded the title of Hero of Russia posthumously, and a street in Orenburg was named after him. Prokhorenko’s feat aroused admiration not only in Russia. Two French families donated awards, including the Legion of Honor.

Farewell ceremony for the hero of Russia, senior lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko, who died in Syria, in the village of Gorodki, Tyulgansky district. Sergey Medvedev/TASS

In Orenburg, where the officer is from, he left behind a young wife, who, after the death of Alexander, had to be hospitalized in order to save the life of their child. In August, her daughter Violetta was born.

Magomed Nurbagandov

A policeman from Dagestan, Magomet Nurbagandov, and his brother Abdurashid were killed in July, but the details became known only in September, when a video of the execution of police officers was found on the phone of one of the liquidated militants of the Izberbash criminal group. On that ill-fated day, the brothers and their relatives, schoolchildren, were relaxing outdoors in tents; no one expected an attack by bandits. Abdurashid was killed immediately because he stood up for one of the boys, whom the bandits began to insult. Mohammed was tortured before his death because his documents as a law enforcement officer were discovered. The purpose of the bullying was to force Nurbagandov to renounce his colleagues on record, recognize the strength of the militants and call on Dagestanis to leave the police. In response to this, Nurbagandov addressed his colleagues with the words “Work, brothers!” The enraged militants could only kill him. President Vladimir Putin met with the brothers’ parents, thanked them for their son’s courage and awarded him the title of Hero of Russia posthumously. The last phrase of Mohammed became the main slogan of the past year and, one might assume, for the years to come. Two small children were left without a father. Nurbagandov's son now says that he will only become a policeman.

Elizaveta Glinka

Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS

The resuscitator and philanthropist, popularly known as Doctor Lisa, accomplished a lot this year. In May, she took children out of Donbass. 22 sick children were saved, the youngest of whom was only 5 days old. These were children with heart defects, oncology, and congenital diseases. Special treatment and support programs have been created for children from Donbass and Syria. In Syria, Elizaveta Glinka also helped sick children and organized the delivery of medicines and humanitarian aid to hospitals. During the delivery of another humanitarian cargo, Doctor Lisa died in a TU-154 plane crash over the Black Sea. Despite the tragedy, all programs will continue. Today there will be a New Year's party for the guys from Lugansk and Donetsk...

Oleg Fedura

Head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Primorsky Territory, Colonel of the Internal Service Oleg Fedura. Press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Primorsky Territory/TASS

Head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Primorsky Territory, who distinguished himself during natural disasters in the region. The rescuer personally visited all the flooded cities and villages, led search and rescue operations, helped evacuate people, and he himself did not sit idly by - he has hundreds of similar events on his account. On September 2, together with his brigade, he was heading to another village, where 400 houses were flooded and more than 1,000 people were waiting for help. Crossing the river, the KAMAZ, in which Fedura and 8 other people were, collapsed into the water. Oleg Fedura saved all the personnel, but then could not get out of the flooded car and died.

Lyubov Pechko

The entire Russian world learned the name of the 91-year-old female veteran from the news on May 9. During the festive procession in honor of Victory Day in Slavyansk, occupied by the Ukrainians, the column of veterans was pelted with eggs, doused with brilliant green and sprinkled with flour by the Ukrainian Nazis, but the spirit of the old soldiers could not be broken, no one fell out of action. The Nazis shouted insults; in occupied Slavyansk, where any Russian and Soviet symbols are prohibited, the situation was extremely explosive and could at any moment turn into a massacre. However, the veterans, despite the threat to their lives, were not afraid to openly wear medals and St. George ribbons; after all, they did not go through the war with the Nazis in order to be afraid of their ideological followers. Lyubov Pechko, who took part in the liberation of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War, was splashed with brilliant green directly in the face. Photos showing traces of brilliant green being wiped off Lyubov Pechko’s face have spread across social networks and the media. The sister of an elderly woman, who saw the abuse of veterans on TV and suffered a heart attack, died from the resulting shock.

Danil Maksudov

In January of this year, during a severe snowstorm, a dangerous traffic jam formed on the Orenburg-Orsk highway, in which hundreds of people were trapped. Ordinary employees of various services showed heroism, leading people out of icy captivity, sometimes putting their own lives at risk. Russia remembers the name of policeman Danil Maksudov, who was hospitalized with severe frostbite because he gave his jacket, hat and gloves to those who needed it most. After that, Danil spent several more hours in the snowstorm helping to get people out of the jam. Then Maksudov himself ended up in the emergency traumatology department with frostbitten hands; there was talk of amputating his fingers. However, in the end the policeman recovered.

Konstantin Parikozha

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Orenburg Airlines Boeing 777-200 crew commander Konstantin Parikozha, awarded the Order of Courage, during the state awards ceremony in the Kremlin. Mikhail Metzel/TASS

A native of Tomsk, the 38-year-old pilot managed to land a plane with a burning engine, which was carrying 350 passengers, including many families with children and 20 crew members. The plane was flying from the Dominican Republic, at an altitude of 6 thousand meters a bang was heard and the cabin was filled with smoke, panic began. During landing, the plane's landing gear also caught fire. However, thanks to the skill of the pilot, the Boeing 777 was successfully landed and none of the passengers were injured. Parikozha received the Order of Courage from the hands of the President.

Andrey Logvinov

The 44-year-old commander of the Il-18 crew that crashed in Yakutia managed to land the plane without wings. They tried to land the plane until the last minute and in the end they managed to avoid casualties, although both wings of the plane broke off when it hit the ground and the fuselage collapsed. The pilots themselves received multiple fractures, but despite this, according to rescuers, they refused help and asked to be the last to be evacuated to the hospital. “He managed the impossible,” they said about Andrei Logvinov’s skill.

Georgy Gladysh

On a February morning, the rector of the Orthodox church in Krivoy Rog, Priest Georgy, as usual, was riding home from service on a bicycle. Suddenly he heard cries for help from a nearby body of water. It turned out that the fisherman had fallen through the ice. The priest ran to the water, threw off his clothes and, making the sign of the cross, rushed to help. The noise attracted the attention of local residents, who called an ambulance and helped pull the already unconscious retired fisherman out of the water. The priest himself refused honors: " It wasn't me who saved. God decided this for me. If I had been driving a car instead of a bicycle, I simply would not have heard the cries for help. If I started to think about whether to help the person or not, I wouldn’t have time. If the people on the shore had not thrown us a rope, we would have drowned together. And so everything happened by itself"After the feat, he went on to perform church services.

Yulia Kolosova

Russia. Moscow. December 2, 2016. Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of the Russian Federation Anna Kuznetsova (left) and Yulia Kolosova, winner in the "Children-Heroes" nomination, at the awards ceremony for the winners of the VIII All-Russian festival on the theme of safety and rescue of people "Constellation of Courage". Mikhail Pochuev/TASS

The Valdai schoolgirl, despite the fact that she was only 12 years old, was not afraid to enter a burning private house after hearing the screams of children. Julia took two boys out of the house, and already on the street they told her that their other little brother remained inside. The girl returned to the house and carried a 7-year-old baby in her arms, who was crying and afraid to go down the stairs shrouded in smoke. As a result, none of the children were harmed. " It seems to me that in my place any teenager would do this, but not every adult, because adults are much more indifferent than children", says the girl. Concerned residents of Staraya Russa collected money and gave the girl a computer and a souvenir - a mug with her photo. The schoolgirl herself admits that she did not help for the sake of gifts and praise, but she, of course, was pleased, because she is from a low-income family - Yulia’s mother is a saleswoman, and her father works at a factory.

The war demanded from the people the greatest effort and enormous sacrifices on a national scale, revealing the fortitude and courage of the Soviet people, the ability to sacrifice themselves in the name of freedom and independence of the Motherland. During the war years, heroism became widespread and became the norm of behavior of Soviet people. Thousands of soldiers and officers immortalized their names during the defense of the Brest Fortress, Odessa, Sevastopol, Kiev, Leningrad, Novorossiysk, in the battle of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, in the North Caucasus, the Dnieper, in the foothills of the Carpathians, during the storming of Berlin and in other battles.

For heroic deeds in the Great Patriotic War, over 11 thousand people were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (some posthumously), of which 104 were awarded twice, three three times (G.K. Zhukov, I.N. Kozhedub and A.I. Pokryshkin ). The first to receive this title during the war were Soviet pilots M.P. Zhukov, S.I. Zdorovtsev and P.T. Kharitonov, who rammed fascist planes on the outskirts of Leningrad.

In total, over eight thousand heroes were trained in the ground forces during wartime, including 1,800 artillerymen, 1,142 tank crews, 650 engineering troops, over 290 signalmen, 93 air defense soldiers, 52 military logistics soldiers, 44 doctors; in the Air Force - over 2,400 people; in the Navy - over 500 people; partisans, underground fighters and Soviet intelligence officers - about 400; border guards - over 150 people.

Among the military personnel awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, privates, sergeants, foremen - over 35%, officers - about 60%, generals, admirals, marshals - over 380 people. There are 87 women among the wartime Heroes of the Soviet Union. The first to receive this title was Z. A. Kosmodemyanskaya (posthumously).

About 35% of Heroes of the Soviet Union at the time of awarding the title were under 30 years of age, 28% were between 30 and 40 years old, 9% were over 40 years old.

Four Heroes of the Soviet Union: artilleryman A.V. Aleshin, pilot I.G. Drachenko, rifle platoon commander P.Kh. Dubinda, artilleryman N.I. Kuznetsov - were also awarded Orders of Glory of all three degrees for their military exploits. Over 2,500 people, including 4 women, became full holders of the Order of Glory of three degrees. During the war, over 38 million orders and medals were awarded to the defenders of the Motherland for courage and heroism. The Motherland highly appreciated the labor feat of the Soviet people in the rear. During the war years, 201 people were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, about 200 thousand were awarded orders and medals.

Viktor Vasilievich Talalikhin

Born on September 18, 1918 in the village. Teplovka, Volsky district, Saratov region. Russian. After graduating from the factory school, he worked at the Moscow meat processing plant and at the same time studied at the flying club. Graduated from the Borisoglebok Military Aviation School for Pilots. He took part in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939–1940. He made 47 combat missions, shot down 4 Finnish aircraft, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Star (1940).

In the battles of the Great Patriotic War from June 1941. Made more than 60 combat missions. In the summer and autumn of 1941, he fought near Moscow. For military distinctions he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (1941) and the Order of Lenin.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal was awarded to Viktor Vasilyevich Talalikhin by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 8, 1941 for the first night ramming of an enemy bomber in the history of aviation.

Soon Talalikhin was appointed squadron commander and was awarded the rank of lieutenant. The glorious pilot took part in many air battles near Moscow, shooting down five more enemy aircraft personally and one in a group. He died a heroic death in an unequal battle with fascist fighters on October 27, 1941.

V.V. was buried Talalikhin with military honors at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. By order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR dated August 30, 1948, he was forever included in the lists of the first squadron of the fighter aviation regiment, with which he fought the enemy near Moscow.

Streets in Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Borisoglebsk in the Voronezh region and other cities, a sea vessel, State Pedagogical Technical University No. 100 in Moscow, and a number of schools were named after Talalikhin. An obelisk was erected at the 43rd kilometer of the Warsaw Highway, over which the unprecedented night fight took place. A monument was erected in Podolsk, and a bust of the Hero was erected in Moscow.

Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub

(1920–1991), Air Marshal (1985), Hero of the Soviet Union (1944 – twice; 1945). During the Great Patriotic War in fighter aviation, squadron commander, deputy regiment commander, conducted 120 air battles; shot down 62 planes.

Three times Hero of the Soviet Union, Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub, flying the La-7, shot down 17 enemy aircraft (including the Me-262 jet fighter) out of the 62 he shot down during the war on La brand fighters. Kozhedub fought one of the most memorable battles on February 19, 1945 (sometimes the date is given as February 24).

On this day, he went on a free hunt together with Dmitry Titarenko. On the Oder traverse, the pilots noticed a plane quickly approaching from the direction of Frankfurt an der Oder. The plane flew along the river bed at an altitude of 3500 m at a speed much greater than the La-7 could reach. It was Me-262. Kozhedub instantly made a decision. The Me-262 pilot relied on the speed qualities of his machine and did not control the airspace in the rear hemisphere and below. Kozhedub attacked from below on a head-on course, hoping to hit the jet in the belly. However, Titarenko opened fire before Kozhedub. Much to Kozhedub’s surprise, the wingman’s premature shooting was beneficial.

The German turned to the left, towards Kozhedub, the latter could only catch the Messerschmitt in his sights and press the trigger. Me-262 turned into a fireball. In the cockpit of the Me 262 was non-commissioned officer Kurt-Lange from 1./KG(J)-54.

On the evening of April 17, 1945, Kozhedub and Titarenko carried out their fourth combat mission of the day to the Berlin area. Immediately after crossing the front line north of Berlin, the hunters discovered a large group of FW-190s with suspended bombs. Kozhedub began to gain altitude for the attack and reported to the command post that contact had been made with a group of forty Focke-Wolwofs with suspended bombs. The German pilots clearly saw a pair of Soviet fighters go into the clouds and did not imagine that they would appear again. However, the hunters appeared.

From behind, from above, Kozhedub in the first attack shot down the leading four Fokkers at the back of the group. The hunters sought to give the enemy the impression that there were a significant number of Soviet fighters in the air. Kozhedub threw his La-7 right into the thick of the enemy planes, turning Lavochkin left and right, the ace fired in short bursts from his cannons. The Germans succumbed to the trick - the Focke-Wulfs began to free them from bombs that were interfering with air combat. However, the Luftwaffe pilots soon established the presence of only two La-7s in the air and, taking advantage of the numerical advantage, took advantage of the guardsmen. One FW-190 managed to get behind Kozhedub’s fighter, but Titarenko opened fire before the German pilot - the Focke-Wulf exploded in the air.

By this time, help arrived - the La-7 group from the 176th regiment, Titarenko and Kozhedub were able to leave the battle with the last remaining fuel. On the way back, Kozhedub saw a single FW-190 trying to drop bombs on Soviet troops. The ace dived and shot down an enemy plane. This was the last, 62nd, German plane shot down by the best Allied fighter pilot.

Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub also distinguished himself in the Battle of Kursk.

Kozhedub's total account does not include at least two aircraft - American P-51 Mustang fighters. In one of the battles in April, Kozhedub tried to drive away German fighters from the American “Flying Fortress” with cannon fire. The US Air Force escort fighters misunderstood the La-7 pilot's intentions and opened barrage fire from a long distance. Kozhedub, apparently, also mistook the Mustangs for Messers, escaped from under fire in a coup and, in turn, attacked the “enemy.”

He damaged one Mustang (the plane, smoking, left the battle and, having flown a little, fell, the pilot jumped out with a parachute), the second P-51 exploded in the air. Only after the successful attack did Kozhedub notice the white stars of the US Air Force on the wings and fuselages of the planes he had shot down. After landing, the regiment commander, Colonel Chupikov, advised Kozhedub to keep quiet about the incident and gave him the developed film of the photographic machine gun. The existence of a film with footage of burning Mustangs became known only after the death of the legendary pilot. A detailed biography of the hero on the website: www.warheroes.ru "Unknown Heroes"

Alexey Petrovich Maresyev

Maresyev Alexey Petrovich fighter pilot, deputy squadron commander of the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, guard senior lieutenant.

Born on May 20, 1916 in the city of Kamyshin, Volgograd Region, into a working-class family. Russian. At the age of three he was left without a father, who died shortly after returning from the First World War. After graduating from the 8th grade of high school, Alexey entered the federal educational institution, where he received a specialty as a mechanic. Then he applied to the Moscow Aviation Institute, but instead of the institute, he went on a Komsomol voucher to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur. There he sawed wood in the taiga, built barracks, and then the first residential areas. At the same time he studied at the flying club. He was drafted into the Soviet army in 1937. Served in the 12th aviation border detachment. But, according to Maresyev himself, he did not fly, but “took up the tails” of the planes. He really took to the air already at the Bataysk Military Aviation School of Pilots, from which he graduated in 1940. He served as a pilot instructor there.

He made his first combat mission on August 23, 1941 in the Krivoy Rog area. Lieutenant Maresyev opened his combat account at the beginning of 1942 - he shot down a Ju-52. By the end of March 1942, he brought the count of downed fascist planes to four. On April 4, in an air battle over the Demyansk bridgehead (Novgorod region), Maresyev’s fighter was shot down. He attempted to land on the ice of a frozen lake, but released his landing gear early. The plane began to quickly lose altitude and fell into the forest.

Maresyev crawled to his side. His feet were frostbitten and they had to be amputated. However, the pilot decided not to give up. When he received prosthetics, he trained long and hard and got permission to return to duty. I learned to fly again in the 11th reserve air brigade in Ivanovo.

In June 1943, Maresyev returned to duty. He fought on the Kursk Bulge as part of the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment and was deputy squadron commander. In August 1943, during one battle, Alexey Maresyev shot down three enemy FW-190 fighters at once.

On August 24, 1943, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Guard Senior Lieutenant Maresyev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Later he fought in the Baltic states and became a regiment navigator. In 1944 he joined the CPSU. In total, he made 86 combat missions, shot down 11 enemy aircraft: 4 before being wounded and seven with amputated legs. In June 1944, Guard Major Maresyev became an inspector-pilot of the Air Force Higher Educational Institutions Directorate. Boris Polevoy's book "The Tale of a Real Man" is dedicated to the legendary fate of Alexei Petrovich Maresyev.

In July 1946, Maresyev was honorably discharged from the Air Force. In 1952, he graduated from the Higher Party School under the CPSU Central Committee, in 1956 he completed graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee, and received the title of Candidate of Historical Sciences. In the same year, he became the executive secretary of the Soviet War Veterans Committee, and in 1983, first deputy chairman of the committee. He worked in this position until the last day of his life.

Retired Colonel A.P. Maresyev was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Red Banner, the Patriotic War, 1st degree, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of People's Friendship, the Red Star, the Badge of Honor, "For Services to the Fatherland" 3rd degree, medals, and foreign orders. He was an honorary soldier of a military unit, an honorary citizen of the cities of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Kamyshin, and Orel. A minor planet of the solar system, a public foundation, and youth patriotic clubs are named after him. He was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Author of the book "On the Kursk Bulge" (M., 1960).

Even during the war, Boris Polevoy’s book “The Tale of a Real Man” was published, the prototype of which was Maresyev (the author changed only one letter in his last name). In 1948, based on the book at Mosfilm, director Alexander Stolper made a film of the same name. Maresyev was even offered to play the main role himself, but he refused and this role was played by professional actor Pavel Kadochnikov.

Died suddenly on May 18, 2001. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. On May 18, 2001, a gala evening was planned at the Russian Army Theater to mark Maresyev’s 85th birthday, but an hour before the start, Alexei Petrovich suffered a heart attack. He was taken to the intensive care unit of one of the Moscow clinics, where he died without regaining consciousness. The gala evening still took place, but it began with a minute of silence.

Krasnoperov Sergey Leonidovich

Krasnoperov Sergei Leonidovich was born on July 23, 1923 in the village of Pokrovka, Chernushinsky district. In May 1941, he volunteered to join the Soviet Army. I studied at the Balashov Aviation Pilot School for a year. In November 1942, attack pilot Sergei Krasnoperov arrived at the 765th attack air regiment, and in January 1943 he was appointed deputy squadron commander of the 502nd attack air regiment of the 214th attack air division of the North Caucasus Front. In this regiment in June 1943 he joined the ranks of the party. For military distinctions he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Red Star, and the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded on February 4, 1944. Killed in action on June 24, 1944. "March 14, 1943. Attack pilot Sergei Krasnoperov makes two sorties one after another to attack the port of Temrkzh. Leading six "silts", he set fire to a boat at the pier of the port. On the second flight, an enemy shell hit the engine. A bright flame for a moment, like it seemed to Krasnoperov, the sun eclipsed and immediately disappeared in thick black smoke. Krasnoperov turned off the ignition, turned off the gas and tried to fly the plane to the front line. However, after a few minutes it became clear that it would not be possible to save the plane. And under the wing there was a complete swamp. There was only one way out. : to land. As soon as the burning car touched the marsh hummocks with its fuselage, barely had the pilot time to jump out of it and run slightly to the side, an explosion roared.

A few days later, Krasnoperov was again in the air, and in the combat log of the flight commander of the 502nd assault aviation regiment, junior lieutenant Sergei Leonidovich Krasnoperov, a short entry appeared: “03.23.43.” In two sorties he destroyed a convoy in the area of ​​the station. Crimean. Destroyed 1 vehicles, created 2 fires." On April 4, Krasnoperov stormed manpower and firepower in the area of ​​204.3 meters. In the next flight, he stormed artillery and firing points in the area of ​​Krymskaya station. At the same time, he destroyed two tanks and one gun and a mortar.

One day, a junior lieutenant received an assignment for a free flight in pairs. He was the leader. Secretly, in a low-level flight, a pair of “silts” penetrated deep into the enemy’s rear. They noticed cars on the road and attacked them. They discovered a concentration of troops - and suddenly brought down destructive fire on the heads of the Nazis. The Germans unloaded ammunition and weapons from a self-propelled barge. Combat approach - the barge flew into the air. The regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Smirnov, wrote about Sergei Krasnoperov: “Such heroic deeds of Comrade Krasnoperov are repeated in every combat mission. The pilots of his flight became masters of assault. The flight is united and occupies a leading position. The command always entrusts him with the most difficult and responsible tasks. With his heroic exploits, he created military glory for himself and enjoys well-deserved military authority among the regiment’s personnel.” Indeed. Sergei was only 19 years old, and for his exploits he had already been awarded the Order of the Red Star. He was only 20, and his chest was decorated with the Golden Star of the Hero.

Sergei Krasnoperov made seventy-four combat missions during the days of fighting on the Taman Peninsula. As one of the best, he was trusted to lead groups of “silts” on assault 20 times, and he always carried out a combat mission. He personally destroyed 6 tanks, 70 vehicles, 35 carts with cargo, 10 guns, 3 mortars, 5 anti-aircraft artillery points, 7 machine guns, 3 tractors, 5 bunkers, an ammunition depot, sunk a boat, a self-propelled barge, and destroyed two crossings across the Kuban.

Matrosov Alexander Matveevich

Sailors Alexander Matveevich - rifleman of the 2nd battalion of the 91st separate rifle brigade (22nd Army, Kalinin Front), private. Born on February 5, 1924 in the city of Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk). Russian. Member of the Komsomol. Lost his parents early. He was raised for 5 years in the Ivanovo orphanage (Ulyanovsk region). Then he was brought up in the Ufa children's labor colony. After finishing 7th grade, he remained to work in the colony as an assistant teacher. In the Red Army since September 1942. In October 1942 he entered the Krasnokholmsky Infantry School, but soon most of the cadets were sent to the Kalinin Front.

In the active army since November 1942. He served in the 2nd battalion of the 91st separate rifle brigade. For some time the brigade was in reserve. Then she was transferred near Pskov to the area of ​​Bolshoi Lomovatoy Bor. Straight from the march, the brigade entered the battle.

On February 27, 1943, the 2nd battalion received the task of attacking a strong point in the area of ​​the village of Chernushki (Loknyansky district of the Pskov region). As soon as our soldiers passed through the forest and reached the edge, they came under heavy enemy machine-gun fire - three enemy machine guns in bunkers covered the approaches to the village. One machine gun was suppressed by an assault group of machine gunners and armor-piercers. The second bunker was destroyed by another group of armor-piercing soldiers. But the machine gun from the third bunker continued to fire at the entire ravine in front of the village. Attempts to silence him were unsuccessful. Then Private A.M. Sailors crawled towards the bunker. He approached the embrasure from the flank and threw two grenades. The machine gun fell silent. But as soon as the fighters went on the attack, the machine gun came to life again. Then Matrosov stood up, rushed to the bunker and closed the embrasure with his body. At the cost of his life, he contributed to the accomplishment of the unit’s combat mission.

A few days later, the name of Matrosov became known throughout the country. Matrosov’s feat was used by a journalist who happened to be with the unit for a patriotic article. At the same time, the regiment commander learned about the feat from the newspapers. Moreover, the date of the hero’s death was moved to February 23, timing the feat to coincide with Soviet Army Day. Despite the fact that Matrosov was not the first to commit such an act of self-sacrifice, it was his name that was used to glorify the heroism of Soviet soldiers. Subsequently, over 300 people accomplished the same feat, but this was no longer widely publicized. His feat became a symbol of courage and military valor, fearlessness and love for the Motherland.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was posthumously awarded to Alexander Matveevich Matrosov on June 19, 1943. He was buried in the city of Velikiye Luki. On September 8, 1943, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, the name of Matrosov was assigned to the 254th Guards Rifle Regiment, and he himself was forever included (one of the first in the Soviet Army) in the lists of the 1st company of this unit. Monuments to the Hero were erected in Ufa, Velikiye Luki, Ulyanovsk, etc. The museum of Komsomol glory of the city of Velikiye Luki, streets, schools, pioneer squads, motor ships, collective farms and state farms were named after him.

Ivan Vasilievich Panfilov

In the battles near Volokolamsk, the 316th Infantry Division of General I.V. especially distinguished itself. Panfilova. Reflecting continuous enemy attacks for 6 days, they knocked out 80 tanks and killed several hundred soldiers and officers. The enemy's attempts to capture the Volokolamsk region and open the way to Moscow from the west failed. For heroic actions, this formation was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and transformed into the 8th Guards, and its commander, General I.V. Panfilov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He was not lucky enough to witness the complete defeat of the enemy near Moscow: on November 18, near the village of Gusenevo, he died a brave death.

Ivan Vasilyevich Panfilov, Guard Major General, commander of the 8th Guards Rifle Red Banner (formerly 316th) Division, was born on January 1, 1893 in the city of Petrovsk, Saratov Region. Russian. Member of the CPSU since 1920. From the age of 12 he worked for hire, and in 1915 he was drafted into the tsarist army. In the same year he was sent to the Russian-German front. He joined the Red Army voluntarily in 1918. He was enlisted in the 1st Saratov Infantry Regiment of the 25th Chapaev Division. He took part in the civil war, fought against Dutov, Kolchak, Denikin and the White Poles. After the war, he graduated from the two-year Kyiv United Infantry School and was assigned to the Central Asian Military District. He took part in the fight against the Basmachi.

The Great Patriotic War found Major General Panfilov at the post of military commissar of the Kyrgyz Republic. Having formed the 316th Infantry Division, he went to the front with it and fought near Moscow in October - November 1941. For military distinctions he was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner (1921, 1929) and the medal "XX Years of the Red Army".

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded posthumously to Ivan Vasilyevich Panfilov on April 12, 1942 for his skillful leadership of division units in battles on the outskirts of Moscow and his personal courage and heroism.

In the first half of October 1941, the 316th Division arrived as part of the 16th Army and took up defense on a wide front on the outskirts of Volokolamsk. General Panfilov was the first to widely use a system of deeply layered artillery anti-tank defense, created and skillfully used mobile barrage detachments in battle. Thanks to this, the resilience of our troops increased significantly, and all attempts of the 5th German Army Corps to break through the defenses were unsuccessful. For seven days, the division, together with the cadet regiment S.I. Mladentseva and dedicated anti-tank artillery units successfully repelled enemy attacks.

Attaching great importance to the capture of Volokolamsk, the Nazi command sent another motorized corps to this area. Only under pressure from superior enemy forces were units of the division forced to leave Volokolamsk at the end of October and take up defense east of the city.

On November 16, fascist troops launched a second “general” attack on Moscow. A fierce battle began again near Volokolamsk. On this day, at the Dubosekovo crossing, there were 28 Panfilov soldiers under the command of political instructor V.G. Klochkov repelled the attack of enemy tanks and held the occupied line. Enemy tanks were also unable to penetrate in the direction of the villages of Mykanino and Strokovo. General Panfilov's division firmly held its positions, its soldiers fought to the death.

For the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command and the massive heroism of its personnel, the 316th Division was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on November 17, 1941, and the next day it was reorganized into the 8th Guards Rifle Division.

Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello

Nikolai Frantsevich was born on May 6, 1908 in Moscow, into a working-class family. Graduated from 5th grade. He worked as a mechanic at the Murom Steam Locomotive Construction Machinery Plant. In the Soviet Army in May 1932. In 1933 he graduated from the Lugansk military pilot school in bomber units. In 1939 he took part in the battles on the river. Khalkhin - Gol and the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. In the active army since June 1941, the squadron commander of the 207th Long-Range Bomber Aviation Regiment (42nd Bomber Aviation Division, 3rd Bomber Aviation Corps DBA), Captain Gastello, carried out another mission flight on June 26, 1941. His bomber was hit and caught fire. He flew the burning plane into a concentration of enemy troops. The enemy suffered heavy losses from the explosion of the bomber. For the accomplished feat, on July 26, 1941, he was posthumously awarded the Title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Gastello's name is forever included in the lists of military units. At the site of the feat on the Minsk-Vilnius highway, a memorial monument was erected in Moscow.

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya (“Tanya”)

Zoya Anatolyevna ["Tanya" (09/13/1923 - 11/29/1941)] - Soviet partisan, Hero of the Soviet Union was born in Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region in the family of an employee. In 1930 the family moved to Moscow. She graduated from the 9th grade of school No. 201. In October 1941, Komsomol member Kosmodemyanskaya voluntarily joined a special partisan detachment, acting on instructions from the headquarters of the Western Front in the Mozhaisk direction.

Twice she was sent behind enemy lines. At the end of November 1941, while performing a second combat mission near the village of Petrishchevo (Russian district of the Moscow region), she was captured by the Nazis. Despite cruel torture, she did not reveal military secrets and did not give her name.

On November 29, she was hanged by the Nazis. Her devotion to the Motherland, courage and dedication became an inspiring example in the fight against the enemy. On February 6, 1942, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Manshuk Zhiengalievna Mametova

Manshuk Mametova was born in 1922 in the Urdinsky district of the West Kazakhstan region. Manshuk’s parents died early, and the five-year-old girl was adopted by her aunt Amina Mametova. Manshuk spent her childhood in Almaty.

When the Great Patriotic War began, Manshuk was studying at a medical institute and at the same time working in the secretariat of the Council of People's Commissars of the Republic. In August 1942, she voluntarily joined the Red Army and went to the front. In the unit where Manshuk arrived, she was left as a clerk at the headquarters. But the young patriot decided to become a front-line fighter, and a month later Senior Sergeant Mametova was transferred to the rifle battalion of the 21st Guards Rifle Division.

Her life was short, but bright, like a flashing star. Manshuk died in battle for the honor and freedom of her native country when she was twenty-one and had just joined the party. The short military journey of the glorious daughter of the Kazakh people ended with an immortal feat she performed near the walls of the ancient Russian city of Nevel.

On October 16, 1943, the battalion in which Manshuk Mametova served received an order to repel an enemy counterattack. As soon as the Nazis tried to repel the attack, Senior Sergeant Mametova’s machine gun started working. The Nazis rolled back, leaving hundreds of corpses. Several fierce attacks of the Nazis had already been drowned out at the foot of the hill. Suddenly the girl noticed that two neighboring machine guns had fallen silent - the machine gunners had been killed. Then Manshuk, quickly crawling from one firing point to another, began to fire at the advancing enemies from three machine guns.

The enemy transferred mortar fire to the position of the resourceful girl. A nearby explosion of a heavy mine knocked over the machine gun behind which Manshuk lay. Wounded in the head, the machine gunner lost consciousness for some time, but the triumphant cries of the approaching Nazis forced her to wake up. Instantly moving to a nearby machine gun, Manshuk lashed out with a shower of lead at the chains of the fascist warriors. And again the enemy’s attack failed. This ensured the successful advancement of our units, but the girl from distant Urda remained lying on the hillside. Her fingers froze on the Maxima trigger.

On March 1, 1944, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, senior sergeant Manshuk Zhiengalievna Mametova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Aliya Moldagulova

Aliya Moldagulova was born on April 20, 1924 in the village of Bulak, Khobdinsky district, Aktobe region. After the death of her parents, she was raised by her uncle Aubakir Moldagulov. I moved with his family from city to city. She studied at the 9th secondary school in Leningrad. In the fall of 1942, Aliya Moldagulova joined the army and was sent to sniper school. In May 1943, Aliya submitted a report to the school command with a request to send her to the front. Aliya ended up in the 3rd company of the 4th battalion of the 54th Rifle Brigade under the command of Major Moiseev.

By the beginning of October, Aliya Moldagulova had 32 killed fascists.

In December 1943, Moiseev’s battalion received an order to drive the enemy out of the village of Kazachikha. By capturing this settlement, the Soviet command hoped to cut the railway line along which the Nazis were transporting reinforcements. The Nazis resisted fiercely, skillfully taking advantage of the terrain. The slightest advance of our companies came at a high price, and yet slowly but steadily our fighters approached the enemy’s fortifications. Suddenly a lone figure appeared ahead of the advancing chains.

Suddenly a lone figure appeared ahead of the advancing chains. The Nazis noticed the brave warrior and opened fire with machine guns. Seizing the moment when the fire weakened, the fighter rose to his full height and carried the entire battalion with him.

After a fierce battle, our fighters took possession of the heights. The daredevil lingered in the trench for some time. Traces of pain appeared on his pale face, and strands of black hair came out from under his earflap hat. It was Aliya Moldagulova. She destroyed 10 fascists in this battle. The wound turned out to be minor, and the girl remained in service.

In an effort to restore the situation, the enemy launched counterattacks. On January 14, 1944, a group of enemy soldiers managed to break into our trenches. Hand-to-hand combat ensued. Aliya mowed down the fascists with well-aimed bursts from her machine gun. Suddenly she instinctively felt danger behind her. She turned sharply, but it was too late: the German officer fired first. Gathering her last strength, Aliya raised her machine gun and the Nazi officer fell to the cold ground...

The wounded Aliya was carried out by her comrades from the battlefield. The fighters wanted to believe in a miracle, and vying with each other to save the girl, they offered blood. But the wound was fatal.

On June 4, 1944, Corporal Aliya Moldagulova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Sevastyanov Alexey Tikhonovich

Aleksey Tikhonovich Sevastyanov, flight commander of the 26th Fighter Aviation Regiment (7th Fighter Aviation Corps, Leningrad Air Defense Zone), junior lieutenant. Born on February 16, 1917 in the village of Kholm, now Likhoslavl district, Tver (Kalinin) region. Russian. Graduated from the Kalinin Freight Car Building College. In the Red Army since 1936. In 1939 he graduated from the Kachin Military Aviation School.

Participant of the Great Patriotic War since June 1941. In total, during the war years, junior lieutenant Sevastyanov A.T. made more than 100 combat missions, shot down 2 enemy aircraft personally (one of them with a ram), 2 in a group and an observation balloon.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded posthumously to Alexei Tikhonovich Sevastyanov on June 6, 1942.

On November 4, 1941, junior lieutenant Sevastyanov was on patrol on the outskirts of Leningrad in an Il-153 aircraft. At about 10 p.m., an enemy air raid on the city began. Despite anti-aircraft fire, one He-111 bomber managed to break through to Leningrad. Sevastyanov attacked the enemy, but missed. He went on the attack a second time and opened fire at close range, but again missed. Sevastyanov attacked for the third time. Having come close, he pressed the trigger, but no shots were fired - the cartridges had run out. In order not to miss the enemy, he decided to ram. Approaching the Heinkel from behind, he cut off its tail unit with a propeller. Then he left the damaged fighter and landed by parachute. The bomber crashed near the Tauride Garden. The crew members who parachuted out were taken prisoner. Sevastyanov’s fallen fighter was found in Baskov Lane and restored by specialists from the 1st repair base.

April 23, 1942 Sevastyanov A.T. died in an unequal air battle, defending the “Road of Life” through Ladoga (shot down 2.5 km from the village of Rakhya, Vsevolozhsk region; a monument was erected in this place). He was buried in Leningrad at the Chesme Cemetery. Enlisted forever in the lists of the military unit. A street in St. Petersburg and a House of Culture in the village of Pervitino, Likhoslavl district, are named after him. The documentary "Heroes Don't Die" is dedicated to his feat.

Matveev Vladimir Ivanovich

Matveev Vladimir Ivanovich Squadron commander of the 154th Fighter Aviation Regiment (39th Fighter Aviation Division, Northern Front) - captain. Born on October 27, 1911 in St. Petersburg in a working-class family. Russian Member of the CPSU(b) since 1938. Graduated from 5th grade. He worked as a mechanic at the Red October factory. In the Red Army since 1930. In 1931 he graduated from the Leningrad Military Theoretical School of Pilots, and in 1933 from the Borisoglebsk Military Aviation School of Pilots. Participant in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939–1940.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War at the front. Captain Matveev V.I. On July 8, 1941, when repelling an enemy air raid on Leningrad, having used up all the ammunition, he used a ram: with the end of the plane of his MiG-3 he cut off the tail of the fascist aircraft. An enemy plane crashed near the village of Malyutino. He landed safely at his airfield. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal was awarded to Vladimir Ivanovich Matveev on July 22, 1941.

He died in an air battle on January 1, 1942, covering the “Road of Life” along Ladoga. He was buried in Leningrad.

Polyakov Sergey Nikolaevich

Sergei Polyakov was born in 1908 in Moscow, into a working-class family. He graduated from 7 classes of junior high school. Since 1930 in the Red Army, he graduated from the military aviation school. Participant in the Spanish Civil War 1936 – 1939. In air battles he shot down 5 Franco planes. Participant of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War from the first day. The commander of the 174th Assault Aviation Regiment, Major S.N. Polyakov, made 42 combat missions, delivering precision strikes on enemy airfields, equipment and manpower, destroying 42 and damaging 35 aircraft.

On December 23, 1941, he died while performing another combat mission. On February 10, 1943, for the courage and courage shown in battles with enemies, Sergei Nikolaevich Polyakov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). During his service, he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner (twice), the Red Star, and medals. He was buried in the village of Agalatovo, Vsevolozhsk district, Leningrad region.

Muravitsky Luka Zakharovich

Luka Muravitsky was born on December 31, 1916 in the village of Dolgoe, now Soligorsk district of the Minsk region, into a peasant family. He graduated from 6 classes and the FZU school. Worked on the Moscow metro. Graduated from the Aeroclub. In the Soviet Army since 1937. Graduated from the Borisoglebsk military pilot school in 1939.B.ZYu

Participant of the Great Patriotic War since July 1941. Junior Lieutenant Muravitsky began his combat activities as part of the 29th IAP of the Moscow Military District. This regiment met the war on outdated I-153 fighters. Quite maneuverable, they were inferior to enemy aircraft in speed and firepower. Analyzing the first air battles, the pilots came to the conclusion that they needed to abandon the pattern of straightforward attacks, and fight on turns, in a dive, on a “slide” when their “Seagull” gained additional speed. At the same time, it was decided to switch to flights in “twos”, abandoning the officially established flight of three aircraft.

The very first flights of the twos showed their clear advantage. So, at the end of July, Alexander Popov, together with Luka Muravitsky, returning from escorting the bombers, met with six “Messers”. Our pilots were the first to rush into the attack and shot down the leader of the enemy group. Stunned by the sudden blow, the Nazis hastened to get away.

On each of his planes, Luka Muravitsky painted the inscription “For Anya” on the fuselage with white paint. At first the pilots laughed at him, and the authorities ordered the inscription to be erased. But before each new flight, “For Anya” appeared again on the starboard side of the plane’s fuselage... No one knew who Anya was, whom Luka remembered, even going into battle...

Once, before a combat mission, the regiment commander ordered Muravitsky to immediately erase the inscription and more so that it would not be repeated! Then Luka told the commander that this was his beloved girl, who worked with him at Metrostroy, studied at the flying club, that she loved him, they were going to get married, but... She crashed while jumping from a plane. The parachute did not open... She may not have died in battle, Luka continued, but she was preparing to become an air fighter, to defend her Motherland. The commander resigned himself.

Participating in the defense of Moscow, Flight Commander of the 29th IAP Luka Muravitsky achieved brilliant results. He was distinguished not only by sober calculation and courage, but also by his willingness to do anything to defeat the enemy. So on September 3, 1941, while operating on the Western Front, he rammed an enemy He-111 reconnaissance aircraft and made a safe landing on the damaged aircraft. At the beginning of the war, we had few planes and that day Muravitsky had to fly alone - to cover the railway station where the train with ammunition was being unloaded. Fighters, as a rule, flew in pairs, but here there was one...

At first everything went calmly. The lieutenant vigilantly monitored the air in the area of ​​the station, but as you can see, if there are multilayer clouds overhead, it’s raining. When Muravitsky made a U-turn over the outskirts of the station, in the gap between the tiers of clouds he saw a German reconnaissance plane. Luka sharply increased the engine speed and rushed across the Heinkel-111. The Lieutenant’s attack was unexpected; the Heinkel had not yet had time to open fire when a machine-gun burst pierced the enemy and he, descending steeply, began to run away. Muravitsky caught up with the Heinkel, opened fire on it again, and suddenly the machine gun fell silent. The pilot reloaded, but apparently ran out of ammunition. And then Muravitsky decided to ram the enemy.

He increased the speed of the plane - the Heinkel was getting closer and closer. The Nazis are already visible in the cockpit... Without reducing speed, Muravitsky approaches almost closely to the fascist plane and hits the tail with the propeller. The jerk and propeller of the fighter cut the metal of the tail unit of the He-111... The enemy plane crashed into the ground behind the railway track in a vacant lot. Luka also hit his head hard on the dashboard, the sight and lost consciousness. I woke up and the plane was falling to the ground in a tailspin. Gathering all his strength, the pilot hardly stopped the rotation of the machine and brought it out of a steep dive. He could not fly further and had to land the car at the station...

Having received medical treatment, Muravitsky returned to his regiment. And again there are fights. The flight commander flew into battle several times a day. He was eager to fight and again, as before his injury, the words “For Anya” were carefully written on the fuselage of his fighter. By the end of September, the brave pilot already had about 40 aerial victories, won personally and as part of a group.

Soon, one of the squadrons of the 29th IAP, which included Luka Muravitsky, was transferred to the Leningrad Front to reinforce the 127th IAP. The main task of this regiment was to escort transport aircraft along the Ladoga highway, covering their landing, loading and unloading. Operating as part of the 127th IAP, Senior Lieutenant Muravitsky shot down 3 more enemy aircraft. On October 22, 1941, for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command, for the courage and courage shown in battles, Muravitsky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. By this time, his personal account already included 14 downed enemy aircraft.

On November 30, 1941, flight commander of the 127th IAP, Senior Lieutenant Maravitsky, died in an unequal air battle, defending Leningrad... The overall result of his combat activity, in various sources, is assessed differently. The most common number is 47 (10 victories won personally and 37 as part of a group), less often - 49 (12 personally and 37 in a group). However, all these figures do not fit in with the number of personal victories – 14, given above. Moreover, one of the publications generally states that Luka Muravitsky won his last victory in May 1945, over Berlin. Unfortunately, there is no exact data yet.

Luka Zakharovich Muravitsky was buried in the village of Kapitolovo, Vsevolozhsk district, Leningrad region. A street in the village of Dolgoye is named after him.