Then the hospital, amputation of both legs. Before Maresyev, the question arises: how to live on? He decides not to part with the profession of a pilot. And he gets his way! Having mastered the prostheses, he returns to combat formation. Since June 1943, he has been fighting as part of the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment on the Bryansk Front. And how he fights! Becomes an ace. On the Kursk Bulge and in the Baltic States, it shoots down 7 enemy aircraft. In total, Alexei Maresyev has 11 air victories, 87 sorties. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
We know about Alexei Maresyev, about his feat from the amazing book by Boris Polevoy "The Tale of a Real Man". How was it really? About this - in the published interview, the last detailed one, which Maresyev gave shortly before his death
Is everything in the book as it was in life? - asks Alexey Petrovich Maresyev. - Ninety-nine percent. Since Boris Polevoy wrote a novel, and not a documentary, there are places in it where he added something of himself, changed ...
Eighteen days I got to my own. They were colorfully described by Polevoy, and, as they say, a tutelka in a tyutelka. And fear because of the broken feet, and burning pain, and terrible hunger ... He drank all this. And there was a dead bear, the victim of which I almost became. They sometimes say to me: how did you starve, if so much bear meat has fallen. Oh, I wish I knew it would take so long. And the rest of the pictures, I swear, from life. What he told Boris Polevoy, he wrote.
They often also ask: did I have a girlfriend, Olya (as in the book), who bombarded me with letters while I was in the hospital? Yes, I had a girlfriend, I answer, I met her, walked around Kamyshin when I worked there before the army. But the novel described in the book is not mine, maybe even a novel by Boris Polevoy himself. I expressed this assumption once before a wide audience in the presence of the writer himself. He smiled and didn't respond to my attack.
- And there were no dances in the hospital, as it is described in the novel, beautifully shown in the film? Recently, a former nurse from the Burdenko Hospital appeared in the popular TV show "Old Apartment" and, recalling those years, said that there was no time for dancing ...
- But the dances were and are still remembered. But that woman from the "Old Apartment" didn't really teach me how to dance. After all, she is from the Burdenko hospital, where I have never been. My main hospital is the one in Babushkinsky Lane. Doctors raised me to my feet there, sisters looked after me there. And I remember their faces well.
- So, they danced, but with other girls?
- Do not rush, I'll tell you everything in order. When his legs began to heal, he began to learn to walk on prostheses. At first - with crutches, then he moved a chair in front of him, holding on to it, then step by step - without any outside help. He began to move, some cheerfulness appeared. Then he began to walk with a stick. A few days passed - I went to the doctor: are you allowed to go outside?
I still remember my exit to the courtyard of the hospital. I’m already used to the parquet, you feel the prostheses, but softly, but here with your whole body you feel every bump, every pebble. But don't give up! There is a log, a small one, I think you need to step over it, there will be many like it in life. Stepped over, didn't fall. And so, day after day, he approached healthy people. By the way, then the thought often began to come: I should not try those leg movements that are necessary for a pilot in flight.
- Was it all before the dances?
- Before dancing, before dancing. What's so amazing about that? After all, I was a pilot. And, of course, I wanted to feel at least a little, to feel what I had to do hundreds of times. What I did? He put two chairs in front of him, tucked prostheses between them, and moved them. Moreover, he set the task - to move the chairs with an accuracy of up to a centimeter.
When he was discharged from the hospital, he ended up in a rehabilitation center. He was in the village of Sudakovo near Moscow, in the former estate of Savva Morozov. Pilots improved their health there. There are more opportunities for mastering prostheses. He took walks in the forest, and this is going down into a hollow, climbing out of it, walking along deadwood ... If in the hospital he stepped over a log for the first time, then here he climbed over a huge tree. Over time, I began to feel confident. This is where I got into dancing. I'll tell you about them, if they are so interested in you.
There was a club in the rehabilitation center, all the pilots went to dances. I think, why am I worse? By the way, when the legs were intact, he danced well. In a word, went to the club. I go up to a girl - a worker of culture and straight to her: "Won't you teach me how to dance?" She: "Why are you playing me?" Yet he persuaded her. We went together to the hall, and I started dancing with her. But, as they say, the music did not play for long - he stepped on her foot. prosthesis. The girl yelped. I'm uncomfortable, but I don't want to quit either. I say: "Wait a little." I run, if I may say so, to the ward. There were four of us. I say to one guy: "Seryozha, put on your boots, let's go to the club." He was taken aback: "Why?". "Let's learn to dance." Sergei put on his boots, let's go. We asked the girl to play for us and started dancing. So day two. And soon I was already going to dances, like everyone else, dancing with the girls. With apprehension, however, he was afraid to step on his feet.
- Alexey Petrovich, was the commissar who helped you endure in a difficult moment after the operation, believe in yourself and whose image Boris Polevoy so vividly painted in his novel, was in life?
- There was such a person - the battalion commissar, who was lying next to me in the hospital. Boris Polevoy has the rank of regimental commissar. A man of great mental strength. And he did for me, as I later realized, a lot, maybe even more than it is written in the novel.
Just one example. After the amputation of my legs, they pricked me at night and gave me a sedative. And this is nothing but drugs. He says to me: Alexey, you have to wean yourself from such support, you will die. And then I told the doctors: stop calming me down. Yes, the commissioner really existed in life. It's a pity he died.
- Now about how you were accepted into the regiment.
- The burning question was for me. How worried I was then! Why? I was afraid that the pilots of the regiment would not accept me. Who dares to fly with me on a mission? He arrived in the regiment when the Battle of Kursk was on the nose. The fight in the air was fierce. It is clear that a pilot who took me as a wingman would take a big risk.
And the regiment commander left me at the airfield. Fighter groups went on combat missions, and I stayed. I was allowed to rise above the airfield at the approximate time of the return of our planes - to cover their landing. I understood and did not understand the regimental commander. Once I chose the moment and turned to him for permission to go into battle. The regiment became a Guards regiment, we were given signs, and they put me in the general line. I did not participate in a single battle, and therefore it was inconvenient for me to receive a guards badge. When the presentation was over, I got out of order and turned to the regiment commander: "Please send me into battle, I'm tired of flying over the airfield." The regimental commander said only one thing to my sharpness: "Get in line."
It's good that Captain Alexander Chislov, who sympathized with me, turned out to be in the regiment. Otherwise, they would write me off over time, not allowing me to meet with the Nazis again. He saw how worried I was, and therefore offered to fly with him. I was lucky. I filled up the Me-109, and in front of the squadron commander. My confidence has increased since then.
In a word, Alexander Chislov is my godfather. Later I learned that the regiment commander told him before the flight, they say, don’t get into a fight too much, take care of the wingman. Then he flew with Numerical again. And again successfully. That's how I fit into the team. And no one could reproach me for being a burden in the regiment.
- Was it difficult to fight with prostheses?
- In battle, there is no time for feelings, no time for sensations. I felt all the delights of my position after the battle, or rather, in the evening, when I was already falling down. I do not flaunt, saying that in battle there is no time for sensations. I rely on real facts. After all, with prostheses, he shot down seven enemy aircraft - this is a lot. A?
- How do you assess the skill of the German pilots?
- Very high. They fought no weaker than we did. But some of them were also weak. Once I ran into a yellow mouth (the Germans painted the planes of young pilots with yellow paint in order to first of all come to their aid). It was over the Demyansk cauldron. We met a couple. There was no communication with the host, but we agreed with him in advance on how we would act. And now I see: the German pilot in front of me made a coup and went so slowly. I follow him. Queue and he's ready.
- Have you ever met German pilots on the ground?
- Only after the war. In Hungary. There was an international conference. And then one of the organizers says: they say that former German pilots are interested in you. We sat down at the table. "Did you fly without legs?" - I hear the question. “Yes, I flew,” I answer. “And shot down seven more of your planes.” The German, the head of the group, grimaced. I see that I said too rudely, and corrected myself: "We need not to fight anymore, not to allow war." The discussion did not work out, but we bowed nicely.
- In 1944, when the war was not yet over, you were transferred from the Fighter Aviation Regiment to the Directorate of the Air Force Universities? How did it happen?
- As I said, I fit into the regiment's team, but the workload increased. And therefore, when I was offered an offer to become an inspector-pilot, I agreed. But he never asked anyone about it.
- Where did you celebrate Victory Day?
- In bed with nettle fever. It happens. We were then given American stew. I ate half a can, saved half a can and dealt with it the next morning. There was no refrigerator, and, apparently, spring did its job. A day later, a rash all over the body. I'm going to the doctor...
- When was the last time you sat at the helm of an airplane?
- If I'm not mistaken, it was in the early fifties, even under Stalin, more precisely, when Vasily Stalin was in charge of aviation in the Moscow Military District. I turned to him with a request (we were on "you") to allow me to fly on jet planes. He cursed: why, they say, do you need jet planes, but in the end he agreed to help. Of the venture, however, nothing came of it. And yet, with his help, I managed to fly piston aircraft. There was a special air force school in Moscow, but there were not enough planes. With the help of Vasily Stalin, I knocked out a Po-2 for her and made several flights at school as an instructor pilot. This concludes my heavenly epic.
- Have you ever been drawn to the sky again?!
- Pulled. But I have already said that it was not so easy to take the helm again. If you are not in the ranks, who will entrust the helm to you? Yes, and other things appeared, then I got married.
- When?
- Immediately after the war. I worked as an inspector-pilot for fighter schools in the administration of the Air Force universities. And then one day I come to the dining room and see ... Yes, the one I was looking for. True, she seemed to me, as they say today, too cool, she worked in the overhaul department. And the groom, as it turned out later, was with her. But she could not resist my pressure of courtship. For almost 55 years we have been living with Galina Viktorovna together. I am grateful to fate for connecting me with a wonderful person. Together they raised two sons - Victor and Alexei.
- Alexey Petrovich, do not clarify your relationship with Boris Polev. They say that after you met the writer in the dugout, talked all night, he promised that soon an essay about you would appear in the Pravda newspaper. But the essay did not appear, since Goebbels was spreading misinformation at that time, they say, Russia's days are numbered, only cripples are fighting at the front, and the editorial board did not dare to publish Polevoy. At the next meeting, you had a skirmish.
- It's a joke, nothing more. I never had any grudges against Boris Nikolaevich Polevoi. Our first meeting took place in forty-three, the second, it was also described by Polevoy in the afterword, in forty-six, already after the novel was published in the magazine "October". The meeting was joyful, interesting for both. I told him my biography. By the way, in the afterword to the book edition, he called my real name - Maresyev, and not Meresyev, like a literary hero. And this fact: Polevoy was looking for me after the war, but he did not find me. Apparently, by that time I had quit, and his calls to the Main Personnel Department did not give anything. So I found it first. Heard that his novel was being read on the radio, called Pravda and immediately got a phone number.
We maintained good relations until the last days of the writer's life. We often met with him, especially since both were members of the Peace Committee. We often sat together at meetings, traveled together on business trips, even to the United States. It would probably be wrong to say that we were great friends, but the relationship, I repeat, was maintained by the kindest. Often called up, I was with him more than once at his birthday.
- On your example, Alexei Petrovich, whole generations of Soviet boys were brought up. And what was the attitude of the authorities towards you? Have you met with the top leaders of the state?
- And what attitude should I have? The most common. After all, I didn’t ask anyone for anything, I didn’t ask for any honors. After the war, he studied and worked all the time. In 1952 he graduated from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU, four years later - postgraduate studies at the Academy of Social Sciences. Since 1956 - in the Soviet Committee of War Veterans.
With the powerful of this world, I met only at work. For example, with the chairmen of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin, with Nikolai Alexandrovich Tikhonov, when they received veterans' delegations. Grechko spoke with Marshal Andrei Antonovich more often, but again, on business ...
I don't like being called, for example, "legendary". I understand what people want to say - courageous, brave. It turns out that they exalt me too much. This was somehow well emphasized in Orel (I am an honorary citizen of this city and often visited there) by one teacher: why legendary, he is from our life, he is one of us. Yes, I'm not from a legend, I'm a real living person.
- What do you regret?
- That he did not know the name of the commissioner. Did not see off Boris Polevoy on his last journey. When he died, I was in a sanatorium, my health was not the best. I turn to my wife: what are we going to do? Together we decided: we will call Inna Iosifovna, the wife of Polevoy, we will express our condolences, and when we arrive in Moscow, we will lay flowers on the grave. So they did. Now I think it was necessary to escape to the capital no matter what. I regret that I did not visit the "Maresyev trail", about which they tell me a lot, but the Novgorod region is nearby.
- But after all, you met with the guys that found you on a frosty April morning of 1942 and, in fact, saved you. There is a photograph where you are captured together.
- I met the guys from the village of Plavni for the first time during the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Victory. I then invited them to Moscow, met them, placed them in a hotel. And the next day they were visiting me. Galina Viktorovna set the table, and we sat well then. With Vikhrov, he is a smarter guy, we met later, I helped him solve some problems.
And yet there are many things to regret. Didn't do it, couldn't do it. Of course, something can be attributed to employment, to the need for rest, to health, finally. But these are excuses. Life is complicated...
Hero of the Soviet Union Alexei Petrovich Maresyev died on Friday, May 18, 2001, two days before his 85th birthday, in a Moscow clinic, where he was taken with an acute heart attack. He did not live only an hour before the start of the gala evening at the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army, dedicated to his anniversary. So the higher powers ordered. Even death emphasized the greatness of this man's life, his responsibility, decency, courage.
Anatoly DOKUCHAYEV
I want to tell you about my great-uncle - Alexei Petrovich Maresyev. Yes, yes, you were not mistaken - about that very Maresyev. However, now they rarely write or talk about him, and no one sets him up as an example for children. But just recently, the fame of the pilot Alexei Maresyev thundered throughout the country and in schools they wrote essays based on the book by Boris Polevoy "The Tale of a Real Man." Well, the new generation has its heroes...
Fate brought us to Irkutsk, but the roots of our family are in the Volga region. There, in a small town called Kamyshin, not far from Saratov, there lived three brothers. Well, the beginning is almost like in a fairy tale ... Only then no one could have imagined what a truly fabulous fate was prepared for the youngest of them - Alexei.
As a child, Lenka was frail and sickly. He suffered from joint pain and at times could not even walk. And I had to go to school for 4 kilometers - in torn shoes, in severe frost. The family was poor, and from early childhood, Alex began to work. Maresyev learned to mow, harrow, thresh and plow before he could read and write.
Alexei suddenly fell ill with heaven. Once, while drawing water from the river, he heard a buzzing. He raised his head and froze. In the sky, like a bird, the plane was circling... Of course, the sickly boy was not taken to any flight school. But as an active Komsomol member, he was sent to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur. For almost a year, Maresyev felled a forest in the taiga, and flew in a dream. However, not only in a dream. His first flight on a small U-2 training aircraft took place at the local flying club.
At the medical examination at the Chita Fighter School, doctors recognized Maresyev as absolutely healthy - work in logging cured better than a sanatorium ... And then the war and that fatal flight on April 4, 1942 near Novgorod, when Lieutenant Maresyev's plane was shot down and crashed behind the front line. Seriously wounded, without food, he crawled for 18 days to get to his own. By chance, two guys from the nearby village of Plav stumbled upon him, at first mistaking him for an unfinished Fritz. Later they came to Alexei Petrovich in Moscow more than once with stories about the fate of fellow villagers who had once saved Maresyev.
But this turned out to be only the first test that fate had prepared for Maresyev. The worst blow awaited him in the hospital. Gangrene of both legs... The doctors' verdict was inexorable: "Amputation! Cut, otherwise you will die!" A pilot without legs is like a bird without wings ... Many in such situations gave up and gave up on themselves, but not Aleksey Maresyev. He learns to walk, run, even dance again. Maresyev knocks on the thresholds of various military and medical institutions and achieves the impossible. After the amputation of the legs - return to duty and new downed enemy aircraft.
Many did not fully believe in the veracity of this story. Like, a person is physically incapable of such a thing - this is a propaganda trick, the writer's fantasy ... I declare with all responsibility: the feat of Alexei Maresyev is not fiction, it was all true. I myself, unfortunately, saw him only once, when I was very young. But my mother, Alexei Petrovich's niece, often visited the Maresyevs in Moscow. She told us a lot about her famous uncle. And who, if not her, to know the truth about the members of our family ...
However, something in the book is really fiction of the writer. At that time, Alexei Maresyev did not have a beloved girl, Olga. He married after the war, and not too successfully.
He, then already a famous hero, was married to Galina, a beautiful girl, but hysterical and eccentric. Yes, and their two sons - Vitaly and Leonid - gave Maresyev a lot of problems ... Well, it's only in fairy tales that everything ends wonderfully and after the trials only glory, honors and happiness await the heroes. Life is more difficult...
They often say: "Now, if Polevoy had not written a book about Maresyev, there would have been nothing: neither national glory, nor universal admiration ..." Maybe it would not have happened if Vasily Stalin had not introduced Hero of the Soviet Union Alexei Maresyev to writer. Surely the bags of letters that filled up Maresyev after the release of the film "The Tale of a Real Man" would not have come. But he received the golden star of the Hero for downed planes and unparalleled courage, and not for his popularity. And the feat of Maresyev remains a feat regardless of the book and film - they only helped several generations of boys in our country to get a worthy ideal, a role model. And who do the current boys imitate - Batman or Spider-Man? Comments, as they say, are unnecessary ...
Alexey Petrovich Maresyev died in May 2001, two days before his 85th birthday. He caught the 55th anniversary of the Victory, remaining the permanent chairman of the Council of Veterans until the last day and devoting all his strength to this work.
One of the asteroids in the solar system is named after him. Once Alexei Maresyev ascended into the sky and left his soul there. Now he is connected with the sky forever.
- Alexei Petrovich, have you returned to Olga? To the one who was waiting for you?
- Ha! What do you! There was no Olga ... She is a fiction, an image, a flight of creative imagination ...
Does anyone remember Polevoi's The Tale of a Real Man? I don’t even know if they pass it now at school or not. In my years passed. And the name of Alexei Meresyev, a hero, a pilot who lost both legs when he was wounded, but managed to stand on prostheses and continue flying, was on everyone's lips. People came to Moscow just to look at the legendary person ... The legend, as usual, had a prototype, only one letter in the surname was changed - Maresyev. I waltzed with him. The year was 1995.
- What other inaccuracies are there in the book? A lot of them?
- Enough. Polevoi says, for example, that when I was getting out of the woods, I found the corpse of a nurse, the nurse had a bag hanging on her side. In the bag - a can of canned food, crackers, cotton wool, bandages ... None of this was. Imagine crawling through the forest, stumble upon a corpse frozen into a snowdrift. Can you make out who it is: whether it is German, whether it is ours, a man or a woman ... And even more so, digging it up will not come to mind. Yes, for eighteen days I got out wounded to my own. But my only food during this time was ants. I wet my palm, put it on a pile of anthills, insects stick to it, I lick them off and eat them. I also tried to eat a lizard, not a hedgehog, as it is written in the book. I took a bite from the head, she, although sleepy, but with her feet rests on my lips. As hungry as he was, he couldn't eat.
- I remember that the author describes your return from a combat mission, already after being wounded: the plane stopped, the cockpit visor opened, a large handmade ebony stick flew out into the snow ... When I went to the interview, I expected to see this famous stick ...
- And there was never any stick. I left my crutches in the hospital in forty-three, so I did not return to them. Apparently, Polevoy wanted to make my story more believable...
He got to the front a few days after the declaration of war. The military road began in Zaporozhye, then Krivoy Rog, then Nikopol, again Zaporozhye, Kuibyshev ... from there they were sent to the North-Western Front on a brand new Yak, where the story described by Boris Polev happened.
The Demyansky Cauldron area in the Novgorod region. The plane was shot down. He made an emergency landing in the occupied territory. For 18 days he crawled his way to the front line.
It was discovered by the inhabitants of the village of Plav in the Valdai region. Seryozha Malin and Sasha Vikhrov. Sasha's father drove Alexei to his house in a cart. There he spent another week, then the pilot was sent to a Moscow hospital.
Fractured limbs, frostbite. A cast cannot be applied because gangrene has set in, and frostbite cannot be treated because the bone is shattered. I had to amputate.
He returned to the "service" a year later - in July 1943.
- It is impossible to imagine your feelings immediately after the operation, how it was with legs and suddenly without ...
- The operation was quite difficult. I later learned that Nikolai Naumovich, the professor who made it, rummaged through a lot of literature before he took up the instrument. Spinal anesthesia did not work for me. They did a general anesthetic. When I woke up, it felt like someone was breaking my legs in a place where they were no longer there. I cried. Not from pain, but from the fact that the doctor, as my sister told me, had already left: “Why did he leave, does it hurt me ?!”
- The most bitter insult in your life?
- The most bitter happened a little later. After the amputation and long trips to various authorities, I was sent to the Lyubertsy flight unit. I asked the commander to assign a partner for a test flight. He gathered all the personnel and said this: “A legless pilot came to us, asking for someone to work with him in pairs ... Anyone take a chance? Personally, I refuse...
- And yet, you again rose into the sky.
- Yes. And later, after a heavy battle on the Oryol-Kursk Bulge, I happened to hear other words, however, already from another pilot: "I will fly only with you." There is no greater reward than being trusted with your own life.
- Do you regret that there was a war in your life?
- Certainly. I often think about what I have achieved if I had not become disabled. I would fly to my advanced years, I would try all the latest aircraft designs ...
- Never had a thought: "wouldn't go to the pilots ..."?
- Such thought - never!
What is the difference between a pilot and a soldier? Well, except for different planes of battles... A soldier sees death in the face, sees how he killed a man... You didn't have to, did you?
- No, I didn't have to...
How many planes have you shot down?
- Eleven. Four before the injury and seven after.
- Who counted downed cars?
- Yourselves, comrades who have seen. After the Kursk Bulge, they came up with a “film photo machine gun”. He captured on film the moments of the shooting.
After the war, Maresyev was not allowed to fly. And he took up his education. Graduated from the Higher School of Education, the Academy of Social Sciences. He defended his thesis in history. From the war he was demobilized as a captain, in peacetime he reached the rank of colonel.
- Are you married…
- Married. And two sons. He met his wife, Galina Viktorovna, at the Air Force University, where he worked as an inspector. Fell in love immediately. But he did not dare to approach. Of course, I was young then, but still without both legs. I needed care. Who will agree to this? First, he asked a colleague to talk to her. And only then ... And, you know, what is the most valuable thing in our life together with her? She never treated me like I was disabled...
"DEATH" SECOND. OBLIVION. 90s of the last century.
- Is he still alive? the editor asked me when I brought him this interview. These were the years of breaking up a big country. Many hours of queues for a dozen eggs. It was suddenly announced to people that up to now they had not lived at all as they should. They tried not to remember the war.
Everything could be said. But due to the fact that everyone was busy with modern and more pressing problems, no one knew the truth about Maresyev.
I found it by accident. I was given the task of choosing an extraordinary hero. I called the Russian Committee of WWII Veterans, it turned out that it was Alexei Petrovich who worked there as the first deputy chairman.
Of course, in the Soviet years he was honored, Maresyev did not show off, but he did not live in poverty either. I got a four-room apartment on Pushkinskaya, where I lived all these years. He set aside a part of his salary every month for a book, saved up for his youngest son, Alexei Alekseevich, an invalid since childhood, so that he would have something to live on when his father was gone. In 1991, this money "burned".
The interview had to be interrupted. Schoolchildren came to talk with the legend. Previously, there were five or six such meetings a day. Now - at best, one a month. And even then, apparently, children are not interested. They gave me cloves. Alexey Petrovich did not know where to put them - he gave me ...
- Could you point out, say, five qualities that a person needs in order to grow up to be a real ...
- How did you guess? In my opinion, these qualities are exactly five: willpower, courage, perseverance, courage, the ability to overcome difficulties. All of them are interconnected, but none can be singled out, none removed.
- It seems to me that modern man needs not so much courage and courage, but enterprise ...
- This is to survive, but then you still have to live. These qualities that I have listed are always needed. Their demand has not changed since the war.
- Well, well, they learned to walk, they flew planes. But in order, as Polevoy wrote, to dance ... Is it also fiction?
Maresyev did not say anything, got up, gave me his hand and whirled him around ...
- I played volleyball, ping-pong, tennis, rode a motorcycle, bicycle, skiing, skating ... Skiing is very difficult. The average skier takes a wide step and straightens the foot. If I try to repeat this, my ski will rise. You have to mince in small steps, which is very tiring. Well, to keep the muscles in shape, I train every day!
I was born in May. They say whoever was born in May will have to suffer all his life. Here I am. I'll probably die in May...
He chuckled.
I remembered this interview, because on May 20, Alexei Petrovich Maresyev would have turned 97 years old.
After the publication, they called me from television, they found out contacts ... They shot several documentaries.
On May 18, 2001, for 85 years, a gala evening was planned at the Theater of the Russian Army. On the stage - a real aerocobra fighter with tail number 85.
The people gathered, but everyone did not start the evening ...
Finally, the presenter Oleg Marusev appeared with a bouquet of black roses:
“We have gathered today to celebrate the birthday of Alexei Maresyev, but fate decreed otherwise - Alexei Petrovich had just died suddenly,” he said in a noticeably trembling voice and put flowers on the wing of the plane. Flowers were also carried from the hall. A few minutes later, the fighter literally drowned in them.
E his heart stopped. Now it's forever. Six months later, his son Alexei died, a year later, his wife Galina Viktorovna ...
On April 4, 1942, the plane of Alexei Maresyev was shot down in an air battle. For eighteen days, the pilot fought for his life: through forests and swamps, he crawled his way to the Soviet troops and, despite all the difficulties, got to his own. After being seriously wounded, Alexei Petrovich lost both legs, but continued combat flights and hit enemy aircraft. This amazing person will be discussed.
On the edge of death. The feat of the pilot Maresyev
From childhood, Alexey dreamed of becoming a pilot, but for health reasons he was not accepted into the flight school. At the age of 21, he was drafted into the army and in 1938 a dream came true - Maresyev was sent to the 30th Chita School of Military Pilots. Later the war started.
Maresyev's first sortie took place on August 23, 1941 near the city of Krivoy Rog. And on April 5, a fatal incident occurred - during a military operation, his plane was shot down. Maresyev managed to reach the plane to his territory across the front line, and 4 km north of the village of Rabezh, while trying to make an emergency landing in the forest, he fell from a height of 30 meters. When Alexei tried to get up, he felt a wild pain, realized that both legs were broken. Then, gathering strength and will, he crawled towards his own.
Maresiev was well equipped: fur overalls, high boots and a helmet gave a chance to survive in the winter forest. But he had no idea how long his journey would be. The next day my legs were so swollen that it became impossible to walk. I had to crawl. Instead of water, he ate snow, ate bark, cones and moss. In total, the pilot spent 18 days in the snowy forest. Toward the end of the wanderings, thawed patches appeared, and Alexey caught a lizard. She left her tail to him, and the poor fellow tried to eat it, but the feeling of disgust turned out to be stronger than hunger ... Maresyev spent the night in ravines, the bottom of which he lined with spruce groves, and he took cover with it.
“I wet my palm, put it on a bunch of anthills, insects stick to it, I lick them off and eat them” A.P. Maresyev
For eighteen days, the pilot crawled through the forests and swamps to the people to the east, orienting himself by the sun. It was discovered by the inhabitants of the village of Plav in the Valdai region. Seryozha Malin and Sasha Vikhrov. Sasha's father drove Alexei to his house in a cart. There he spent another week, then the pilot was sent to a Moscow hospital.
Fractured limbs, frostbite. A cast cannot be applied because gangrene has set in, and frostbite cannot be treated because the bone is shattered. I had to amputate. He returned to the "service" a year later - in July 1943.
Alexey Maresyev after the hospital
While still in the hospital, Alexey Maresyev began to train, preparing to fly with prostheses. Training continued at the sanatorium, where he was sent in September 1942. At the beginning of 1943, he passed a medical examination and was sent to the Ibresinsky flight school (Chuvash ASSR).
In February 1943 he made the first test flight after being wounded. Got sent to the front. In June 1943 he arrived in the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. The regiment commander did not let Alexei go on combat missions, since the situation in the sky on the eve of the Battle of Kursk was extremely tense. Alexey was worried. The squadron commander A. M. Chislov sympathized with him and took him with him on a sortie. After several successful sorties paired with Numerical, Maresyev's confidence increased.
On July 20, 1943, during an air battle with superior enemy forces, Alexei Maresyev saved the lives of two Soviet pilots and shot down two enemy Fw.190 fighters at once, covering the Ju.87 bombers. The combat glory of Maresyev spread throughout the 15th Air Army and along the entire front. Correspondents frequented the regiment, among them was the future author of the book "The Tale of a Real Man" Boris Polevoy.
On August 24, 1943, for saving the lives of two pilots and shooting down two German fighters, Senior Lieutenant A.P. Maresyev, deputy squadron commander of the 63rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Division of the 1st Guards Fighter Aviation Corps of the 15th Air Force army, awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
In 1944, A. Maresyev agreed to become a pilot inspector and move from a combat regiment to the management of the Air Force universities. In total, during the war he made 86 sorties, shot down 10 enemy aircraft: three (according to other sources - four) before being wounded and seven after.
“Life, of course, rubbed me. But, if you start all over again, I would become a pilot again. Until now, I can not remember the sky without special, noble feelings. I have the happiest moments of my life associated with airplanes. When after the hospital they wrote on my card: “Good for all types of aviation”, I felt at the pinnacle of happiness” A.P. Maresiev
After the war, Maresyev was not allowed to fly. And he took up his education. Graduated from the Higher School of Education, the Academy of Social Sciences. He defended his thesis in history. He was demobilized from the war as a captain, in peacetime he reached the rank of colonel
Rules of life from the hero Maresyev
“The five qualities a person needs in order to grow up real: willpower, courage, perseverance, courage, the ability to overcome difficulties. All of them are interconnected, but not one can be singled out, not one can be removed” A.P. Maresyev
Photo by Alexei Petrovich Maresyev: military and post-war photos, photos with his family
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Documentary film of the channel "History" "Alexey Maresyev. The fate of a real person
Boris Polevoy's book "The Tale of a Real Man"
Boris Polevoy's book "The Tale of a Real Man" was allowed to be published only after the war. They say that our propagandists were afraid that the Germans would think that things were bad in the Soviet Army. Here, they say, the disabled are already being sent to fight.
Alexei Petrovich himself learned about the appearance of the book by hearing excerpts on the radio. He called Pravda, asked for Polevoy's phone number, and was finally able to meet with the author.
Polevoi really didn't show me the book before it hit the stores. When the story was printed, they gave me a copy. But I never read it. Tried several times. But everything somehow ... In principle, Polevoy wrote everything correctly. True, he came up with an affair that I allegedly had with my girlfriend Olga. Although I like the image of a Soviet girl he created.
Interesting facts about the pilot Maresyev
- After the plane crashed, a bear approached the exhausted pilot. Curious about the forest guest, the beast hit Maresyev with his paw, ripping open his overalls. Having somehow found the pistol, Aleksey fired the entire clip into the clubfoot. Fortunately, the cartridge was enough: the bear roared and collapsed dead. To kill the clubfoot, the pilot had to use up all the cartridges, he shot almost point blank.
- In the hospital, barely looking at the patient with gangrene, the doctor on duty snapped: "Not a tenant." All night the dying pilot lay on a gurney near the morgue. Saved only by the fact that the chief physician was passing by. He examined the patient's legs and ordered: "Urgently to the operating room!"
At the age of fifteen, Anna Stepanovna's son had an eye removed as a result of an injury. Over the years, the vision only worsened, but the guy, and now an adult man, was never given a disability. Now my vision has gone downhill. One eye can't handle the load. They live at a small station in the Nekrasovsky district of the Yaroslavl region. It is impossible to get a job, and besides, a half-blind person. He still has a few more years to go before retirement. Anna Stepanovna, together with her son, went around doctors and lawyers. Everywhere - refusal.
“Please answer whether it is possible to obtain a disability for him or not. If possible, how? she asks in a letter to the editor.
Another letter from Tatyana Vsevolodovna Noskova from Olenegorsk, Murmansk region. “Many of the categories of people with a disability group have to undergo re-examination every year and confirm it. The absurdity of some situations is obvious. For example, a person who has received a severe injury to the limbs or does not have them is forced to undergo an annual medical and social examination and confirm this fact. Cases have become more frequent and, one might say, it has become a practice to deprive people of a disability group. The fact of the disease takes place and is obvious, but the disability group is removed regardless of whether it is a child or an adult. An adult is offered to “get a job”, and the child’s parents are advised to “solve problems themselves”. A person who receives a penny disability allowance is also deprived of benefits for utility bills, the purchase of medicines, travel, free kindergarten and speech therapy classes if this is a child. And there are those who are generally left without a livelihood, without a piece of bread, since there is no retirement pension yet, and physical labor for a sick person is no longer healthy and beyond their strength.
Unfortunately, letters to the editor with such a statement of the problem are not isolated. Exhausted by walking around doctor's offices to collect the necessary certificates, extracts, and not receiving or not confirming disability, infirm people or their relatives begin to suspect that employees of social and medical commissions deliberately so zealously limit the number of citizens receiving the group. And the followers of Hippocrates do this not because of the harmfulness of their character, but by following orders coming from higher bureaucratic offices. There is a crisis in the country, accession to the WTO is on the horizon, so they are saving on the poorest, weakest citizens of Russia: the sooner there are fewer of them, the faster we will get rid of problems.
To comment on the situation, we asked the candidate of medical sciences, the head of the branch of bureau No. 49 of the Federal State Institution "Main Bureau of Medical and Social Expertise of Moscow" (BMSE) (they used to be called VTEKs) Victoria Shilovich.
In her opinion, indeed, the problem is very acute, and it is necessary to work with each patient who comes for examination individually. “The whole point, in my opinion, is the lack of clarity, the imperfect organization of the system of interaction between medical facilities and the ITU bureau,” says my interlocutor. - And if there is still order in Moscow, and if necessary, citizens can achieve a revision of the results, then in the regions it can be more difficult to do this. The reasons are the low qualification of doctors or the lack of specialists in this field at all, there is no necessary medical examination, the financial insolvency of citizens who are unable to travel at their own expense and seek justice in higher authorities, or even simply their ignorance of their rights. That is why it is so necessary to carry out a full medical examination and the correct execution of documents already at the level of district and village polyclinics.”
Victoria Arkadyevna shows a referral for a medical and social examination, received by an applicant for disability in one of the metropolitan district clinics: “Look, even in Moscow there are examples of unprofessional documents.” I understand: one kidney was removed from the patient two years ago. In the medical "runner" form 088 - an extract from an ophthalmologist, otolaryngologist, gynecologist and other specialists. This is how much effort it takes for a person exhausted by ailments to get to so many doctors in a limited time?! And in the end? Most importantly, on the basis of which he should be given or not given a disability group, the result of a biochemical blood test (creatinine and urea levels) is not indicated in the extract. “Formally, we are obliged to send the person back to the polyclinic at the place of residence for further examination,” Viktoria Shilovich explains.
I give examples from the letters of our readers, where they are perplexed why there are such cases that a person with an amputated arm or leg, a removed kidney or lung, which, of course, does not form again, nevertheless, after a year, the disability group is reduced or completely removed . It turns out that such actions of experts are regulated by certain rules. Suppose a patient has a leg amputated. He receives the first group for a year and goes to rehabilitation at the place of residence. If after a year or two the disabled person masters the prosthesis and manages it quite successfully, the group is reviewed for him based on the degree of existing functional disorders. In a word, in such a case, a real person, Alexei Petrovich Maresyev, would not have been given disability under the current conditions. But Maresyev is rather an exception to the rule. Most of the disabled, many of whom are elderly, are burdened with other serious illnesses, and such feats are simply beyond their strength. And to be honest, today disability benefits for some families are almost the only way of existence.
Victoria Arkadievna gives an example from her practice. A certain patient after an oncological operation on the throat lost his voice. He was assigned the second group of disability. Himself, being a doctor and an advanced person, he went to Germany with his own savings and bought an expensive voice box there. After the operation and the installation of this device, he was able to talk on his own. And what do you think? The group was not assigned to him. It is believed that the patient is fully rehabilitated.
As a rule, even in the most seemingly hopeless cases, at first the group is given for a year and the patient is re-examined annually. After all, over time, for example, one eye or one kidney successfully takes over the functions of the missing organ, and the person does not experience any discomfort. But if the remaining body could not fully earn "for two", then the patient is already given a disability group for life and is not tormented by annual re-examinations. However, it sometimes takes up to three to five years to confirm that rehabilitation is impossible.
The situation with the medico-social examination of servicemen is especially special. Often - a belated assignment of already former military personnel to the ITU. Later, the referral is due to the fact that the military personnel, after the conclusion of the VVK about unfitness for military service, first resolve housing issues and only then draw up a referral to the ITU.
And what are the conditions in which experts are forced to work and patients exhausted by many hours of sitting are forced to wait for their turn?! So, BMSE, in which we are talking, is located in a dilapidated wing of the city hospital No. 23 (named after Medsantrud, by the way). Two small rooms are equipped for receiving patients. People wait in line in a tiny dressing room, where about a dozen chairs are tightly pressed against each other. Those who did not have enough seats were placed on the windowsills or were waiting in the yard. There are no locker rooms or toilets in this medical facility. If, as they say, it is very urgent, citizens are invited to run to one of the hospital buildings. With a norm of ten to fifteen people, experts sometimes have to take almost twice as many for a shift. And, mind you, there are no surcharges for such processing.
Starting this year, the law on autonomous institutions comes into force, that is, budgetary educational, medical, cultural organizations will have to earn money for their existence themselves, including through the provision of commercial services to the population. Naturally, I'm wondering: will this somehow affect the work of the Bureau of Medical and Social Expertise? Victoria Arkadyevna only shrugged her hands: “How do you imagine it? A person comes to us to receive a disability group, and we give him a price list: for the third group - such and such an amount, for the second - a little more, but for the first - you have to fork out in full. No, I hope such innovations will not affect us. - But, after thinking, he adds: - Although it would be possible to organize consultations for doctors of polyclinics at the BMSE, at the very first stage drawing up documents for examination. Because, I repeat, many of them send us patients with illiterate discharge statements, which creates additional difficulties for us and causes misunderstandings among patients. But if the documents are drawn up professionally, if the diagnosis is accurately indicated, no expert will be able to either underestimate or overestimate the group, or remove or not give it at all. Need, in my opinion, and methodological literature. However, the solution of such problems is already in the competence of the Department of Health. The question, of course, rests on who will undertake the financing of this kind of consultations, the publication of manuals, etc.”
As for the question that is asked in their letters by a pensioner from the Yaroslavl region and many others who, in their opinion, have not achieved a legal disability group at their place of residence, they need to send copies of documents, research results, answers from the regional branches of the BMSE to Moscow , to the Federal Bureau of Medical and Social Expertise at the address: st. Susanina, house 3. If necessary, they will be called for a final examination in Moscow. But all expenses are at your own expense.
Tatyana Morozova
