Captain and His Kitten

Фронтовой корреспондент на праздновании 45-й годовщины Победы в Великой Отечественной войне, 1990 год

There are different things you can post on 8th of March as a part of the Women’s day, and there was one that tortured me for years. I’ve never read anything as interesting, powerful, sad and happy all at the same time: women at the Second World War. In this case it might be quite specific - Soviet women, during The Great Patriotic War, as we call it. It sounded interesting at first, but turned into a horrible emotional rollercoaster that haunted me for several years, until today I decided to translate it from Russian. 

Here will be quotes from women war veterans, some men too, about their experience. After all, there is not so much information about what it was like to be a woman at war.

“We’ve been driving for days. Went out with the girls at a somewhat station to collect water. Looked around and gasped: one after the other, soldiers were marching: girls only. Singing. Waving at us: with kerchiefs, forage-caps. It became clear: there are not enough men, they are all in the soil. Or captured. Now we were replacing them… Mother wrote me a prayer. I put it into my medallion. Perhaps it helped - I came back home. I was kissing that medallion before each battle…”

“Once during the night, a whole company was conducting reconnaissance on our regiment’s territory. It retreated by dawn, but a moan was heard coming from the neutral line. “Don’t go, they’ll kill you”, the soldiers tried to stop me, “Look, the sun is rising”. I didn’t listen, I crawled there. Found a wounded man, was dragging him back for eight hours, tying his hand to mine with a belt. Dragged him back alive. When the commander found out, he gave me five days of arrest out of spontaneous rage because of my absence without leave. But his deputy reacted differently: “She deserves a medal”. I was awarded at nineteen, with the Medal of Courage. At nineteen, I turned grey. At nineteen, in my last battle, I got shot at both lungs, with the second bullet going through two of my vertebrae. My legs got paralysed… And I was considered dead…At nineteen…I have a granddaughter of the same age now. I look at her and can’t believe it. A child!”

Candid photos of Yuri Gagarin (1960s)

Single futo hangs to save a life

October, September 2018