Stories for 7-year-old children about pioneers. Originally from the USSR
Appendix 8
Municipal educational institution
"Average comprehensive school» village Pyeldino
Pioneers are heroes
literary-library hour
(extracurricular activity,
dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Victory
In the Great Patriotic War)
Age of students: 12-14 years
Developers:
Shustikova T.I. – Russian teacher
Language and literature
Milcheva N.I. – teacher-librarian
Pyeldino village, 2015
...the hour came and they showed
how huge a little child's heart can become,
when sacred love for his homeland flares up in him
and hatred for her enemies
GOAL: To introduce students to reading books with patriotic content.
TASKS:
Introduce the children to the pioneers - heroes who fought together with adults in partisan detachments, fought side by side with the underground;
Develop Creative skills and cognitive activity of schoolchildren.
Materials for the event:
Book exhibition “Feats of the Young”, multimedia presentation “Pioneer Heroes”, design of the stand “Pioneer Heroes”.
Progress of the event:
“Song about pioneer heroes” sounds (words by N. Dobronravov, music by A. Pakhmutova)
Presenter 1.
Pioneers are heroes. Before the war, these were the most ordinary boys and girls. They were the same as you: they studied, played, ran and jumped, made friends, and sometimes fought, helped their elders. Only their relatives, friends, and classmates knew their names.
Presenter 2.
But the hour came, and they showed how huge a small child’s heart can become when sacred love for the homeland and hatred for its enemies flares up in it..
Presenter 1.
Boys and girls. The weight of adversity, disaster, and grief of the war years fell on their fragile shoulders. And they did not bend under this weight, they became stronger in spirit, more courageous, more resilient.
Presenter 2.
Little heroes of the big war. They fought next to their elders - fathers, brothers, next to communists, Komsomol members.
They fought everywhere.
At sea, like Borya Kuleshin.
In the sky like Arkasha Kamanin.
In the partisan detachment as Lenya Golikov, Zina Portnova.
In the Brest Fortress, like Valya Zenkina and Petya Klypa.
In the Kerch catacombs, like Volodya Dubinin.
In the underground, like Volodya Shcherbatsevich,
In the Feodosia catacombs, like Vitya Korobkov...
There were more, much more...
(slide 3) Presenter 1
The young hearts did not waver for a moment!
Their matured childhood was filled with such trials that even a very talented writer would have imagined them, it would be hard to believe. But it was. It happened in the history of our great country, it happened in the destinies of its little children - ordinary boys and girls. And people called them heroes, erected monuments in their memory, made films, wrote books about them.
These are eternal children and eternal heroes. The Great Patriotic War made them this way.And they dreamed of one thing - to save their Motherland, its past, present, future. Your future.
Presenter 2
Today we will learn only about some of them, whom we now call young heroes. Of course, there were more, much more...
These stories will help you understand at what cost the Victory was achieved and what the role of children was in it.
Children's stories about pioneer heroes
(show slides on the topic, presentation of books about young heroes, reading excerpts from works)
- VALYA ZENKINA (Slide 2)
The Brest Fortress was the first to take the enemy's blow. Bombs and shells exploded, walls collapsed, people died in the fortress and in the city of Brest. From the first minutes, Valin's father went into battle. He left and did not return, died a hero, like many defenders of the Brest Fortress.
And the Nazis forced Valya to make his way into the fortress under fire in order to convey to its defenders the demand to surrender. Valya made her way into the fortress, spoke about the atrocities of the Nazis, explained what weapons they had and where, and stayed to help our soldiers. She bandaged the wounded, collected cartridges and brought them to the soldiers.
There was not enough water in the fortress; “There was no other way to try to save their lives,” the little nurse Valya Zenkina asked to leave her with the fighters. But an order is an order, and then she vowed to continue fighting the enemy outside the walls of the fortress until complete victory.
And Valya kept her vow. She managed to escape from fascist captivity, and she continued her struggle in the partisan detachment. She fought bravely, along with adults. For courage and bravery, the Motherland awarded her young daughter the Order of the Red Star.
- PETYA KLYPA (slide 3)
Peter was born in Bryansk into the family of a railway worker. He lost his father early and, as a twelve-year-old boy, joined a music platoon commanded by his older brother Nikolai. The platoon was stationed in the Brest Fortress.
When the war began, Petya was fifteen years old. On the morning of the Nazi attack, the guys were getting ready to go fishing... Petya woke up amid the roar of guns, jumped out of bed, but was thrown aside by a nearby explosion. The boy hit his head hard against the wall and lay unconscious for several minutes. Having barely come to his senses, stunned and half-deaf, he immediately took up his weapon and prepared to meet the enemy. His example helped the faint-hearted to pull themselves together!
It was necessary for someone to go upstairs to monitor and report on the enemy’s appearance in time. The observer was in danger: the upper floor of the barracks was being torn apart by enemy shells. Petya Klypa was the first to volunteer. He was entrusted with something that only he could handle - small, nimble, nimble, invisible to enemies. He went on reconnaissance missions and served as a liaison between disparate units of the fortress defenders.
On the second day of defense, Petya, together with his bosom friend Kolya Novikov, miraculously discovered an ammunition depot that had survived and reported it to the commander. The soldiers tried to take care of the brave boy, but he rushed into the thick of things, participated in bayonet attacks, and shot at the Nazis with a pistol. Sometimes Petya did the impossible. When the bandages for the wounded ran out, he found a broken warehouse of the medical unit in the ruins, managed to pull out dressings and deliver them to the doctors.
When the regiment's position became hopeless, the commander, saving the lives of women and children, ordered them to surrender. Petya did not agree. In July 1941, the defenders of the fortress tried to break the siege and unite with our troops, but were unsuccessful. Most of the soldiers died, Petya miraculously survived, but he was captured.
So the boy ended up in a prisoner of war camp in the Polish city of Bialya Podlaska. He managed to escape, but was soon captured by the police. A few days later, Petya, along with other prisoners, was loaded into wagons and sent to forced labor in Germany. He was freed from captivity by American troops in 1954. Then he returned to his homeland.
For courage and heroism in battles with the Nazi invaders, Pert Klypa was awarded the Order Patriotic War 1st degree.
Thanks to S.S. Smirnov’s book “Brest Fortress,” the name of Pyotr Klypa became known throughout the Soviet Union.
- VOLODYA DUBININ (slide 4)
The Nazis bombed Kerch almost daily. Heavy blows shook the city. People fled to the bomb shelter. And the small boy dragged kids on his street to a shelter, but he never stayed there himself. It was Volodya Dubinin. After lights out, pale, confused people appeared on the streets, looking for their homes and not finding them... After the next bombing, Volodya told himself that he had to act decisively, go to the front. There, at least, if you have to die, then the death of the brave on the battlefield.
Screening of a scene from the book “Street of the Youngest Son.”
Volodya Dubinin, while the fascists were in the city, helped the underground fighters, the partisans who were in the catacombs. Small in stature, but quick-witted and observant, Volodya, moving through the streets of the city, noticed everything, took notes and brought a lot of valuable information to the partisans. The Nazis tried to destroy the partisans: they walled up and mined all the passages in the quarries. But even during these terrible times, Volodya showed great courage and, having organized a group of pioneers, went out with them and collected valuable information. When I learned that the Nazis wanted to flood the catacombs, I managed to get through the Nazi guards and warn people.
Volodya died when the Red Army soldiers had already entered the city. I wanted to help the sappers clear mines in the quarries and blew myself up.
Volodya Dubinin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his exemplary performance of command assignments on the front in the fight against the German invaders and for the courage and valor shown. A street in his hometown of Kerch is named after him.
The book “Street of the Youngest Son” was written about Volodya Dubinin (L. Kassil, M. Polyanovsky).
4. YUTA BONDAROVSKAYA(slide 5)
Wherever the blue-eyed girl Yuta went, her red tie was always with her...
The war found a girl from Leningrad on vacation near Pskov. Here she saw the enemy for the first time. Utah went to the partisans. At first she was a messenger, then a scout. Dressed as a beggar boy, she collected information from the villages: where the fascist headquarters were, how they were guarded, how many machine guns there were.
Returning from a mission, I immediately tied a red tie and it was as if my strength increased! How happy she was when she learned that the blockade of Leningrad had been broken! That day, both Yuta’s blue eyes and her red tie shone like never before.
Soon the detachment, together with units of the Red Army, left to help the Estonian partisans. In one of the battles in Rostov, Yuta Bondarovskaya, the little heroine of the great war, a pioneer who never parted with her red tie, died a heroic death.
The Motherland awarded its heroic little daughter posthumously with the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
- ARKADY KAMANIN (slide 6)
He dreamed of the sky and wanted to become a pilot. Arkady's father, Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin, pilot, Hero Soviet Union, participated in the rescue of the Chelyuskinites.
When the war began, he went to work at an aircraft factory, then at an airfield, and took every opportunity to take to the skies. Pilots often trusted him to fly the plane. One day the cockpit glass was broken by an enemy bullet. The pilot was blinded. Losing consciousness, he managed to transfer control to Arkady, and the boy landed the plane at his airfield. And soon he began to fly on his own.
One day, from above, a young pilot saw our plane shot down by enemies. Under heavy mortar fire, Arkady landed, carried the pilot to him, took off into the air and returned to his own. The Order of the Red Star shone on his chest.
Until the victory, the young hero fought with the Nazis.
For participation in battles with the enemy, Arkady Kamanin was awarded the second Order of the Red Star. And he was only fifteen years old.
- LENYA GOLIKOV (slide 7)
Lenya grew up in the village of Lukino, which is located on the banks of the Polo River, which flows into the legendary Lake Ilmen. When the village was captured by the Nazis, the boy went to the partisans.
More than once he went on reconnaissance, brought important information to the partisan detachment - and enemy trains and cars flew downhill, bridges collapsed, enemy warehouses burned...
There was a battle in his life that Lenya fought alone with a fascist general. A grenade thrown by a boy hit a German car. Two officers got out of it, but the young partisan was not afraid and began to shoot. One Nazi fell, and the second Nazi, with a briefcase in his hands, fired back and ran away. Lyonya follows him. He pursued the enemy for almost a kilometer and finally defeated him. The briefcase contained very important documents, which were immediately sent to Moscow. And the killed German turned out to be a general and was carrying valuable information: drawings of new types of mines, maps and diagrams of minefields. For this feat, Lenya Golikov was nominated for the highest award - the Gold Star medal.
There were many more battles in his short life. And the young hero, who fought shoulder to shoulder with adults, never flinched.
Lenya died in the winter of 1943 near the village of Ostray Luka, when the enemy was especially fierce, feeling that the earth was burning under his feet, that there would be no mercy for him...
On April 2, 1944, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, pioneer partisan Lena Golikov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
- MARAT KAZEY (slide 8)
Marat Kazei lived in a Belarusian village with his mother. In the fall, he was supposed to go to 5th grade, but the Nazis broke into the village. The Nazis turned the school building into their barracks.
For her connection with the partisans, my mother, Anna Alexandrovna, was captured by the Nazis, and soon Marat learned that she had been hanged in Minsk. His heart was filled with pain and hatred for the enemy.
The enemies killed my dear mother!
Mommy, mommy was killed today.
She helped fight the enemy,
My beloved mother passed away today!
What should I do now alone?
How will I live?
How can I overcome this terrible misfortune?
I will go to the forest with the partisans with my sister.
I will live among the partisans,
I will be a fighter and a scout there.
Together with his sister Ada, a Komsomol member, the pioneer Marat Kazei went to the partisans in the forest and became a scout. He penetrated enemy garrisons and delivered valuable information to the command. Using this data, the partisans defeated the fascist garrison in Dzerzhinsk. Together with demolition men, he mined the railway, took part in battles and invariably showed courage and fearlessness.
In 1943, Marat helped a detachment of reconnaissance troops break through the enemy’s ring of fire, for which he was awarded the medal “For Courage.”
In 1944, Marat Kazei died in an unequal battle with enemies. On a mission near the village of Khoromitsky, Marat was discovered by the Nazis and surrounded. The young partisan fired until the last bullet, and when he had only one grenade left, he let the enemies get closer and blew them up... and himself.
For courage and bravery, pioneer Marat Kazei was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union
You can read about Marat Kazei and interesting episodes from his life in the book “Brave Marat” by S. Shushkevich.
- SASHA KONDRATIEV (slide 9)
Before the war, Sasha Kondratyev lived in the village of Golubkovo, was an ordinary boy, studied at school, helped on a collective farm and dreamed of becoming a pilot...
The war roused the entire people to fight the fascists. As if immediately growing up, the boy Sasha began to fight the invaders. Together with his faithful friend Kostya, he found mines in the forest after the battle, and then planted them under a mill, and in a neighboring village - under a house where the Nazis were located. He collected and stored weapons in a cache, and his father then transported them to the partisans. Together with his mother, he sheltered soldiers who escaped from captivity, cared for wounded Red Army soldiers and was always eager to get into a real battle.
He gave the enemy a real fight. Not far from the village there was an airfield from which the planes of his mortal enemy took off into the Sashino sky. Taking cover nearby with a light machine gun in his hands, Sasha waited... And when the Messerschmitt rose into the air, gaining altitude, Sasha shot him with machine-gun bursts. Shrouded in black clouds of smoke, the fascist plane crashed into the forest, but the headman was already hurrying towards Sasha. He saw all this and immediately reported it to the Nazis. Sasha, realizing that he was dying, stood in front of them proudly, openly - he felt like a winner!
- VALYA KOTIK (slide 10)
Valya Kotik was born in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Khmelnitsky region. He studied at school and was a recognized leader of the pioneers, his peers.
When the Nazis burst into Shchepetovka, Valya and his friends decided to fight the enemies.
I will gather my courage, strength,
I will beat the Germans without mercy,
So that nothing threatens friends,
So that we can study and live.
The guys collected weapons at the battle site, which they then transported to the partisans on a cart of hay.
Having taken a closer look at the boy, the communists entrusted Valya with being a liaison and intelligence officer for their underground organization. He learned the location of enemy posts and the order of changing the guard.
In the fall of 1941, Valya and his friends tracked down and killed the head of the German gendarmerie by blowing up his car with a grenade.
The Nazis planned a punitive operation against the partisans, and Valya, tracking down the Nazi officer who led the punitive forces, killed him...
The Germans began to suspect that someone among the residents was helping the partisans. When arrests began in the city, Valya, her mother and brother went to the partisans. The young partisan accounted for six enemy trains that were blown up! Valya Kotik was awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War, II degree, and the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree. The pioneer, who had just turned fourteen years old, fought shoulder to shoulder with adults, liberating his native land. Valya Kotik died as a hero, and the Motherland posthumously awarded him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A monument to him was erected in front of the school where this brave pioneer studied.
We can learn more about Val Kotik from his mother’s story in the book Kotik A. “He Was a Pioneer.”
- GALYA KOMLEVA (slide 11)
The Nazis were approaching Leningrad. A counselor was left behind for underground work in the village of Tarnovichi high school Anna Petrovna Semenova. To communicate with the partisans, she selected her most reliable pioneers, among them Galya Komleva. A cheerful, brave, inquisitive girl, during her six school years, always studied with straight A's.
The young messenger brought assignments from the partisans to her counselor, and forwarded her reports to the detachment along with bread, potatoes, and food, which were obtained with great difficulty. Together with Komsomol member Tasya Yakovleva, Galya wrote leaflets and scattered them around the village at night.
The Nazis tracked down and captured the young underground fighters. They kept me in the Gestapo for two months. They beat me severely, threw me into a cell, and in the morning they took me out again for interrogation. Galya didn’t say anything, didn’t give anyone away. The young patriot was shot.
The Motherland celebrated the courage and feat of Galya Komleva with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class
- VALERY VOLKOV (slide 12)
There is a war going on, Sevastopol is fighting. Enemy planes drop thousands of bombs. Enemy artillery is continuously firing at our defense line. Among the roar of explosions and the flames of fires - a fragile boyish figure. Pioneer Valery Volkov collects cartridges and disks on the battlefield, and pulls machine guns behind him. The fighters of the young intelligence officer nicknamed him Sevastopol Gavroche.
Valera, not knowing fear, went on the attack next to the adults. Between battles he published the newspaper “Okopnaya Pravda”. How the fighters waited for each issue, how worried they were, reading the passionate lines calling for a merciless fight against the enemy, to the last drop of blood.
The fighters held the defense in the narrowest place at the bottom of the gorge. Suddenly three enemy tanks appeared ahead. They were rapidly approaching. Valera, clutching a bunch of grenades, stepped towards them. The bullet hit my shoulder. With the last of his strength, he rushed forward and threw grenades. Explosion! The tank spun in place, blocking the way for others... The battle was won, but in this battle the favorite of the 7th Marine Brigade, pioneer Valery Volkov, died. The Black Sea people buried their fighting friend, and his tie, soaked in blood, was placed on a pole, and it fluttered like a red battle flag. Valery dreamed of returning to Sevastopol after the victory. And he returned. He returned as a living legend, in human memory. The Motherland awarded the brave pioneer the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
12. SASHA BORODULIN(slide 13)
There was a war going on. Enemy bombers were buzzing hysterically over the village where Sasha lived. The native land was trampled by the enemy's boot. Sasha Borodulin, a pioneer with a warm heart, could not bear this. He decided to fight the fascists. Got a rifle. Having killed a fascist motorcyclist, he took his first battle trophy - a real German machine gun. Day after day he fought his unequal battle. And then he met the partisans, and Sasha’s Strength increased many times over. He became a full-fledged member of the squad. I went on reconnaissance missions and more than once went on the most dangerous missions. He accounted for many enemy vehicles and soldiers. For carrying out dangerous tasks, for demonstrating courage, resourcefulness and courage, Sasha Borodulin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in the winter of 1941.
Punishers tracked down the partisans. The detachment left them for three days. But the enemy ring was closing. Then the commander called for volunteers to cover the detachment’s retreat. Sasha was the first to step forward. Five volunteers took up the fight. One by one they died. Sasha was left alone. It was still possible to retreat - the forest was nearby, but the detachment valued every minute that would delay the enemy, and Sasha fought to the end. He allowed the fascists to close a ring around him. And then Sasha Borodulin pulled out a grenade and blew them up and himself. Sasha died, but his memory lives on.
13. LUSYA GERASIMENKO(slide 14)
The quiet and trusting, modest and affectionate girl Lyusya was not yet 11 years old when the capital of Belarus - her native Minsk - was captured by the Nazis. From the first days of the occupation, an underground organization began to work in the city. The leader of one of the groups was Lucy’s father, Nikolai Gerasimenko. Pioneer Lucy began to actively help her father. During meetings of the underground, she was on duty in the courtyard. She delivered important reports, posted leaflets, brought food from the factory where her father worked, carefully hiding it at the bottom of the pan in which she brought lunch to her father. Her courage and endurance amazed even adults.
The Nazis tracked down the Gerasimenko family. Lyusya and her mother Tatyana Danilovna were captured. Every day the girl was taken for interrogation, brutally beaten, tortured, tortured. The brave pioneer did not mention a single name, nor did she say a word to the enemy. The Nazis shot Lucy.
The name of Lucy Gerasimenko is included in the Book of Honor of the Belarusian Republic.
14. ZINA PORTNOVA (slide 15)
The war found the Leningrad pioneer Zina Portnova in the village of Zuya, where she came for vacation, not far from the village of Obol, Vitebsk region. An underground Komsomol-youth organization “Young Avengers” was created in Obol, and Zina was elected a member of its committee. She took part in daring operations against the enemy, in sabotage, distributed leaflets, and conducted reconnaissance on instructions from a partisan detachment. She managed to get a job in a canteen for German officers and poison their food. To escape arrest, the girl went to the partisans
... It was December 1943. Zina was returning from her next assignment. In the village of Mostishche she was betrayed by a traitor. The Nazis captured the young partisan and tortured her. The answer to the enemy was Zina’s silence, her contempt and hatred, her determination to fight to the end. During one of the interrogations, choosing the moment, Zina grabbed a Gestapo man’s pistol and shot him at point-blank range. The officer who ran in to hear the shot was also killed on the spot.
And suddenly with lightning speed
She knocks the gun out of her hands!
And then the officer was killed on the spot,
And Zina runs through the dark basement.
And to the forest, to the forest she rushed quickly,
But the fascists rushed after her in a pack.
They caught him and kept him in prison for a month.
She was shot in the early morning darkness...
Zina tried to escape, ran out of the building, but the Nazis overtook her... The brave young pioneer was brutally tortured, but until the last minute she remained persistent, courageous, unbending. Her homeland posthumously celebrated her feat with the highest title - Hero of the Soviet Union.
About Zina Portnova we read A. Solodov’s book “Girl with Pigtails”
15. VASYA KOROBKO (slide 16)
Chernihiv region. The front came close to the village of Pogoreltsy. On the outskirts, covering the withdrawal of our units, a company held the defense. A boy brought cartridges to the soldiers. His name was Vasya Korobko.
Night. A boy creeps up to a school building occupied by the Nazis. He makes his way into the pioneer room, takes out the pioneer banner and hides it securely.
The outskirts of the village. A boy under the bridge. He pulls out the iron brackets, saws down the piles, and at dawn, from a hiding place, watches the bridge collapse under the weight of a fascist armored personnel carrier. In those days, the partisans were convinced that he could be trusted and entrusted him with a serious task: to become a scout in the very lair of the enemy. At the fascist headquarters, he lights the stoves, chops wood, and he takes a closer look, remembers, and passes on information to the partisans. Punishers. Those who planned to exterminate the partisans forced the boy to lead them into the forest. But Vasya led the Nazis to a police ambush. The Nazis, mistaking them for partisans in the dark, opened furious fire, killed all the policemen and themselves suffered heavy losses.
Together with the partisans, Vasya destroyed nine echelons and hundreds of Nazis. In one of the battles he was hit by an enemy bullet. Your little hero, who lived a short but bright life, The Motherland awarded the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 1st degree.
16. SASHA CHEKALIN (slide 17)
Sasha Chekalin was born in the village of Peskovatoye, Tula region. The son of a hunter, Sasha learned to shoot accurately from an early age and knew the surrounding forests well. At the beginning of the war, Sasha, along with other residents of the village, was captured, but on the way to the city, the brave boy escaped from under the convoy into the forest. In July 1941, Alexander volunteered to join the “Advanced” fighter detachment, where he became a reconnaissance officer. He delivered information to headquarters about the location and strength of German units, their weapons, routes, and on equal terms with experienced partisans, the fifteen-year-old boy participated in ambushes, mined roads, undermined communications and derailed German trains.
At the beginning of November 1941, Sasha returned to his native village. But the headman turned out to be a traitor and reported the partisans to the invaders. German soldiers surrounded the house and asked Sasha to surrender. In response, the young man opened fire, and when the cartridges ran out, he threw a single grenade at the Nazis, but it did not explode. Sasha was captured and taken to the military commandant's office. He was tortured for several days, but the hero did not reveal his name or any important information. Having achieved nothing, the Nazis staged a demonstration execution in the city square: on November 6, 1941, Alexander Chekalin was hanged. Before his death, he shouted: “They won’t take Moscow! You can't defeat us!
Posthumously, Alexander was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
More reliable than obelisks
Harsh memory of hearts.
Forever on squad lists
The young fighter was enrolled.
Currently, the city of Likhvin, where Alexander was executed, has been renamed Chekalin.
You can read the story by V.A. about the life and exploits of a young partisan. Smirnova "Sasha Chekalin". The feature film “Fifteenth Spring” is dedicated to his fate.
Without sparing yourself
In the fire of war
Sparing no effort
In the name of the Motherland,
Children of the heroic country
They were real heroes!
Robert Rozhdestvensky
Presenter 1.
Now let everyone ask themselves the question: “Could I do this?” - and, having answered himself sincerely and honestly, he will think about how to live and study today in order to be worthy of the memory of his wonderful peers, the young citizens of our country.
In the harsh years of great battles
Soviet people saved the planet,
But the scars of severe war wounds
Remained forever on the body of the earth.
...The winds blew the marching trumpets,
The rain was beating like a drum...
The hero guys went on reconnaissance
Through thicket forests and swamp swamps...
And now the rangers are going on reconnaissance,
Where once peers walked...
Will not,
Will not,
Won't be forgotten
The guys are heroes of our native land!
...And it seems that we are back in the fight and on the march
Today in the ranks of my faithful friends
Golikov Lenya, Dubinin Volodya,
Kotik, Matveeva, Zverev, Kazei.
In days of peace, winning and building, the Fatherland remembers the years of war.
Glory for centuries, pioneer heroes!
Hail, comrades, forever living!
N. Dobronravov
LITERATURE
1. Children-heroes: Collection. – M.: Mol. Guard, 1961;
2. Collection: Salute, Pioneering! – M.: Malysh, 1982;
3. Collection: It’s a feat to live! – M.: Young Guard, 1975;
4. Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress /about Valya Zenkina and Petya Klypa/”;
5. Solodov A. Girl with pigtails. – M.: DOSAAF, 1975. /about Zina Portnova/;
6. Kotik A. He was a pioneer: A mother’s story / about her son, partisan V. Kotik / - Novosibirsk: Zap. Sib. book publishing house, 1980;
7. Sboychakov S. Two young heroes. – M.: Politizdat, 1964. /about Lena Golikov/;
8. Shushkevich S. Brave Marat. – M.: Det. lit., 1972;
9. Kassil L.A., Polyanovsky M.L. Street of the youngest son.- M.: Det. lit., 1979/ about Volodya Dubinin/;
10. . Alekseev S. There is a people's war: Stories from the history of the Great Patriotic War. – Chisinau: Lit. Art. 1989;
11 Pioneers-heroes: Album-exhibition. - M.: Malysh, 1974.
12. Smirnov V.A. "Sasha Chekalin."
Presentation "Pioneer Heroes"
A 14-year-old boy from Ukrainian Shepetovka became the youngest Hero of the Soviet Union.
You don’t choose times, says the well-known wisdom. Some people experience a childhood with pioneer camps and collecting waste paper, others with game consoles and accounts on social networks.
A military secret
The generation of children of the 1930s inherited a cruel and terrible war, which took away relatives, loved ones, friends and childhood itself. And instead of children's toys, the most persistent and courageous took rifles and machine guns into their hands. They took it to take revenge on the enemy and fight for the Motherland.
War is not a child's business. But when she comes to your house, the usual ideas change radically.
In 1933 the writer Arkady Gaidar wrote “The Tale of the Military Secret, the Malchish-Kibalchish and his firm word.” This work by Gaidar, written eight years before the start of the Great Patriotic War, was destined to become a symbol of memory of all the young heroes who died in the fight against the Nazi invaders.
Valya Kotik, like all Soviet boys and girls, of course, heard the fairy tale about Malchish-Kibalchish. But he hardly thought that he would have to be in the place of the brave hero Gaidar.
He was born on February 11, 1930 in Ukraine, in the village of Khmelevka, Kamenets-Podolsk region, into a peasant family.
Valya had an ordinary childhood as a boy of that time, with the usual pranks, secrets, and sometimes bad grades. Everything changed in June 1941, when war broke into the life of sixth-grader Valya Kotik.
Desperate
The rapid Hitlerite blitzkrieg of the summer of 1941, and now Valya, who by that time lived in the city of Shepetivka, together with his family was already in the occupied territory.
The victorious power of the Wehrmacht instilled fear in many adults, but did not frighten Valya, who, together with his friends, decided to fight the Nazis. To begin with, they began to collect and hide weapons that remained at the sites of battles that raged around Shepetivka. Then they grew bolder to the point that they began to steal machine guns from unwary Nazis.
And in the fall of 1941, a desperate boy committed real sabotage - setting up an ambush near the road, he used a grenade to blow up a car with Nazis, killing several soldiers and the commander of a field gendarmerie detachment.
The underground members learned about Valya's affairs. It was almost impossible to stop the desperate boy, and then he was involved in underground work. He was tasked with collecting information about the German garrison, posting leaflets, and acting as a liaison.
For the time being, the nimble boy did not arouse suspicion among the Nazis. However, the more successful actions became on the account of the underground, the more carefully the Nazis began to look for their assistants among the local residents.
A young partisan saved a detachment from punitive forces
In the summer of 1943, the threat of arrest hung over Valya’s family, and he, along with his mother and brother, went into the forest, becoming a fighter in the Karmelyuk partisan detachment.
The command tried to take care of the 13-year-old boy, but he was eager to fight. In addition, Valya showed himself to be a skilled intelligence officer and a person capable of finding a way out of the most difficult situation.
In October 1943, Valya, who was on a partisan patrol, ran into punitive forces preparing to attack the base of a partisan detachment. They tied up the boy, but, deciding that he did not pose a threat and could not provide valuable intelligence, they left him under guard right there, on the edge of the forest.
Valya himself was wounded, but managed to get to the hut of the forester who was helping the partisans. After recovery, he continued to fight in the detachment.
Valya participated in the undermining of six enemy echelons, the destruction of the Nazi strategic communications cable, as well as in a number of other successful actions, for which he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree.”
Vali's last fight
On February 11, 1944, Valya turned 14 years old. The front was rapidly moving to the West, and the partisans helped the regular army as best they could. Shepetovka, where Valya lived, had already been liberated, but the detachment moved on, preparing for its last operation - the assault on the city of Izyaslav.
After it, the detachment had to be disbanded, the adults had to join the regular units, and Valya had to return to school.
The battle for Izyaslav on February 16, 1944 turned out to be hot, but it was already ending in favor of the partisans when Valya was seriously wounded by a stray bullet.
Soviet troops rushed into the city to help the partisans. The wounded Valya was urgently sent to the rear, to the hospital. However, the wound turned out to be fatal - on February 17, 1944, Valya Kotik died.
Valya was buried in the village of Khorovets. At the request of his mother, the son’s ashes were transferred to the city of Shepetivka and reburied in the city park.
A large country that survived a terrible war could not immediately appreciate the exploits of all those who fought for its freedom and independence. But over time, everything fell into place.
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, 1958, Valentin Aleksandrovich Kotik was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
In history, he never became Valentin, remaining simply Valya. The youngest Hero of the Soviet Union.
His name, like the names of other pioneer heroes whose feats were told to Soviet schoolchildren in the post-war era, was defamed in the post-Soviet period.
But time puts everything in its place. A feat is a feat, and betrayal is betrayal. Valya Kotik, in a difficult time of testing for the Motherland, turned out to be more courageous than many adults, who to this day are looking for justification for their cowardice and cowardice. Eternal glory to him!
Young heroes of the Great Patriotic War
Educational material for extracurricular activities literary reading or history for elementary school on the topic: WWII
Before the war, these were the most ordinary boys and girls. They studied, helped their elders, played, raised pigeons, and sometimes even took part in fights. These were ordinary children and teenagers, whom only family, classmates and friends knew about.
But the hour of difficult trials came and they proved how huge an ordinary little child’s heart can become when a sacred love for the Motherland, pain for the fate of one’s people and hatred for enemies flares up in it. Together with the adults, the weight of adversity, disaster, and grief of the war years fell on their fragile shoulders. And they did not bend under this weight, they became stronger in spirit, more courageous, more resilient. And no one expected that it was these boys and girls who were capable of accomplishing a great feat for the glory of the freedom and independence of their Motherland!
No! - we told the fascists, -
Our people will not tolerate
So that Russian bread is fragrant
Called by the word "brot"....
Where is the strength in the world?
So that she can break us,
Bent us under the yoke
In those regions where on the days of victory
Our great-grandparents
Have you feasted so many times?..
And from sea to sea
The Russian regiments stood up.
We stood up, united with the Russians,
Belarusians, Latvians,
People of free Ukraine,
Both Armenians and Georgians,
Moldovans, Chuvash...
Glory to our generals,
Glory to our admirals
And to the ordinary soldiers...
On foot, swimming, horseback,
Tempered in hot battles!
Glory to the fallen and the living,
Thank you to them from the bottom of my heart!
Let's not forget those heroes
What lies in the damp ground,
Giving my life on the battlefield
For the people - for you and me.
Excerpts from S. Mikhalkov’s poem “True for Children”
Kazei Marat Ivanovich(1929-1944), partisan of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (1965, posthumously). Since 1942, scout for a partisan detachment (Minsk region).
The Nazis burst into the village where Marat lived with his mother, Anna Alexandrovna. In the fall, Marat no longer had to go to school in the fifth grade. The Nazis turned the school building into their barracks. The enemy was fierce. Anna Aleksandrovna Kazei was captured for her connection with the partisans, and Marat soon learned that his mother had been hanged in Minsk. The boy's heart was filled with anger and hatred for the enemy. Together with his sister Hell Marat, Kazei went to the partisans in the Stankovsky forest. He became a scout at the headquarters of a partisan brigade. He penetrated enemy garrisons and delivered valuable information to the command. Using this data, the partisans developed a daring operation and defeated the fascist garrison in the city of Dzerzhinsk. Marat took part in battles and invariably showed courage and fearlessness; together with experienced demolitionists, he mined the railway. Marat died in battle. He fought to the last bullet, and when he had only one grenade left, he let his enemies get closer and blew them up... and himself. For courage and bravery, fifteen-year-old Marat Kazei was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A monument to the young hero was erected in the city of Minsk.
Portnova Zinaida Martynovna (Zina) (1926-1944), young partisan of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (1958, posthumously). Scout of the partisan detachment “Young Avengers” (Vitebsk region).
The war found Leningrad resident Zina Portnova in the village of Zuya, where she came for vacation, not far from the Obol station in the Vitebsk region. An underground Komsomol-youth organization “Young Avengers” was created in Obol, and Zina was elected a member of its committee. She took part in daring operations against the enemy, distributed leaflets, and conducted reconnaissance on instructions from a partisan detachment. In December 1943, returning from a mission in the village of Mostishche, Zina was handed over as a traitor to the Nazis. The Nazis captured the young partisan and tortured her. The answer to the enemy was Zina’s silence, her contempt and hatred, her determination to fight to the end. During one of the interrogations, choosing the moment, Zina grabbed a pistol from the table and shot point-blank at the Gestapo man. The officer who ran in to hear the shot was also killed on the spot. Zina tried to escape, but the Nazis overtook her. The brave young partisan was brutally tortured, but until the last minute she remained persistent, courageous, and unbending. And the Motherland posthumously celebrated her feat with its highest title - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Kotik Valentin Alexandrovich(Valya) (1930-1944), young partisan of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (1958, posthumously). Since 1942 - liaison officer for an underground organization in the city of Shepetivka, scout for a partisan detachment (Khmelnitsky region, Ukraine).
Valya was born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Khmelnitsky region. Studied at school No. 4. When the Nazis burst into Shepetivka, Valya Kotik and his friends decided to fight the enemy. The guys collected weapons at the battle site, which the partisans then transported to the detachment on a cart of hay. Having taken a closer look at the boy, the leaders of the partisan detachment entrusted Valya to be a liaison and intelligence officer in their underground organization. He learned the location of enemy posts and the order of changing the guard. The Nazis planned a punitive operation against the partisans, and Valya, having tracked down the Nazi officer who led the punitive forces, killed him. When arrests began in the city, Valya, along with his mother and brother Victor, went to join the partisans. An ordinary boy, who had just turned fourteen years old, fought shoulder to shoulder with adults, liberating his native land. He was responsible for six enemy trains that were blown up on the way to the front. Valya Kotik was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 2nd degree. Valya died as a hero in one of the unequal battles with the Nazis.
Golikov Leonid Alexandrovich(1926-1943). Young partisan hero. Brigade scout of the 67th detachment of the fourth Leningrad partisan brigade, operating in the Novgorod and Pskov regions. Participated in 27 combat operations.
In total, he destroyed 78 fascists, two railway and 12 highway bridges, two food and fodder warehouses and 10 vehicles with ammunition. He distinguished himself in battles near the villages of Aprosovo, Sosnitsa, and Sever. Accompanied a convoy with food (250 carts) to besieged Leningrad. For valor and courage he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Battle and the medal "For Courage".
On August 13, 1942, returning from reconnaissance from the Luga-Pskov highway, near the village of Varnitsa, he blew up a passenger car in which there was a German Major General of the Engineering Troops, Richard von Wirtz. In a shootout, Golikov shot and killed the general, the officer accompanying him, and the driver with a machine gun. The intelligence officer delivered a briefcase with documents to the brigade headquarters. These included drawings and descriptions of new models of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other important military papers. Nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. On January 24, 1943, Leonid Golikov died in an unequal battle in the village of Ostraya Luka, Pskov Region. By decree of April 2, 1944, the Presidium of the Supreme Council awarded him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Arkady Kamanin dreamed of heaven when I was just a boy. Arkady's father, Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin, a pilot, participated in the rescue of the Chelyuskinites, for which he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And my father’s friend, Mikhail Vasilyevich Vodopyanov, is always nearby. There was something to make the boy's heart burn. But they didn’t let him fly, they told him to grow up. When the war began, he went to work at an aircraft factory, then at an airfield. Experienced pilots, even if only for a few minutes, sometimes trusted him to fly the plane. One day the cockpit glass was broken by an enemy bullet. The pilot was blinded. Losing consciousness, he managed to hand over control to Arkady, and the boy landed the plane at his airfield. After this, Arkady was allowed to seriously study flying, and soon he began to fly on his own. One day, from above, a young pilot saw our plane shot down by the Nazis. Under heavy mortar fire, Arkady landed, carried the pilot into his plane, took off and returned to his own. The Order of the Red Star shone on his chest. For participation in battles with the enemy, Arkady was awarded the second Order of the Red Star. By that time he had already become an experienced pilot, although he was fifteen years old. Arkady Kamanin fought with the Nazis until the victory. The young hero dreamed of the sky and conquered the sky!
Utah Bondarovskaya in the summer of 1941 she came from Leningrad on vacation to a village near Pskov. Here a terrible war overtook her. Utah began to help the partisans. At first she was a messenger, then a scout. Dressed as a beggar boy, she collected information from the villages: where the fascist headquarters were, how they were guarded, how many machine guns there were. The partisan detachment, together with units of the Red Army, left to help the Estonian partisans. In one of the battles - near the Estonian farm of Rostov - Yuta Bondarovskaya, the little heroine of the big war, died a heroic death. The Motherland posthumously awarded its heroic daughter the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree, and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
When the war began and the Nazis were approaching Leningrad, high school counselor Anna Petrovna Semenova was left for underground work in the village of Tarnovichi - in the south of the Leningrad region. To communicate with the partisans, she selected her most reliable guys, and the first among them was Galina Komleva. During her six school years, the cheerful, brave, inquisitive girl was awarded books six times with the signature: “For excellent studies.” The young messenger brought assignments from the partisans to her counselor, and forwarded her reports to the detachment along with bread, potatoes, and food, which were obtained with great difficulty. One day, when a messenger from a partisan detachment did not arrive on time at the meeting place, Galya, half-frozen, made her way into the detachment, handed over a report and, having warmed up a little, hurried back, carrying a new task to the underground fighters. Together with the young partisan Tasya Yakovleva, Galya wrote leaflets and scattered them around the village at night. The Nazis tracked down and captured the young underground fighters. They kept me in the Gestapo for two months. The young patriot was shot. The Motherland celebrated the feat of Galya Komleva with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
For the operation of reconnaissance and explosion of the railway bridge across the Drissa River, Leningrad schoolgirl Larisa Mikheenko was nominated for a government award. But the young heroine did not have time to receive her award.
The war cut off the girl from hometown: in the summer she went on vacation to the Pustoshkinsky district, but was unable to return - the village was occupied by the Nazis. And then one night Larisa and two older friends left the village. At the headquarters of the 6th Kalinin Brigade, the commander is Major P.V. Ryndin initially refused to accept “such little ones.” But young girls were able to do what strong men could not. Dressed in rags, Lara walked through the villages, finding out where and how the guns were located, the sentries were posted, what German vehicles were moving along the highway, what kind of trains were coming to Pustoshka station and with what cargo. She also took part in military operations. The young partisan, betrayed by a traitor in the village of Ignatovo, was shot by the Nazis. In the Decree on awarding Larisa Mikheenko the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, there is a bitter word: “Posthumously.”
Could not put up with the atrocities of the Nazis and Sasha Borodulin. Having obtained a rifle, Sasha destroyed the fascist motorcyclist and took his first battle trophy - a real German machine gun. This was a good reason for his admission to the partisan detachment. Day after day he conducted reconnaissance. More than once he went on the most dangerous missions. He was responsible for many destroyed vehicles and soldiers. For carrying out dangerous tasks, for demonstrating courage, resourcefulness and courage, Sasha Borodulin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in the winter of 1941. Punishers tracked down the partisans. The detachment left them for three days. In the group of volunteers, Sasha remained to cover the detachment’s retreat. When all his comrades died, the brave hero, allowing the fascists to close a ring around him, grabbed a grenade and blew them up and himself.
The feat of a young partisan
(Excerpts from M. Danilenko’s essay “Grishina’s Life” (translation by Yu. Bogushevich))
At night, punitive forces surrounded the village. Grisha woke up from some sound. He opened his eyes and looked out the window. A shadow flashed across the moonlit glass.
- Dad! - Grisha called quietly.
- Sleep, what do you want? - the father responded.
But the boy did not sleep anymore. Stepping barefoot on the cold floor, he quietly went out into the hallway. And then I heard someone tear open the doors and several pairs of boots thundered heavily into the hut.
The boy rushed into the garden, where there was a bathhouse with a small extension. Through the crack in the door Grisha saw his father, mother and sisters being taken out. Nadya was bleeding from her shoulder, and the girl was pressing the wound with her hand...
Until dawn, Grisha stood in the outbuilding and looked ahead with wide open eyes. The moonlight filtered sparingly. Somewhere an icicle fell from the roof and crashed on the rubble with a quiet ringing sound. The boy shuddered. He felt neither cold nor fear.
That night a small wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. Appeared never to disappear again. Grisha's family was shot by the Nazis.
A thirteen-year-old boy with an unchildishly stern look walked from village to village. I went to Sozh. He knew that somewhere across the river his brother Alexei was, there were partisans. A few days later Grisha came to the village of Yametsky.
A resident of this village, Feodosia Ivanova, was a liaison officer for a partisan detachment commanded by Pyotr Antonovich Balykov. She brought the boy to the detachment.
The detachment commissar Pavel Ivanovich Dedik and the chief of staff Alexey Podobedov listened to Grisha with stern faces. And he stood in a torn shirt, with his legs knocked against the roots, with an unquenchable fire of hatred in his eyes. The partisan life of Grisha Podobedov began. And no matter what mission the partisans were sent on, Grisha always asked to take him with them...
Grisha Podobedov became an excellent partisan intelligence officer. Somehow the messengers reported that the Nazis, together with policemen from Korma, robbed the population. They took 30 cows and everything they could get their hands on and were heading towards the Sixth Village. The detachment set off in pursuit of the enemy. The operation was led by Pyotr Antonovich Balykov.
“Well, Grisha,” said the commander. - You will go with Alena Konashkova on reconnaissance. Find out where the enemy is staying, what he is doing, what he is thinking of doing.
And so a tired woman with a hoe and a bag wanders into the Sixth Village, and with her a boy dressed in a large padded jacket that is too large for his size.
“They sowed millet, good people,” the woman complained, turning to the police. - Try to raise these fellings with little ones. It's not easy, oh, it's not easy!
And no one, of course, noticed how the boy’s keen eyes followed each soldier, how they noticed everything.
Grisha visited five houses where fascists and policemen stayed. And I found out about everything, then reported in detail to the commander. A red rocket soared into the sky. And a few minutes later it was all over: the partisans drove the enemy into a cleverly placed “bag” and destroyed him. The stolen goods were returned to the population.
Grisha also went on reconnaissance missions before the memorable battle near the Pokat River.
With a bridle, limping (a splinter had gotten into his heel), the little shepherd scurried among the Nazis. And such hatred burned in his eyes that it seemed that it alone could incinerate his enemies.
And then the scout reported how many guns he saw at the enemies, where there were machine guns and mortars. And from partisan bullets and mines, the invaders found their graves on Belarusian soil.
At the beginning of June 1943, Grisha Podobedov, together with partisan Yakov Kebikov, went on reconnaissance to the area of the village of Zalesye, where a punitive company from the so-called Dnepr volunteer detachment was stationed. Grisha snuck into the house where the drunken punishers were having a party.
The partisans silently entered the village and completely destroyed the company. Only the commander was saved; he hid in a well. In the morning, a local grandfather pulled him out of there, like a filthy cat, by the scruff of the neck...
This was the last operation in which Grisha Podobedov participated. On June 17, together with foreman Nikolai Borisenko, he went to the village of Ruduya Bartolomeevka to buy flour prepared for the partisans.
The sun shone brightly. A gray bird fluttered on the roof of the mill, watching people with its cunning little eyes. Broad-shouldered Nikolai Borisenko had just loaded a heavy sack onto the cart when the pale miller came running.
- Punishers! - he exhaled.
The foreman and Grisha grabbed their machine guns and rushed into the bushes growing near the mill. But they were noticed. Evil bullets whistled, cutting off the branches of the alder tree.
- Get down! - Borisenko gave the command and fired a long burst from the machine gun.
Grisha, aiming, fired short bursts. He saw how the punishers, as if they had stumbled upon an invisible barrier, fell, mowed down by his bullets.
- So for you, so for you!..
Suddenly the sergeant-major gasped loudly and grabbed his throat. Grisha turned around. Borisenko twitched all over and fell silent. His glassy eyes were now looking indifferently at the high sky, and his hand was stuck, as if stuck, in the stock of the machine gun.
The bush, where only Grisha Podobedov now remained, was surrounded by enemies. There were about sixty of them.
Grisha clenched his teeth and raised his hand. Several soldiers immediately rushed towards him.
- Oh, you Herods! What did you want?! - the partisan shouted and slashed at them point-blank with a machine gun.
Six Nazis fell at his feet. The rest lay down. More and more often bullets whistled over Grisha’s head. The partisan was silent and did not respond. Then the emboldened enemies rose again. And again, under well-aimed machine gun fire, they pressed into the ground. And the machine gun had already run out of cartridges. Grisha pulled out a pistol. - I give up! - he shouted.
A tall and thin as a pole policeman ran up to him at a trot. Grisha shot him straight in the face. For an elusive moment, the boy looked around at the sparse bushes and clouds in the sky and, putting the pistol to his temple, pulled the trigger...
You can read about the exploits of young heroes of the Great Patriotic War in the books:
Avramenko A.I. Messengers from Captivity: a story / Transl. from Ukrainian - M.: Young Guard, 1981. - 208 e.: ill. — (Young heroes).
Bolshak V.G. Guide to the Abyss: Document. story. - M.: Young Guard, 1979. - 160 p. — (Young heroes).
Vuravkin G.N. Three pages from a legend / Trans. from Belarusian - M.: Young Guard, 1983. - 64 p. — (Young heroes).
Valko I.V. Where are you flying, little crane?: Document. story. - M.: Young Guard, 1978. - 174 p. — (Young heroes).
Vygovsky B.S. Fire of a young heart / Transl. from Ukrainian — M.: Det. lit., 1968. - 144 p. - (School library).
Children of the wartime / Comp. E. Maksimova. 2nd ed., add. - M.: Politizdat, 1988. - 319 p.
Ershov Ya.A. Vitya Korobkov - pioneer, partisan: a story - M.: Voenizdat, 1968 - 320 p. — (Library of a young patriot: About the Motherland, exploits, honor).
Zharikov A.D. Exploits of the Young: Stories and Essays. — M.: Young Guard, 1965. —- 144 e.: ill.
Zharikov A.D. Young partisans. - M.: Education, 1974. - 128 p.
Kassil L.A., Polyanovsky M.L. Street of the youngest son: a story. — M.: Det. lit., 1985. - 480 p. — (Student’s military library).
Kekkelev L.N. Countryman: The Tale of P. Shepelev. 3rd ed. - M.: Young Guard, 1981. - 143 p. — (Young heroes).
Korolkov Yu.M. Partisan Lenya Golikov: a story. - M.: Young Guard, 1985. - 215 p. — (Young heroes).
Lezinsky M.L., Eskin B.M. Live, Vilor!: a story. - M.: Young Guard, 1983. - 112 p. — (Young heroes).
Logvinenko I.M. Crimson Dawns: document. story / Transl. from Ukrainian — M.: Det. lit., 1972. - 160 p.
Lugovoi N.D. Scorched childhood. - M.: Young Guard, 1984. - 152 p. — (Young heroes).
Medvedev N.E. Eaglets of the Blagovsky forest: document. story. - M.: DOSAAF, 1969. - 96 p.
Morozov V.N. A boy went on reconnaissance: a story. - Minsk: State Publishing House of the BSSR, 1961. - 214 p.
Morozov V.N. Volodin Front. - M.: Young Guard, 1975. - 96 p. — (Young heroes).
Made and sent by Anatoly Kaidalov._____________________ FULL TEXT OF THE BOOK
Young friends!
M. Gorky. Pioneers
Voskresenskaya. Hawks. Story. Rice. I. Godin and A. Golubev.
Leaflets. (Excerpt from the story about the childhood of S. M. Kirov.) Fig. V. Vinokura
M. Vodopyanov. In Siberia. Story
S. Mogilevskaya. The Tale of the Loud Drum. Rice. A. Itkina
Ya. Shvedov. Eaglet. Poetry
L. Panteleev. Green Berets. Story. Rice. A. Itkina
E. Bagritsky. Death of a pioneer. Poetry
N. Lupsyakov. Machine gun. Story. Rice. V. Makeeva
K. Simonov. The major brought the boy on a gun carriage. Poetry
B Lavrenev. A big heart. Story. Rice. I. Pakholkova
I. Utkin. Ballad about Zaslonov and his adjutant. Poetry
P. Tsvirka. Nightingale. Story. Rice. B. Rytman
A. Zharov. March of Young Pioneers. Sgihi
A. Aleksin. Seva Kotlov beyond the Polar Circle. Chapters from the story. Rice. N. Ustinova
B. Zheleznikov. Astronaut. Story Fig. N. Tseytlina
L Tvardovsky. For the feat of the century. Poetry
The authors of this book, each in their own way - some in poetry, some in prose, some in drawings - reflected the diversity of our life and showed how our children - schoolchildren and pioneers - participate in it, talked about the children of the revolution - the predecessors of today's pioneers. They talked about pioneer honor, about pioneer glory.
YOUNG FRIENDS!
No matter how old you are, no matter what month you were born, you are all birthday people on May 19th. On this day, in 1922, she was born pioneer organization named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - our glorious multi-million dollar red-tie Pioneer.
The pioneer organization's birthday is a holiday not only for children. This is our common holiday.
Almost all of us, adults, each at one time, were pioneers. Many still have fresh memories of the years when guys with pioneer ties were looked at with curiosity, as if they were a curiosity.
Now there is no corner in our country where red ties do not lie; There is no city, town or village where the pioneer trumpets do not sound loudly, calling on the children to study, to work, to fight for the cause of communism.
The whole country celebrates the glorious date - the birthday of the Pioneers, the children's communist organization, because we do not have a person whose heart was not warmed by the heat of the pioneer fire, and because we do not have such deeds, great or small, to which we would not give ours Our pioneers have skillful hands, keen eyes, and cheerful ingenuity. Even into space, into the vastness of the Universe, the first to escape and circle the entire globe was a student of the Pioneer Army, Yuri Gagarin.
Our great leader and teacher Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, talking with the guys, liked to say:
- When you grow up, of course, you will become a good communist!
Vladimir Ilyich's dream came true. Millions of pioneers, growing up, become good Komsomol members, and then good communists.
You guys are the heirs of the great deeds of the Bolsheviks-Leninists. It is up to you to build our bright future. You live under communism.
So be everywhere and in everything, in study and work, real pioneers, going ahead, constantly discovering new things for the sake of human happiness.
The authors of this book, each in their own way - some in poetry, some in prose, some in drawings - wanted to reflect the diversity of our life and show how our children - schoolchildren and pioneers - participate in it, talk about the children of the revolution - the predecessors of today's pioneers, talk about pioneer honor, about pioneer glory, about a great future.
Happy pioneer spring to you, dear guys! Happy holiday!
M. Gorky
TO THE PIONEERS
What are pioneers?
People who settled new, newly discovered lands were called pioneers.
Many famous scientists are called pioneers: Louis Pasteur, the founder of bacteriology; Curie, who discovered radium, Professor Dokuchaev, who, while exploring Russian soils, opened the way for new science- geochemistry. Karl Marx can be called a pioneer; he illuminated the entire history of mankind with a new light and showed the working people of the whole world the only direct path to freedom. Vladimir Lenin, the first to boldly lead the working class along the road shown by Marx, can also be called a pioneer.
Any social work that expands and deepens the growth of universal human culture and serves the interests of the working classes has, has and will have its pioneers.
You guys are the children, brothers and sisters of the pioneers of the social revolution, the children of the builders of the new world, you are also entering a new land that has just been opened to you, you will populate it as the owners of all its treasures, as free workers for yourself.
Before you is a wonderful, heroic work: to continue the greatest, heroic, just work begun by the fathers.
You must see everything, study everything, arm yourself with knowledge and not disdain any work.
You pioneers must dare and walk straight along the road opened before you by Lenin.
Forward, pioneers!
Hawks are not birds or airplanes. Hawks. - these are pioneer boys.
Just as today the pioneers help the party and the Komsomol in all matters, so in the revolution of 1905 the pioneer boys helped their fathers in the fight for freedom.
The hawks guarded the rallies together with the rabbi-friends. They sat on patrol at work days, acted as messengers, and distracted the gendarmes and spies.
For their speed in action, ingenuity and fearlessness, the workers called these guys hawks.
These were the very first pioneers in Russia.
Vasyl and the hawks made their way to Paninsky Garden. Yegorka balked: he’s already been here - that’s enough! He still remembers how the watchman almost tore off his ear, and in addition, he spanked his mother for her torn shirt. This is not counting the scratched hands in the gooseberry bushes.
Vasyl looked at him with contempt:
- Bagel with poppy seeds! He cannot understand: this is not pampering. And now there are no gooseberries or a watchman in the garden.
“I just got scared,” Romka explained and added various other words that were not very pleasant for Yegorka.
But Yegorka flatly refused to go into the garden.
The guys climbed over a high brick fence. Felt boots are too big, too big for your feet. We jumped into the fluffy, deep snowdrift.
In the garden they scattered along the fence. Everyone took a liking to a “loophole” - a hole in a brick wall, made simply for beauty, but for the benefit of the children. Through these holes one could see a piece of the street and talk as if through a pipe.
Vasyl took a position at the second loophole from the corner.
Romka settled down on an old crooked willow tree that grew opposite the People's House.
His fingers soon became numb and his legs were cold, but Romka was afraid to move so as not to expose himself.
At the entrance of the house, snow dust sparkled in the light of the lanterns. The policeman, the owner of the street, the fierce enemy of all the boys, clacked on the cobblestones with his shod boots. If only he didn't notice Romka!
Finally, a window in the basement lit up. Romka instantly slid down the tree, waited until the policeman disappeared at the end of the street, and jumped into the entrance.
The performance ended in the auditorium and the audience began to leave; There was noise and crowding in the wardrobe. Together with the spectators, the delegates of the First St. Petersburg Party Conference, which met here secretly, also left the People's House.
On the second floor, Romka opened the door to the room next to the lobby. There were many chairs scattered around the room. A short man with a high forehead stood facing the door. There are red sparkles in his beard and mustache, and golden sparkles in his eyes. He put on his coat and said to Uncle Yefim:
- We worked very well today, Efim Petrovich. The vote showed that the Bolsheviks had the upper hand.
Romka wanted to close the door, but the speaker noticed him and asked:
- Who do you want, young man?
“Uncle Efim for me,” Romka answered and blushed: he didn’t do it like an adult.
Efim Petrovich looked around.
- This is our hawk, Vladimir Ilyich. Is everything all right? - he asked Romka.
- Look like that's it.
- Can we be sure? - asked Vladimir Ilyich.
- Yes! - Romka answered firmly and felt like an adult again.
He got out with the crowd into the street, ran along the fence and pressed his back against the second loophole. You could hear someone blowing and breathing loudly through the hole in the wall. Romka seized an opportune moment and angrily whispered to Vasily into the speaking tube:
- Tell them to sit quietly and not puff.
The boys fell silent, but then Fedyunka began to talk about how in St. Petersburg the horse trams would be driven not by live horses, but by “electric” ones, and that all those horses in invisible caps and in a foreign language were called “trams”. Fedyunka wanted to tell him something else interesting, but he received a slap on the head from Vasil and fell silent.
Romka peered intently at the people passing by. The doors of the People's House have already stopped slamming, and the street is empty. Did you really miss it? He even felt hot, and his ears began to ring from the tension. Somewhere from the direction of Rasstannaya Street, screams were heard, and a policeman hurried there. “Probably a fight,” thought Romka.
Two people came out of the entrance to the People's House. One was long and thin - this was Uncle Yefim, and in the second, dressed in a dark coat and a tall sheepskin hat, Romka recognized a man with a golden sparkle in his eyes.
A gentleman in a long coat and a bowler hat emerged from around the corner, with a cane in his hands. With small, quick steps, he followed Uncle Yefim and his companion. He walked stealthily, like a cat, and even the snow did not creak under his feet.
It was bacon.
Romka knew that the spy would now follow Uncle Efim’s companion like a shadow and somewhere along the way he would point him out to the gendarmes and they would arrest him and put him in prison, just as they put Romka’s father in prison.
Times were hard. The year was 1906, the second year of the Russian Revolution. The Tsar did not spare ammunition and did not skimp on prisons for revolutionary workers. But the workers did not give up. Romka went to meet the spy.
The lard picked up speed. Suddenly, in front of him, as if out of the ground, a boy appeared in a jacket that did not fit his height and with a hat pulled down over his eyes.
- Uncle, tell me
The spy just waved his hand:
- Come on!
But the boy walked alongside, and it was clear that he would not retreat until he resolved the issue that was occupying him.
So they walked side by side: the gendarme servant in the clothes of a master and the St. Petersburg boy in holey felt boots and beggarly clothes, but with a pure and brave heart.
- Uncle! - Romka suddenly shouted that he had strength when they reached the brick fence, and stood on the panel, blocking the enemy’s path.
At the same moment, Romkina and Vasilyov's hawks began to fall from the fence onto the spy.
Vasyl stood on top of the brick wall and commanded:
- Fedyunka, sit on his back, the devil! Syomka, get ahead of yourself!
- Be bold, don’t be timid! Go ahead and give in! - Romka encouraged.
Fedyunka jumped off the wall, but was preceded by his grandfather’s felt boots that had fallen off his feet, and someone, in the heat of the dump, kicked the felt boots to the side.
Vasil was already downstairs. The boys all surrounded the master together, shouted something, complained about someone, swung their fists at each other and clung to the spy’s hands. The spy tried to tear them away from him, free himself, cursed and finally yelled: “Kar-r-aul!” - but his cry was drowned in childish hubbub.
Egorka appeared from somewhere. He grabbed a felt boot lying on the panel and rushed into the dump with a triumphant cry.
Spy slipped and fell, dragging the boys with him, and his bowler hat flew off his head.
Romka got out of the crowd of guys and looked around. He was hot and breathing heavily.
A long shadow emerged from the darkness. It was Uncle Yefim returning. He was already alone.
- Why are you rowdy? - Efim Petrovich made a noise, pretending to be angry. “Why was a man knocked down?” Here I am now! Well, go away!..
The hawks instantly scattered to the sides, and Uncle Yefim helped the spy to his feet. But the spy angrily pushed him away, grabbed the bowler hat that Vasil obligingly handed him, grabbed a whistle from his pocket and began to whistle as hard as he could.
The policeman did not appear. He had been distracted even earlier by the vigilante workers. Swearing fiercely, the spy ran towards the police station.
Fedyunka stood against the wall. He stuck both feet into one felt boot and could not move. Because of his grandfather's felt boots. did not have to participate in the case.
Romka snatched Yegorka’s felt boot:
- I also found a brave man - to fight with someone else’s felt boots1
The guys surrounded Uncle Yefim.
“Run to the corner of Rasstannaya,” Efim Petrovich ordered Vasil. “The rabbi-friend Gavrila Ivanovich is standing there, tell him: “Sabbath, everything is fine.”
Vasil rushed off. Uncle Yefim walked down the street. The boys followed him. They walked in silence, looked at Uncle Yefim and kept waiting for what he would say. And he just chuckled slyly into his mustache.
“Well, what’s there to talk about,” he finally said. “They provided great help to the vigilantes, they carried out an important assignment.” Helped a dear person. So that...
They were now walking down the street and were its owners.
Snow fell.
An old, crooked willow tree stood in elegant frost.
The street was clean.
A. Golubeva
FLYERS
(Excerpt from stories about the childhood of S. M. Kirov)
Seryozha Kostrikov, a student at the Kazan Industrial School, came to visit his grandmother in the city of Urzhum for the summer holidays. His friend Sanya introduces Seryozha to the exiled revolutionary Pavel Ivanovich. Pavel Ivanovich invites the guys to visit him.
Seryozha had long wanted to meet the exiles. And finally I met a real politician!
“Sanya, let’s go to the student tomorrow,” Seryozha said to Sanya.
And the next day in the evening they went to the yellow house under the mountain.
- Oh, send guests to gnaw the bones! - an unfamiliar exile, an elderly and tall man, met them smiling in the hallway. “Come on, come on, guys, to the table!”
Seryozha and Sanya go into the room. The exiles drank tea. Pavel Ivanovich introduced his comrades to the others. Nine people lived in the house. Seryozha and Sanya found out that there were young and old here, there were students and workers, that the name of the tall, elderly exile who met them was Zbtkin, that he was a worker, a mechanic at the Putilovsky plant.
On the first evening, Seryozha and Sanya sat and talked with the exiles for an hour. Two days later they went again to the house under the mountain. Now they were invited not only by Pavel Ivanovich, but also by the mechanic Zbtkin and everyone else.
“I see that you guys are good and, in my opinion, you know how to remain silent,” said locksmith Zbtkin about three weeks later.
“We can!” - Seryozha wanted to shout, but was embarrassed.
- In this matter, friends, caution is needed. We need some help.
- What needs to be done? - asked Seryozha; Even his hands began to tremble with excitement.
- Leaflets!
And the mechanic Zbtkin began to tell and explain to his comrades how to print leaflets. There were a lot of problems: you need to buy glycerin and gelatin at the pharmacy. There is only one pharmacy in the city. You can’t buy right away; you need to take turns going to the pharmacy so that the bald and fat pharmacist is not surprised: why do the guys need so many bottles of glycerin?
Then you need to cook an ointment composition from glycerin. And then print leaflets
- Well, do you understand everything? - asked Zbtkin.
- All!
For eight days Seryozha and Sanya went to the pharmacy to buy glycerin. Then we cooked the composition of the vrbde ointment.
And so at night, when everyone at home was asleep, Seryozha and Sanya went to the old bathhouse.
Here they covered the bath window with a cotton blanket, lit a lantern and began printing leaflets. The leaflets say why the poor live poorly and the rich live well, and who is to blame. At the bottom, at the very end of the leaflets, in large letters it was written: “Death the Tsar! Long live the revolution!"
If the police had caught Seryozha and Sanya with such leaflets, they would have immediately put them in prison.
Seryozha and Sanya were typing while they listened to see if anyone was coming. Seryozha ran out to look outside twice. It's quiet and dark outside. Only grasshoppers are chattering in the grass and a dog is barking at the end of the street.
They worked until the morning, and when the sun rose, the shepherd began to play and drove the cows into the field, Seryozha ran to the exiles.
“We have everything ready,” he told Zotkin. “Three hundred leaflets have come out!”
- Well done boys! - the locksmith praised. - Now you have the last and most dangerous task left: tonight you need to scatter these leaflets throughout the city, at the market and on the Malmyzhsky tract. Be careful not to fall into the clutches of the policemen. Be careful.
- We will! - Seryozha answered.
Night has come. Seryozha and Sanya began to get ready. They hastily stuffed leaflets into their pockets and stuffed them into their bosoms. Their shirts bulged and their pockets bulged.
“First we’ll go to the market, then to the Malmyzhsky tract,” said Seryozha.
They turned off the lantern and left the bathhouse into the courtyard. Then, carefully, on tiptoe, they walked across the yard and went out into the street.
The city was sleeping.
They walked quickly and silently through the quiet, sleepy city and soon reached the bazaar.
“Begin,” Seryozha said in a whisper.
Crouching down, they ran to the empty wooden counters, on which the peasants were placing their goods - krinkas with milk. Silently and quickly Seryozha and Sanya scatter
Bali leaflets on the shelves. Crunching and snorting were heard from all sides. It was unharnessed horses chewing hay. Peasants who had arrived on market day slept on and under the carts. Sometimes sleepy people moved and stood up. Seryozha and Sanya immediately hid behind the counters; when everything calmed down, they got to work again. Soon all the counters were covered with white leaflets.
- Well, it's ready! - Seryozha whispered. “Now we run to the Malmyzhsky tract.”
And they ran. It was not that close to the highway, and the work had to be finished before morning. At one of the houses with a high fence and a carved iron gate, Seryozha stopped, pulled out several leaflets from his pocket and threw them over the high fence into the garden. Sanya got scared and grabbed his hand. The biggest Urzhum chief, police officer Peneshkevich, lived in this house.
- Let's run!
Seryozha pushed Sanya in the side, and they rushed at full speed. When the street was left behind, Seryozha said in a whisper:
- Let him know that revolutionaries don’t sleep at night!
Behind the city garden, the guys took off their boots and crossed Ur-
ford the zhumka On the other side of the river, the Malmyzhsky tract immediately began. The forest was dark on both sides. As soon as Seryozha and Sanya reached him, suddenly a short, piercing whistle was heard somewhere behind. It seemed like they were whistling very close. Seryozha and Sanya rushed headlong into the forest. It was possible to hide in it from pursuit.
After the first whistle, the second sounded, and finally everything fell silent.
“Stop!” Seryozha stopped Sanya. “Where are you going?” We need to distribute leaflets.
- Right! - Sanya said, taking a breath.
They walked along the road and left a leaflet here and there: near roadside bushes, in ditches and by the road.
Half an hour later, every single leaflet was scattered.
“You know, Sanya, let’s go back the other way,” thought Seryozha. “The whistle was a policeman.” Maybe the policemen are guarding us at the ford.
The road went through a swamp. The guys often fell into cold water. The branches of the fir trees whipped them in the face.
“It’s okay, we’ll come home and dry off,” Seryozha encouraged his comrade.
It was beginning to get light. Wet, tired, but happy, the friends returned home.
They carried out the instructions of the exiled revolutionaries perfectly.
M. Vodopyanov
IN SIBERIA
I was not yet eight years old when my father quarreled with my grandfather and decided to leave my native place. Our family made a great journey then. I probably would not have remembered this journey if there had not been a meeting in a foreign land that I could never forget. I remember it even now.
We left for Siberia, settled either in a large village or in a small town - Taishet. My father got a job as a loader at a railway station. At first everything seemed to go well. We rented a small wooden bathhouse on the outskirts for a modest fee and settled down in it almost as comfortably as in a hut. But our quiet life did not last long.
Quite unexpectedly, the father was arrested. My mother was left in a foreign land without relatives or friends, with two children: me and my sister Tanya, who was not even a year old.
We knew nothing about my father's fate. My mother did daily work: she brought pies of her own making to the station when the trains arrived, which I was drooling over in vain: she sold the pies to passengers, and bought something simpler for us. Our life was not rich before, but then it became completely difficult.
Finally, almost a year later, a letter arrived from my father. How strange, it was written by him himself, although his father was illiterate
This is roughly what he wrote from the Irkutsk prison:
“Hello, my dear Maria and children Misha and Tanya!
I send you a low bow and wish you all good health. I'm sitting in prison, I don't know why. At first I was accused of complicity in the theft of some kind of merchandise when unloading a wagon with textiles. Then they said that I was standing near the barracks during a political meeting, and they kept interrogating who was at this meeting. It’s like this: maybe there were political ones among our unskilled workers, but that’s not my business. And during all the interrogations I only said what I actually knew: I was tired after unloading the coal, sat down to rest in the shade behind the barracks, and took a little nap.
I'm sitting in prison together with the political ones. Political, I tell you, very good people. So they taught me to read and write.
If you can, come and visit. I asked, they said they would let me in. I miss you very much. I remain alive and well - your Vasily.”
From this letter I first learned that there are some “political” people.
Soon the mother, with her little sister in her arms, went to see her father.
“Live as best you can,” she told me at parting. “I left you enough bread.” And if you need anything else, ask people - maybe people will not bypass you. I'll be back soon
So I was left alone, my own master, and began to live as a free Cossack. I walked with my friends until late in the evening. Either we went fishing to the Biryusyo River, then into the forest, or played knuckles all day long. It was at this time that a meeting took place that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Mushrooms have already appeared in the taiga thickets surrounding Taishet on all sides. The berries haven't come yet. And for a bucket of berries you could get the money that each of us needed.
And then one day, with two comrades - Andrei Dubinin and Vitya Somov - we climbed quite far into the thicket. It was a clear afternoon, but in the dark depths of the forest there was such a gloomy silence that it seemed as if night was approaching. Unconsciously submitting to the harshness of the nature around us, we also fell silent. I even felt a little uneasy, but no one, of course, even suggested that he was a coward.
In those days, everyone on everyone's mind was the escaped prisoners who were being driven to hard labor along the Siberian Highway. The city was excited about this event. The adults quietly discussed escape from the boys. The merchants began to lock their shops tighter, and the police saw escaped convicts at every step. The incident happened not far from Taishet, and it was quite possible that the fugitives were hiding somewhere nearby.
I clearly remember the burning shame that gripped me when Andreika said contemptuously:
- Are you a coward, or what?.. Then there’s no point in going into the forest! I would stay at home.
Everyone fell silent. And suddenly, in the ensuing silence, we heard a quiet, indistinct sound, like a groan.
I don’t know about my comrades, but I was very scared.
- Well, what are you talking about? - Andreyka asked a minute later. “You never know what will happen in the forest.” That’s why the forest is there.
But the groan came again. He was so weak that if his hearing had not been extremely strained, then perhaps we would not have heard him. But we perceived every noise with such heightened sensitivity that it seemed that in just a little while we would hear the grass growing.
“Perhaps the bear is sleeping somewhere,” I finally said, “or some kind of animal has been shot down?”
The comrades were silent. We waited for a while to see if the sound would repeat itself, but everything was quiet.
I would like to firmly tell myself and convince my comrades that nothing happened, that we simply imagined the sighs, and so we can’t get away from the suspicious place. But that would be cowardice. We discussed what to do and decided to investigate the mystery of the incomprehensible sound.
Carefully, stealthily, we walked in single file to a group of bushes from where these mysterious moans seemed to be heard. Andrey went first. As soon as he parted the bushes, he immediately stopped. A man in iron handcuffs was lying on the ground in an awkward position. He didn't move. The eyes were closed. A dark beard and mustache covered the lower part of his face. The fugitive appeared dead.
“Uncle, uncle!” Andreika asked quietly. “Are you alive or not?”
“Hey,” the man asked plaintively, like a child.
From that moment on, we no longer had any fear. It was replaced by a completely new feeling - responsibility for human life. Whoever he was, his fate was in our hands. We alone could either help him or let him die - and, of course, we did not choose!
Andreika immediately drove me to the forest lake for water.
When I returned with a bucket of muddy, greenish water, the fugitive had already been transferred to a soft bedding of branches and moss. Only then did I notice that he was wounded: the guys bandaged his shoulder with pieces of calico torn from his own shirt. Andrei and Vitya drove the midges away from the motionless body. They wanted to take the bucket away from me and give the man a drink, but I could not allow this: since I went to the lake, I had the right to give him a drink myself.
From the moment I brought water to his lips, we did not part for four days. This happened because the guys quite rightly judged:
- Your mother is not here. Sit here, and we will get milk, bread, whatever else you need and bring it.
I agreed and they left. I still feel bad that I was too young back then: I didn’t understand a lot, I forgot a lot. I remember that I made a hut out of branches, made a fire, picked berries, and even cooked mushroom soup for someone who was wounded. I also remember that we talked quite a lot. The wounded man asked me about my life, about my family, and I, having gained courage, asked him a direct question:
- Why were you arrested, uncle? Was someone killed or stolen?
He just smiled and told me that he had never stolen or killed in his life, and that the tsarist government puts many people in shackles just because they want to change the order: to take away land and factories from the rich and make life good for them ordinary people like my parents and myself
This raised me very much in my own eyes: no one had ever spoken about me as a person and never talked to me so seriously, like a human being. When I learned that people like him are called political, it seemed to me that I already understood everything. It’s not for nothing that my father praised them in his letter!
The wounded man recovered quickly. The serious condition in which we found him was explained not so much by injury as by hunger and thirst. Andreika and Vitya brought us enough food from Taishet for two, and, sitting with the political one, I was completely satisfied with my fate. But we also had very important concerns: we had to get rid of the hated handcuffs, but how? Get decent clothes, but where? We decided to save this person who had become our dearest at all costs. He instilled in us a very strong feeling about himself.
Vitka Somov once said:
- When they arrest me, I will also run away and endure everything, just as he endures. Therefore, freedom is more valuable than anything, and it is better to die in the taiga than to live in hard labor!
Our new friend asked not to talk about the meeting with him in the city. We took a terrible oath to this. I, too, said all the solemn words I could think of, although, in fact, none of this was required of me: after all, I was sitting hopelessly in the forest and there was no one to tell me. Later, I often asked myself the question: why did we fall in love with this man so much, why did we so ardently set out to save him?
After all, the point was not at all that we were carried away by unusual circumstances. Time has erased from my memory those wonderful conversations that he had with us by the fire, but it’s as if I still see in front of me our little hut and my comrades, who with bated breath, afraid to move, listened to Uncle’s conversations (as he himself asked to call myself). Apparently, there was something in his words that worried our childish souls. We felt that fate brought us together with a great wonderful person. From him we learned
or that the people in our country are oppressed, that the best people do not spare their lives for their liberation. And in what words he was able to convey this to us, I won’t undertake to repeat.
Andreika and Vitya, through incredible resourcefulness, using all the boyish cunning they were capable of, obtained a file in the city. Then they got some very good boots, a cap, a jacket and trousers. They brought scissors, and Uncle carefully trimmed his beard. Freed from handcuffs, decently dressed, he turned out to be handsome and stately.
- I just wish I could get to Krasnoyarsk! - said Uncle. “There’s one there.” They will get me a passport, and I will begin to fight for the people again.
- Just don’t get caught again! - Andrey asked. “Do you know how difficult it is to get a file?”
Uncle laughed. We did not immediately understand why. Only when he added seriously that there was no way he could ever get caught again, since he had escaped twice and the third time he would definitely be hanged, we realized that Andreyka had said something stupid and it wasn’t the file.
The hour of farewell has come. I remember him very well, just like last words Uncles.
We stood by the extinguished fire, among huge pines and cedars. Evening came, and the taiga surrounded us with a solid black wall, through which our friend had to pass.
Uncle was thinking about something. Finally he said:
- Dear Guys! I will never forget you. But I would like you to remember me too. The day will come when the people who are now being handcuffed will win. And then I would like to meet you again, Thank you, my dear, glorious comrades and saviors
Seven years later, when the revolution had already occurred, I remembered these words and for a long time hoped that now I would definitely meet the victorious Uncle
And the four days I spent with him forever remained the brightest memory of my childhood.
S. Mogilevskaya
TALE OF A LOUD DRUM
The drum hung on the wall between the windows, just opposite the bed where the boy slept.
It was an old military drum, very worn on the sides, but still strong. The skin on it was stretched tightly, and there were no sticks. And the drum was always silent, no one heard its voice.
One evening, when the boy went to bed, the boy's grandparents came into the room. In their hands they carried a round package in brown paper.
“He’s asleep,” said the grandmother.
- Well, where should we hang this? - Grandfather said, pointing to the package.
“Over the crib, above his crib,” the grandmother whispered.
But grandfather looked at the old war drum and said:
- No. We will hang it under our Larick's drum. This is a good place.
They unwrapped the package. And what? It contained a new yellow drum with two wooden sticks. Grandfather hung it under the big drum and left the room with grandmother
And then the boy opened his eyes. He opened his eyes and laughed, because he was not sleeping at all, but pretending.
He jumped off the bed, ran barefoot to where the new yellow drum hung, pulled a chair closer to the wall, climbed onto it and picked up the drumsticks.
At first he hit the drum quietly, using only one stick. And the drum responded cheerfully: tram-there! Then he hit with the second stick. The drummer answered even more cheerfully: tram-tam-tam!
What a nice drum!
And suddenly the boy looked up at a large military drum. Previously, when there weren’t these strong wooden sticks, you couldn’t even reach it from a chair. And now?
The boy stood on tiptoes, reached up and hit the big drum with his stick. And the drum hummed in response to him quietly and sadly
It was a long, long time ago. Then my grandmother was still a little girl with thick pigtails.
And my grandmother had a brother. His name was Larik. He was a cheerful, handsome and brave boy. He was the best at playing gorodki, the fastest at skating, and he was also the best at studying.
In early spring, the workers of the city where Larik lived began to gather a detachment to go fight for Soviet power.
Larik was thirteen years old at the time.
He went to the detachment commander and told him:
- Sign me up for the squad. I will also go fight the whites.
- And how old are you? - asked the commander.
- Fifteen! - Larik answered without blinking.
- As if? - asked the commander. And he repeated again: “As if?”
“Yes,” said Larik.
But the commander shook his head:
- No, you can’t, you’re too young.
And Larik had to leave with nothing.
And suddenly, near the window, on a chair, he saw a new military drum. The drum was beautiful, with a shiny copper rim and tightly stretched skin. Two wooden sticks lay nearby.
Larik stopped, looked at the drum and said:
- I can play the drum
- Really? - the commander was delighted. - Try it!
Larik threw the drum straps over his shoulder and took them
hands with a stick and hit the tight top with one of them. The stick bounced off like a spring, and the drum responded with a cheerful bass: boom!
Larik hit with another stick! Boom! - the drum answered again.
And then Larik began drumming with two sticks.
Wow, how they danced in his hands! They simply could not stop themselves, they simply could not stop. They beat such a beat that I wanted to stand up, straighten up and step forward!
One-two! One-two! One-two!
And Larik remained in the detachment.
The next morning the detachment left the city. When the train started moving, Larpka’s cheerful song was heard from the open doors of the vehicle:
Bam-bara-bam-bam! Bam-bam-bam1 In front of everyone is the drum, the Commander and the drummer.
Larik and drum immediately became comrades.
In the mornings they got up earlier than everyone else.
- Great, buddy! - Larick said to his drum; he lightly spanked it with his palm.
“Hello!” - the drum hummed in response. And they got to work.
The detachment did not even have a bugle. Larik and the drum were the only musicians. In the morning they played wake-up calls:
Bam-bara-bam!
Bam-bam-bay!
Good morning,
Bam-bara-bam!
It was a nice morning song!
When the detachment was marching, they had another song in store. Larik's hands never got tired, and the voice of the drum did not stop all the way. It was easier for the soldiers to walk along the muddy autumn roads. Singing along to their drummer, they walked from stop to stop, from stop to stop...
And in the evening, at rest stops, the drum also had work to do. Of course, it was difficult for him alone to cope. He was just getting started;
Eh1 Bam-bara-bam,
Bam-bara-bam!
More fun than everyone else
Drum!
They immediately picked up the wooden spoons:
And we also hit deftly!
Bim-bnri-bbm,
Bim-biri-bom!
Then four scallops entered;
We will not leave you behind!
Beams-bams, beams-bams!
And the last ones started playing harmonicas.
Now that was fun! One could listen to such a wonderful orchestra all night long.
But the drum and Larin had one more song. And this song was the loudest and most necessary. Wherever the fighters were, they immediately recognized the voice of their drum from thousands of other drum voices. Yes, if necessary, Larik knew how to sound the alarm
Winter has come. Spring has come again. Larin was already fifteen years old.
The Red Guard detachment returned again to the city where Larik grew up. The Red Guards walked as scouts in front of a large, strong army, and the enemy ran away, hiding, hiding, striking from around the corner.
The detachment approached the city late in the evening. It was dark, and the commander ordered to stop for the night near the forest, not far from the railroad bed.
“I haven’t seen my father, mother and little sister for a whole year,” Larik told the commander. “I don’t even know if they are alive.” Can I visit them? They live behind that forest
“Well, go,” said the boss.
And Larik went. He walked and whistled faintly. Underfoot, water gurgled in shallow spring puddles. It was light from the moon. Behind Larik's back hung his comrade in arms - a military drum.
- Will they recognize him at home? No, the little sister, of course, won’t find out. He felt two pink gingerbread cookies in his pocket. He saved this gift for her
He approached the edge. It was so good here! The forest stood very quiet, all silvered with moonlight.
Larik stopped. A shadow fell from a tall spruce tree. Larik stood covered by this black shadow.
Suddenly a dry branch quietly clicked.
One is on the right. The other one is on the left. Behind the back
People came out to the edge. There were many of them. They walked in a long line. Rifles at the ready. The two stopped almost next to Larik. On the shoulders are White Guard shoulder straps. One officer said to the other very quietly;
- Some of the soldiers are coming from the side of the forest, the other is along the railway line. The rest come from the rear.
“We will close them in a ring and destroy them,” said another.
And, stealthily, they passed by.
These were enemies.
Larik took a deep breath. He stood in the shadows. They didn't notice him.
Larik rubbed his hot forehead with his palm. All clear! This means that some come from the forest, some come from the rear, some along the railroad bed
The Whites want to encircle them and destroy them.
We need to run there, to our own people, to the Reds. We need to warn you, and as soon as possible.
But will he have time? They can get ahead of him. They might grab it on the way
No! It needs to be done differently.
And Larik turned his war drum towards himself, took out wooden sticks from his belt and, waving his arms widely, hit the drum.
Anxiety!
It sounded like a shot, like a thousand short gun shots.
Anxiety!
The whole forest opened up, hummed, drummed with a loud echo, and a small brave drummer stood near each tree and beat the war drum.
Larik stood under a spruce tree and saw enemies rushing towards him from all sides. But he didn't move. He just pounded, pounded, pounded the drum for his last war song.
And only when something hit Larik in the temple and when he fell, the drumsticks themselves fell out of his hands
Larik could no longer see how the red soldiers rushed towards the enemy with rifles at the ready, and how the defeated enemy fled from the direction of the forest, and from the side of the city, and
from where the thin lines of the railroad tracks glittered.
In the morning the forest became quiet again. The trees, shaking off drops of moisture, raised their transparent tops to the sun, and only the old spruce had wide branches lying completely on the ground.
The soldiers brought Larin home. His eyes were closed.
The drum was with him. Only the sticks remained in the forest, where they fell out of Larik’s hands.
And the drum was hung on the wall.
He hummed for the last time - loudly and sadly, as if saying goodbye to his glorious comrade.
This is what the old war drum told the boy.
The boy quietly climbed down from the chair and tiptoed back to bed.
He lay for a long time with his eyes open, and it seemed to him as if he were walking along a wide, beautiful street and vigorously beating his new yellow drum. The drummer’s voice is loud, bold, and together they sing Larik’s favorite song:
Bam-bara-bam, Bam-bara-bam, Ahead of everyone is the drum. Commander and drummer.
Ya. Shvedov
EAGLE
Little eaglet, little eaglet, fly higher than the sun
And look at the steppes from the heights!
The cheerful boys fell silent forever,
I was the only one left alive.
Eaglet, eaglet, show off your feathers.
Outshine the white light with yourself.
I don't want to think about death, believe me,
At sixteen boyish years.
Eaglet, eaglet, explosive grenade
The enemy was shallow from the hill.
I was called the little eagle in the squad.
Enemies are called eagle.
Eaglet, little eagle, my faithful comrade,
You see that I survived.
Fly to the village and tell your dear one.
Take your son to be shot.
Eaglet, little eagle, winged comrade.
The distant steppes are on fire.
Komsomol eaglets rush to the rescue,
And life will return to me.
Eaglet, eaglet, echelons are coming.
Victory by struggle is decided.
In power the eagle eagles millions,
And the country is proud of us.
L. Panteleev
GREEN BERETS
The events that the writer L. Panteleev talks about date back to very distant times. After the civil war, hunger and devastation reigned in our country. Thousands of children were left homeless and without parents. For these street children, the Soviet government opened boarding schools, schools, colonies, and orphanages. But the young republic of workers and peasants did not have enough funds. After all, the plants and factories did not work, the village was ruined
L. Panteleev in those years was also homeless; he was brought up in the Leningrad commune school named after Dostoevsky, or in “Shkida”, as its pupils called this school for short. All this can be learned from the story itself. And the life and adventures of the Shkidians are described in even more detail in the story “The Republic of Shkid” by G. Belykh and L. Panteleev.
I was never a pioneer, although due to my age it was quite possible for me to wear a red tie for more than one year, or even several years. And not only was I not a member of the pioneer organization, but for some time I considered all the young pioneers to be my mortal enemies.
Here's how it turned out.
For some reason, Shkida didn’t go to the dacha that summer. We languished in the city all summer.
I remember a sultry June day, the afternoon, when all the windows in all the classrooms and bedrooms were wide open and yet there was no breathing in the rooms. The Shkidians, brutalized by the heat, those who were left without vacations and walks for “good” behavior, wander from room to room, try to read, lazily play cards and scold the Chaldeans for all the world, by whose mercy they are sitting on this stuffy sunny day locked up.
Eh, if only it would rain, if only there would be thunder, or something!..
And suddenly - what is it? Does it really seem like thunder? No, it's not thunder. But outside the windows something rumbles, rumbles, and is approaching. Wait, brothers, it’s a drum!.. Drum roll! Where? What? Why?
And then we hear in the next room, in the dining room, someone’s jubilant voice:
- Guys! Guys! Flow! The Boy Scouts are coming!
We rushed to the windows. The window sills were covered.
Along Peterhofsky Prospekt - from the Ovodny Canal to the Fontanka - about thirty boys and girls, in white shirts, blue short pants and skirts and with red ties around their necks, were moving in a not very clear formation step to the beat of drums. Under their arms they held (as hunters hold a gun with the muzzle down) “staffs” - long round sticks, with which boy scouts had recently walked the streets of Petrograd. Only the leader of these guys, a long-legged guy with a shaved head, was without a staff, and a small drummer striding ahead of everyone, and a standard bearer performing behind him. On the red velvet banner we saw the words:
"Red Bavaria plant"
Of course, the Skedians could not admire this spectacle in silence. No sooner had the drum approached our windows than one of the high school students whistled deafeningly. They shouted from the next window:
- Du!..
- Du! Du! - picked up on all the windowsills.
The white shirts continued their measured step, only the little drummer, deafened by the robber's whistle, shuddered, stumbled and looked fearfully at our windows.
- Hey, you! Retired goat drummer! - the Shchidians cackled. “Look, you’ll lose your tambourine!”
- Hey you, barefoot!
- Cackles!
- Holoshtanniks!
- Boy scouts are half-baked!..
But then behind us we heard an angry shout:
- What kind of disgrace is this?! Get out of the window sills this very minute!
Vikniksor stood at the door of the classroom, the glasses of his pince-nez glinting menacingly. However, this time neither this brilliance nor the angry voice of our president made a strong impression on us.
- Viktor Nikolaevich! - called Yankel. - Come here, look! The Boy Scouts are coming!
Grinning incredulously, Vikniksor approached, the guys stepped aside, and he leaned over and looked out into the street.
- Look at you, what kind of boy scouts these are! - he said. “These are not scouts, these are young pioneers.”
For many of us this was a completely new, unheard word.
The drum beat louder and louder, the troop of bare-legged men was probably already approaching the Kalinkin Bridge, and we surrounded Vikniksbra and vying with each other asking him: what kind of news is this - young pioneers?
“Young Pioneers are a recently created children’s communist organization,” said Vikniksbr. “Pioneer means: pathfinder, discoverer, scout. If you haven’t forgotten Fenimbra Cooper, you don’t need to explain.”
No, we certainly haven't forgotten Fenimbra Cooper. But Cooper had nothing to do with it. And the Boy Scouts too. We realized that these guys, at whom we had just laughed so wildly and after whom we hooted so furiously, were our Soviet guys. Whether we felt ashamed, I won’t say, but I only remember that we really wanted to tie ourselves with ties and walk through the streets with sticks in our hands.
And at dinner, when, having filled our bellies with millet porridge, we were finishing the liquid cocoa without milk and without sugar, Kblka Gypsy stood up and asked to speak.
“Viktor Nikolaevich,” he said, “is it possible to organize a detachment of young pioneers here too?”
Vikniksbr frowned and walked around the dining room.
“No, guys,” he said after a pause, “we can’t.”
- Why?
- But because our school, as you know, is of a prison or, more precisely, semi-prison type
- Yeah!.. I see! They didn’t come out with their snout! - someone shouted behind the pillar of the fourth department.
Vikniksbr turned and looked for the culprit.
“Ebnin, leave the dining room,” he said.
- For what? - Yapbnchik got angry.
“Leave the dining room,” Vikniksbr repeated.
- For what, I ask?
- For rudeness.
- For what rudeness?! I, Viktor Nikolaevich, did not say about you - you didn’t come out with your snout. It’s not you, it’s us who didn’t come out with our snout.
“Ebnin, you have a remark in the Chronicle,” the head of school announced just as calmly, addressing the students. continued: - No, guys, as I already explained to you. We, unfortunately, do not have the right to found either a Komsomol organization or a Pioneer organization in our school.
On this topic, as well as on any other, Vikniksor could talk for hours. He spent a long time explaining to us why we, former delinquents, street children, hooligans, arsonists and tramps, do not have the right to be members of even a children's political organization. But we didn't listen to Vikniksbra. We weren't interested.
“Okay,” we thought. “What’s wrong?” You can't do this - you can't get used to it. You never know what we, difficult-to-educate students, are not allowed to do. We lived without ties, we will continue to live without them.”
We all quickly calmed down, and only the Japanese, who actually received a remark in the Chronicle, became even more angry with both the Chaldeans and the pioneers. As soon as he now saw a boy with a red tie from a window or on a walk, the Japanese would lose the remnants of his self-control and attack the young pioneer with all the fervor of which he was capable. I won’t lie - often we didn’t lag behind our comrade. Maybe envy played a role here, the fact that we “didn’t show up,” or maybe we were just tomboys at that time, just waiting for an opportunity to start a fight or squabble.
One Sunday we went with the whole school for a walk to Ekateringof. I don’t know what’s there now, but in our time it was a rather large and rather lousy, dirty and neglected park. The Ekateringofka river flowed through the park, and further away there was something like an entertainment garden with a small restaurant and a boardwalk stage, where wrestlers, coupletists, magicians and jugglers performed in the evenings. During the day, the stage did not work, the garden was open to everyone, and I remember we always rushed there first, because in the garden, on its paths sprinkled with yellow sand, you could light up a decent cigarette butt at any time of the day or night.
But this time, something much more interesting awaited us in the sala than the half-smoked Nepman “Sapho” and “Zephyr” No. 6. Not far from the entrance, in the open air, at a buffet table, a powerfully built man with a mustache in a spacious scalloped suit sat drinking beer. Seeing this hero, we froze. Who among us has not seen him - if not in the cinema, not in the circus or on the stage, then at least on posters and photographs! Yes, there was no doubt, in front of us sat the “Russian hero” Ivan Poddubny, the champion of Russia in wrestling and weight lifting.
We surrounded the table and froze in reverent silence. But he didn’t look at us - he was probably used to being constantly stared at - he took a sip of beer from a mug and lazily ate it with soaked peas.
I remember we noticed that the iron chair on which Poddubny was sitting had sunk about four inches into the sand and was continuing to sink there.
“Everything will go away,” whispered the one-eyed Mommy.
“Not all of them will leave,” the Merchant answered in the same whisper.
An interesting bet ensued. But it was not destined to happen. It was at that moment that we heard a heartbreaking scream behind us, looked back and saw first-grader Yakushka, who was rushing as fast as he could from the garden gate towards us. He ran, waving his arms absurdly, and shouted in a thin voice:
- Guys! Guys! Hurry! Run! The pioneers are beating Jap!..
We gasped, looked at each other and, forgetting Ivan Poddubny, with a wild battle cry rushed to where little Yakovlev showed us the way.
He led us to the shore of Ekateringofka. And we saw something that made us grind our teeth.
The puny Jap was rolling on the grass in an embrace with an equally puny boy in a pioneer uniform, and several other pioneers rushed towards him, trying to pull him away or hit him. We had no time to consider what was happening there, who was right and who was wrong.
The Merchant's trumpet voice rang out:
- Bastards! Beat ours?!
And, growling, we rushed to the rescue of the Japanese.
Later we found out how it happened. Arriving together with everyone in Ekateringof, the Japanese did not go into the garden, but turned to the side and headed to his favorite place - to the bank of the river, where under the shadow of a silvery spreading willow, among dusty burdocks and flying dandelions, he always dreamed and thought so gloriously. The Japanese had a book and a notebook hidden in his belt, he was hoping to sit, read, write poetry. And suddenly he comes and sees that in his place, right next to the weeping willow tree, where he had sat and dreamed so many times, he is standing stretched out like a soldier , and holding a staff to yoga like a gun, some kind of carp with a pioneer tie.
The Jap stopped and fixed an angry, hypnotic gaze on the pioneer. This had no effect, he continued to stand like an idol.
Then the Japanese asked what he needed here.
Pnoner not only did not answer, but also did not raise an eyebrow. Then it turned out that they were having some kind of war game going on here and this guy was standing guard, and a sentry, as you know, is not supposed to talk to strangers. But the Japanese could not know this. At first he was taken aback, then he became furious, and then, seeing that it was not a person but a statue standing in front of him, he became bolder and began to touch the pioneer. Afterwards he swore to us that he did not touch this guy, but only “verbally attacked” him. But we knew well the sharpness of the Japs’ language and understood what it was like for the pioneer from this picking.
In a word, it ended with the pioneer listening and listening, enduring and enduring, and finally could not stand it, looked around and, without further ado, struck the Japanese in the neck with his staff.
The Japanese was not distinguished by either strength or courage, he did not know how to fight and did not like, but then either the pioneer staff turned out to be too strong, or the enemy did not look so scary, but the Japanese did not hesitate, rushed at the little sentry, knocked him down and began to beat him with his thin fists. The pioneer responded to the blows to the best of his ability. Until the last minute, this courageous man apparently remembered that he was a sentry, and fought in silence. But when the Japanese got close to his neck and began to choke him, the sentry could not stand it, raised his head and began to call for help. Other pioneers rushed in and rushed to separate them. Yakushka, who was walking nearby, came running to the noise. A minute later we appeared.
I don’t know how it would have ended and what dimensions this Ekateringof massacre would have taken if the long-legged pioneer leader had not appeared on the horizon. We heard the trill of his fuTool whistle and immediately saw him rushing towards the river on his long, ostrich-like legs.
- Sha! Sha! - he shouted, waving his long arms. - Guys, sha! What's going on here? Sha, I say!!
The pioneers broke away from the attacking Skids and huddled together.
- Kostya, Kostya, it’s not our fault! - they started shouting vying with each other. “It was the shelter people who attacked us.”
- What-oh-oh?! - he shouted and turned - not to us, but to his pioneers. - What other “shelter”? What kind of expression is “shelter”? What, where do you live under capitalism?.. Well, guys, cut it off, - he turned to us. - Quickly!.. Who did I tell? So that your feet are not here
We understood him and for some reason obeyed him unquestioningly: we turned and walked away.
And then we saw our teacher Ellanlum. Her red, steamy and angry face peeked out from behind the bushes. As it turned out, she saw everything, or almost everything.
“Good,” she said when we approached the bushes. “There’s nothing to say, they’re good!” Ugh! Shame! A shame! An indelible shame on the entire region! Is it possible to go to public places with you? You can only go to a desert island with you!
And, ordering us to line up, Ellanlum announced:
- Well, quickly to school! Everything will be reported to Viktor Nikolaevich.
Not only did we have to interrupt our walk ahead of time, without picking up a single cigarette butt, without seeing Poddubny and without enjoying the other delights of Yekateringhof, but it also turned out that we were threatened with a big conversation with Vikniksor.
We grumbled about the Japanese all the way. And he grinned guiltily, sniffed and, in a voice trembling with excitement, tried to explain to us that he was not to blame, that he was only “verbally diving”, and did not even think about fighting with this bare-legged
I don’t know what happened: either Ellanlum did not report the fight to the manager, or Vikniksor, for some higher pedagogical reasons, decided not to give this matter any further progress, but a major conversation between us never took place.
But a different conversation took place. After dinner, the Japanese found Panteleev and Yankel. Secluded in the upper restroom, the slammers sat there and smoked one “chinarik” for two.
“Guys,” the Japanese addressed them in an unusual, solemn voice, “I have a serious conversation with you.”
“Get out,” answered a somewhat surprised Yankel.
- No, not here.
- And what? Secret?
- Yes. The conversation is confidential. Let's go to the White Hall, it seems there is no one there now.
“Slama was the name of an alliance between two friends among street children. Slammers had to share everything, protect each other and help each other in trouble.
The intrigued slammers took one last puff, spat out the cigarette butt, and followed the Japanese downstairs. At the door of the White Hall, the Japanese looked back and said:
- I just warn you: don’t talk.
In the farthest corner of the hall he looked around again, even looked at the ceiling for some reason, and only after all these precautions he said:
- That's my idea! I thought a lot and came to this decision: if we do not have the right to legally organize a Komsomol or pioneer cell in our country, then
- Means? - Yankel was wary.
- The most basic logic dictates that if a legal one is not possible, then all we have to do is establish an illegal one.
- What - illegal? - Panteleev did not understand.
- An illegal organization.
- Which organization?
- Youthful communist.
The Shkids looked at each other. They chuckled. We smiled. I obviously liked the idea.
- Won’t they give us a hat? - he said after thinking. Yankel.
- Do you have such a luxurious hat? It is up to us to ensure that the organization is well protected.
Under such circumstances, Yunkom, the underground organization of Young Communards, was born. This event has long gone down in the history of the Shkid Republic, it was told to the world on other pages, and I will not repeat it.
Let me just remind you that upon joining the organization, each new member had to take an oath, pledging to remain silent and not betray his comrades. Not everyone was accepted into the organization. Before being accepted, one had to pass a serious test.
Several times a week, Yunkom members gathered somewhere in the ruins of an old outbuilding or in an abandoned Swiss room under the main staircase and conducted conspiratorial studies in the thin light of a candle stub. In underground circles we studied the history of the Communist Party and international revolutionary movement. We studied the history of the Komsomol. They even began to study political economy.
The lectures were given to us by the most well-read of us, Zhorka the Japanese, and, to tell the truth, we often listened to him much more attentively than to some of our teachers.
We were happy. We walked the earth, filled with pride from the knowledge that we had a terrible, exciting secret behind us.
When a pioneer detachment from the Krasnaya Bavaria factory or from Putilovets now passed under the windows of our classroom to the beat of drums, we did not whistle, did not laugh, did not hoot. We silently, from top to bottom (and not only because we were looking from the windows, and they were walking along the street) looked at her, looked at each other and grinned condescendingly.
“Stamp, stomp, brothers,” we thought. “Please make as many styles as you like with your ties and chopsticks.” With you, dear children, it’s all a game, fun, but with us”
“Oh, if only they knew!” - we thought. And, to tell the truth, we really wanted them to know. But the pioneers, of course, for the time being could not know anything, although, as it turned out later, they remembered our existence very well.
And it turned out this way. One evening, several high school students - Yankel, Kupets, Panteleev and Mamochka - having received permission from the teacher on duty, went to the cinema. Before these four had time to go out into the street and before the DAF officer Meftakhudyn had time to close the iron gates behind them, the guys were called out from the opposite side of Kurlyandskaya Street:
- Hey, Dostoevskys!
Two boys and one girl in pioneer ties were walking towards the Shkids. The Shkydians looked at each other and hesitantly moved towards them.
In the middle of the pavement, both of them came together.
“We’re coming to you,” said the girl.
- Merey! Bonjour! Sil vu pleo,” answered Yankel, gallantly bowing and shuffling his bare feet.
- What have we done to deserve such an honor? - the Merchant said in a deep voice, also making some kind of musketeer gesture.
“Okay, stop chattering,” said the pioneer. She was a little older and a little taller than her companions. “We came on business,” she said. “But it’s very difficult to get to you.” We've been standing there for about forty minutes.
“It’s all the same with you,” began one of the pioneers, the smallest one, with a blond crest.
But the girl stabbed him in the side so deftly and so hard that he flinched and stopped short. We understood what the blond guy wanted to say: it’s like we’re in prison.
“Yes, you’re right, sir,” Yankel turned to him. “It’s not easy to get to us.” We have a privileged closed educational institution. Like Cambridge or Oxford. Have you heard of these?
“Guys, we didn’t come to you to joke, but for business,” the girl said angrily. “Can you speak like a human being?”
- Oh, my lady, do me a favor! - Yankel exclaimed.
- Then listen! We want to take your patronage and help you organize a pioneer squad in your boarding school.
The querulous mood immediately left the Shkide people.
- Patronage? - Yankel asked, scratching the back of his head - Hm. Yes. This is interesting. But, by the way, we already have bosses - the Commercial Port.
- Yes? What about the pioneers? Why didn’t your bosses help you organize a pioneer squad? We will be happy to help you personally.
What could we say to this girl? That we do not have the right to be a member of a children's political organization? That we are juvenile delinquents? That we have an orphanage with a semi-prison regime?
And then Mommy helped us out. Actually, of course, he committed a crime. He broke or was about to break his oath.
- Thanks, chick! - he squeaked, playfully winking at the pioneer with his only eye. - Thank you, we already have it,
The Shkydians grew cold. All eyes turned to Mommy.
- What do you have? - the pioneer did not understand.
“What you need is what you need,” Mommy answered just as coquettishly.
- Pioneer organization? Squad?
Mommy threw a confused glance at his comrades. But now it was not his comrades who were looking at him, but three predatory animals.
- I ask: do you have a pioneer organization?
“Yeah,” Mommy squeezed out with difficulty. “Sort of.”
The Shkydians became agitated.
“Guys, let’s go, we’re late,” said Yankel.
And, waving his hand to the pioneers, he was the first to walk towards Peterhofsky Prospekt.
Around the corner the Skedians stopped. The merchant cleared his throat menacingly.
“Well, Mommy,” he said after an ominous pause, “you have.”
- For what? - Mommy stammered. “I didn’t say anything.” I just said "sort of"
Having discussed this issue as we walked, we decided that Mommy had shown mercy. After all, in the end, he really saved us, helped us out of a very difficult situation. And besides, we were in a hurry to go to the cinema. And, after consulting, we We decided to show mercy this time and forgave Mommy.
And two days later our underground organization failed in the most stupid way. The janitor Meftakhudyn, walking around the school grounds late at night, noticed a pale, trembling light in the ruins of the outbuilding, heard muffled voices coming from under the stairs and, deciding that bandits were spending the night in the ruins, he rushed as fast as he could to Vnknik-sor for help.
Thus our entire small organization was captured on the spot. Not a single underground worker managed to escape.
We expected brutal reprisals. But there was no reprisal. Having carefully considered this issue and discussed it at the pedagogical council, Vikniksor allowed our organization to exist legally.
And so our Yunkom came out of the dark underground into the sunlight
We got the room - the room where we were before school museum. We have our own newspaper. The number of Yunkom members began to grow. The new charter and new program. A central committee was elected. The Young Com Reading Room has opened.
The only thing we didn't have was a uniform. We didn’t even have ties or badges of any kind.
But one evening, when we were finishing dinner, Vikniksor entered the dining room with a cheerful and even dashing step. Just by his appearance alone one could guess that he was going to tell us something very pleasant. And so it turned out. After walking around the dining room and touching his earlobe several times, Vikniksor stopped, coughed impressively and solemnly announced:
- Guys! I can make you happy. I managed to get you twenty pairs of trousers and almost as many berets through the provincial department of public education.
- Which ones?
- Where?
- To the cinema?
- In which? - the Shkids began to shout.
“Not tickets, but berets,” Vikniksor corrected us with a complacent smile, “Velvet berets with ribbons. And most importantly, imagine! - it turned out that these ribbons are our national colors!
We shouted “Hurray” in unison, although not everyone understood,
what ribbons and what national colors is our president talking about?
“Viktor Nikolaevich,” Yankel said, getting up, “what are our national colors?”
- Eh, Chernykh, Chernykh, aren’t you ashamed, brother! - Vikniksbr grinned good-naturedly. “Don’t you know your national flag?” Sunflower colors: black and orange!
We were intrigued. An incredible uproar arose. The Shkids unanimously demanded that they be shown these berets with national sunflower-colored ribbons.
Smiling, Vikniksbr raised his hand.
“Good,” he said. “Duty officer, please go upstairs and ask the wardrobe maid for one on my behalf.”
Two minutes later the duty officer returned, and we got the opportunity to see this original headdress with our own eyes. The dark green velvet or plush beret with a furry pompom on the top was actually decorated on the side with two short St. George ribbons.
The Shkydians silently and even with some fear looked at and felt this amazing work of sewing art, it is unknown how and where it came from at the Gubna-Rbba warehouse. When the beret visited all four tables and again found itself in the hands of Vikniksbra, he said:
- Unfortunately, I managed to get only seventeen of these berets. Unfortunately, there is not enough for everyone. I figured out how to distribute them among you, and came to the following decision: We will give the right to wear berets to the best of the best, our vanguard, our vanguard - members of the Yunkbm.
This time no one shouted “hurray”, even the Yunkbmovites were silent for some reason, and no one looked at them with envy. Only some newcomer from the secondary department, offended by Vikniksbra, shouted:
- What are we, redheads?
“No, Petrakov,” Vikniksor said affectionately, “you’re not red.” But you have not yet earned the honor of being a member of the Young Communards organization. Achieve this, and one day you too will get the right to wear a uniform.
This word made many of us wince and become wary.
“Viktor Nikolaevich,” the Merchant rose above the table, “is this really necessary?”
- What is required?
- Wear these berets?
- Yes, Ofenbach, of course, like any other form.
We clearly imagined the Merchant in this child's headdress with a pink pompom on top of his head, and we felt uneasy. Many of us began to have bad premonitions, and these premonitions, alas, very soon came true.
That same evening, the Merchant approached Yankel and the Japanese, who were discussing the next issue of the Yunkom newspaper, and said:
- That's it, timidly, cross me out.
- Where? What? Why?
- From Yunkom. I'm going out and checking out
It was in vain that we tried to persuade him: his decision was unshakable. The merchant was forever lost to our organization.
The rest held on more or less steadfastly.
I say “more or less” because walking the streets in these Hamlet headdresses really required considerable stamina and heroism. Especially considering that the calico trousers that Vikniksor got for us turned out to be the most fantastic colors: blue, light green, canary yellow
Where are the pioneers with their short pants and red ties! The city soon got used to the pioneers. Some looked at them with pride and love, others with hidden hatred. As for the Yunkom members, the population of Petrograd could not get used to their uniform. There was no case when a person was walking down the street and, having met a Yunkom member,
didn’t flinch, didn’t look back and didn’t say after him something like: “Eva, how dressed up you are, you fool!” or: “What a stuffed animal with a pompom!..”
When we walked in formation, there was still back and forth in the formation; we were soldiers, we felt the elbow of our neighbor, but walking alone was unbearable torture.
And not everyone survived this torture.
By the way, the one-eyed Mommy couldn’t stand it either.
That's what happened one Saturday evening.
Three schoolchildren, three Yunkom members, three members of the central committee - Yankel, Yaponets and Panteleev, having received their leave certificates, walked cheerfully and cheerfully along Peterhofsky Prospect towards the center. Somewhat ahead of them, Mommy was walking on the other side of the street. He also walked quite quickly and was also wearing a Yunkom beret, but, as luck would have it, the beret he came across was very large and flat, so that puny Mamochka looked from a distance like some kind of russula or toadstool. One of the Yunkom members saw him, the guys laughed, joked a little at Mommy’s expense, and again got carried away by the conversation. But then Yankel, casting an absent-minded glance at the opposite sidewalk, suddenly stopped and exclaimed:
- Guys, wait, where is Mommy?
One moment Mommy was there, and then he was gone. He was neither in front, nor behind, nor to the left, nor to the right. In broad daylight, the man dissolved, fell through the ground, and turned invisible.
With their mouths agape, the Shkydians stood on the edge of the sidewalk and watched. And then their gaping mouths widened even more. The guys saw Mommy. He came out of some entrance, looked around furtively and walked quickly, almost ran to the tram stop. On Mary's clipper-shaved head there was a black knot of his usual bandage. There was no beret on his head. It had clearly migrated either to his pocket or to his bosom.
The Yunkbmovites looked at each other gloomily.
- Good goose! - the Japanese said through clenched teeth.
- Oh, you lousy renegade! - Yankel exclaimed.
Without saying a word, the Yunkom members rushed after their weak-willed comrade, but he, as if expecting or anticipating a pursuit, quickened his pace, and before the Shkids had time to call out to him, Mamochka jumped onto the sausage of the tram that had just started moving and was gone.
Frankly speaking, we had no right to judge him too harshly. In our hearts, each of us understood Mommy well. But we were leaders, leaders, and we had no right to forgive cowardice and cowardice.
- Judge! - Yankel exclaimed.
- Eliminate! - said the Japanese.
The third could only demand the guillotine or execution.
In any case, on Monday morning, upon returning from vacation. Very unpleasant things awaited mommy. But on Monday Mommy didn’t show up in Sküde. He did not return on Tuesday either. And on Wednesday afternoon, Vikniksbru received a phone call from the district police department and was informed that his pupil Fedorov Konstantin was being treated in the surgical department of the Aleksandrovsk City Hospital.
Taking two high school students with him, Vikniksor immediately went to the hospital.
Mommy was lying unconscious. Contrary to usual, the bandage on his head was not black, but white. Mommy’s sharp little nose became even sharper, her lips became parched.
A police officer was sitting by Mommy’s bed and writing something in a notebook. From under white coat a black leather jacket and a wooden Mauser holster were visible.
When we found out that on Saturday evening Mama, beaten to the point of insensibility, was brought to the hospital from the Pokrovsky market, we felt uneasy. Why could a thirteen-year-old shelter boy be beaten at the market? From experience we knew what theft was. No wonder in those years the surrounding punks sang a song:
In English, at Pokrovka there are women and two merchants standing, And they are cursing all the Dostoevsky guys...
Yes, the market was fraught with many temptations in those years, and there were many cases when Shkids, especially newcomers, were caught doing such unsightly things as giving free nuts, apples, candies, etc. But - Eonkomovets?! Vanguard of the school
“No, no,” the police officer reassured VNKpixbra, “there can be no talk of any theft.”
What happened to Mommy at the Pokrovsky market then received quite wide publicity in the city. There was even an article in one of the Petrograd newspapers, it seems, in Smena
Heading to Malaya Podyacheskaya, where his older family brother lived. Mommy passed through Pokrovka. He went straight to the market, probably to shorten the path. On this day, his brother promised to take him to the circus and Mommy was afraid of being late.
The market was already closing, the people were leaving, the traders were putting down their chests and awnings.
And then Mommy saw something that made him instantly forget about the circus, and about his brother, and about everything in the world.
Three young Nepmen, three red-faced, tipsy butchers, surrounded a large lattice stall, in which merchants usually keep watermelons, cabbage or live poultry, and with wild, drunken laughter they poked into this box with sticks and a disheveled janitor's broom.
- Well, speak up, brat! - growled one of them, the most red-cheeked, tall, in a red apron stained with blood. - Say, repeat after me: “I am a turkey - red snot.”
Mommy came closer and saw with horror that a small blond boy in a tattered white shirt and a red tie knocked to one side was sitting in the box, huddled in an uncomfortable position. In this boy, Mommy easily recognized one of those who came to Shkida to take patronage over them.
- Well, repeat! - market traders pressed the boy. - Repeat, they tell you: “I am a turkey - I renounce red snot”
- Let me go! I'm late! - holding back tears, the boy asked with all his strength.
- Renounce, you bastard, it will get worse! Well!..
And the dirty broom got into the boy’s face again.
Mommy could no longer look calmly.
- What are you doing, bastards?! - he shouted, rushing towards the butchers.
The merchants looked around and widened their eyes.
- What kind of booger is this?
- What, I say, are you mocking the guy? Do you think it’s big, that’s possible?!
- Oh, you eyeless frog! - the guy in the apron growled. “Did you want to go into the box too?” Come on, join the company!
And he stretched out his thick, hairy hand to grab Mommy by the collar. But Mommy was not one of those people. He
He managed to bite the butcher painfully on the hand, jumped to the side, turned around and kicked his opponent in the stomach with all his might with his bare heel.
As they say, Mommy didn’t remember what happened next.
Three hefty butchers from Yaroslavl beat him so that there was no living space left on him. Mommy was brought to the hospital almost without a pulse. And for 24 hours the doctors did not know whether he would survive or not.
No documents were found on Mommy. Only on the third day, a criminal investigation agent, examining Mommy’s clothes, discovered a green velvet beret in the pocket of her bright yellow pants, and in the lining of this beret was an identification card folded eight times, from which it followed that Konstantin Fedorov, 13 years old, a student of the Petrograd School of Social Security individual education named after F. M. Dostoevsky, goes on home leave until 9 a.m. on August 14, 1922.
Thanks to the doctors and nurses of the Aleksandrovsk City Hospital. They rescued Mommy and saved his life.
Frankly, I don’t remember at all how and when Mommy returned to Shkida. It seems that after the hospital he spent several weeks at home with his brother. I also don’t remember what was done to the butchers. I know that they were tried and convicted. But I don’t want to lie, I don’t remember how and for how long. To tell the truth, we had no time for this then: Yunkbm was going through troubled times, discord began in the committee and the story with Mommy somehow faded into the background.
But here's what I remember well.
Nice September day. There is a lesson in progress in the fourth department class ancient history. With his old, rusty boots creaking, Vikniksor walks around the classroom and enthusiastically talks about the unfading exploits of the Spartan warriors. Mommy is among us. He sits in his usual place, on the Kamchatka. This place has been stubbornly defended by Mommy for several years now. No matter how much they persuade
his Chaldeans to move closer, he refuses, assures that he can see better in the back row. But “what” is clear to him better; he, of course, remains silent about sToivf. The thing is that Mommy is an avid gambler
The day is sunny and mild. Behind the open windows, trams jingle, heavy trucks rumble, hooves clatter, and from the opposite sidewalk we hear the cries of sunflower seeds traders. For us, all these noises merge into one monotonous rumble.
But something new bursts into this boring street music. Wait, it looks like thunder! No, it's not thunder, it's the sound of a drum. Yes Yes, drumroll. She is getting closer, closer, she is already very close, and now, blocking the drum, the pioneer bugle began to sing throughout the entire street, throughout the entire city.
We could no longer sit and listen. We stared pleadingly at Viknixbra:
- Viktor Nikolaevich, can I?
Vikniksor walked around the classroom, touched his earlobe, frowned, and chewed his lips.
“It’s possible,” he said.
We rushed to the windows and swarmed the window sills like flies.
Pioneers walked along the street from the Ovodny Canal towards the Kalinkin Bridge. It was the same detachment familiar to us from the Red Bavaria plant, but now there were many more pioneers.
The drum beat out a clear beat, the guys took a step like a soldier, sang, a silver horn sounded, and the white cloth of the banner burned fieryly, fieryly over the heads of the young pioneers.
This time we lay very quietly.
And the pioneers drew level with our windows, and suddenly their lanky leader ran a little forward, turned to face the detachment and waved his hand. The drum and bugle fell silent at the same time, and all the pioneers - and there were already about a hundred of them - turned their heads in our direction at once and, without breaking stride, shouted loudly and unanimously three times in a row:
- Vp-pa!
- Hurray!
- Hurray!!
Stunned, we froze in our seats.
And then Yankel looked around and said:
- Mommy, my child, you know that this applause applies to you.
Mommy was surprised, blushed, craned his neck and suddenly recognized the drummer, who was still holding his sticks raised above the drum, as the same blond boy from the Pokrovsky market. I don’t know what Mommy felt at that moment. But he probably realized that some kind of response was expected from him. And, blushing even deeper, he hung down and shouted in his squeaky, hoarse voice, not strengthened by illness:
- Hey, you barefoot, you're going to lose your tambourine!..
Afterwards, some people insisted that Mommy was a fool. No, he probably wasn’t a fool. He was just a real bastard, he didn’t know how to be tender and couldn’t find any other way to express his feelings.
E. Bagritsky
DEATH OF A PIONEER
Refreshed by the thunderstorm.
The leaf is shaking.
Ah, green warblers
Two-turn whistle!
Valya, Valentina,
What's wrong with you now?
White Chamber.
Painted door.
Thinner than a spider's web
From under the skin of the cheeks
Scarlet fever smoldering
Mortal flame.
You can't talk -
Lips are hot.
They're casting a spell on you
Smart doctors.
Petting the poor hedgehog
Cut hair.
Valya, Valentina,
What happened to you?
The air is inflamed.
Black grass.
Why from the heat
Headache?
Why is it crowded?
Moaning in the sublingual?
Why eyelashes
Does sleep blow over you?
The doors open.
(Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.)
leaning over you
Crying mother:
“Valenka, Valyusha!
It’s hard in the hut.
I am a baptismal cross
Brought Gebe.
The entire farm has been abandoned
You can't fix it right away.
Dirt is not good
In our upper rooms.
The chickens are not closed.
Pig without a trough
And the cow moos
Angry from hunger.
Don’t resist, Valenka,
He won't eat you.
Gilded, small,
Your baptismal cross."
On a bruised cheek
Long tear.
And in hospital windows
A thunderstorm is moving.
Valya opens
Vague eyes.
From the roaring seas
cloudy country
Clouds are rolling in.
Full of showers.
Above the hospital garden.
Stretching out in a row.
Behind a dense detachment
The squad is moving.
Lightning like ties
They fly with the wind.
In the rain shine
Cloud layers
Like an outline
Thousands of heads.
The dam collapsed -
And they go into battle
Satin blouses
In the blue of a thunderstorm.
Pipes. Pipes. Pipes
They raise a howl.
Above the hospital garden
Over the water of the lakes.
Squads are moving
For the evening gathering.
They block out the light
(The distance is black and black).
Pioneers of Kuntsev,
Pioneers of Setun,
Pioneers of the Nogina factory.
And bent down below
The mother languishes:
Children's palms
She can't kiss.
The stuffiness of those who slept
Can't freshen your lips.
Valentina more
You won't have to live.
“Didn’t I collect
Is it good for you?
Silk dresses.
Fur and silver
Didn't I save?
I didn’t sleep at night.
I kept milking the cows.
Guarded the bird.
So that there is a dowry
Strong, unbroken.
So that the veil suits your face.
How will you go to the crown!
Don’t resist, Valenka!
He won't eat you.
Gilded, small.
Your baptismal cross."
Let them sound hateful
Scarce words -
Youth did not perish
Youth is alive!
We were led by youth
On a saber march.
Our youth abandoned us
On the Kronstadt ice.
War horses
They carried us away
On a wide area
They killed us.
But the blood is feverish
We rose
But the eyes are blind
We opened it.
A commonwealth arises
Crow with a fighter -
Strengthen your courage
Steel and snow.
So that the earth is harsh
Bleeding out
So that youth is new
It rose from the bones.
So that in this tiny
Tele - forever
Our youth sang
Like spring water.
Valya, Valentina.
You see - to the south
Basic Banner
It winds along the cord.
Red cloth
Hovering over the hill.
“Valya, be ready!” -
Thunder shouts.
Into the green of the lawn
How the drops will flow!
Valya in a blue T-shirt
Gives off fireworks.
Quietly rises
Ghostly light
Over a hospital bed
Child's hand.
"I am always ready!" -
You can hear the surroundings.
On a wicker rug
The cross falls.
And then powerless
The hand falls -
In plump pillows,
Into the pulp of a mattress.
And in hospital windows
Blue warmth.
From the big sun
The room is bright.
And, falling to the bed.
The mother is languishing.
Warblers behind the fence
Today is grace.
That's all!
But the song
I don't agree to wait.
A song arises
In the chatter of the guys.
And the song comes out
With the clatter of steps
Into a world wide open
The fury of the winds.
N. Lupsyakov
MACHINE GUN
K. Simonov
THE MAJOR BROUGHT THE BOY ON A CARRIAGE
The major brought the boy on a gun carriage.
Mother died. The son did not say goodbye to her.
For ten years in this and this world
These ten days will count towards him.
They brought him from the fortress, from Brest,
Lafög was scratched by bullets.
It seemed to my father that the safer place
From now on there is no child in the world.
The father was wounded and the cannon was broken.
Tied to a shield so as not to fall.
Holding a sleeping toy to your chest,
The gray-haired boy was sleeping on the gun carriage.
We walked towards him from Russia.
Waking up, he waved his hand to the troops.
You say there are others.
That I was there and it’s time for me to go home
Here this grief is known firsthand,
And it broke our hearts.
Who has ever seen this boy?
He won't be able to come home until the end.
I must see with the same eyes.
With which I cried there in the dust.
How will that boy return with us?
And he will kiss a handful of his soil.
For everything that you and I treasured.
The Bino law called us to battle.
Now my home is not where we lived before,
And where he was taken from the boy.
Far away, in the mountains of the Urals,
Your boy is sleeping. Tested by fate
I believe: we will come what may
I'll see you eventually.
But if not when is the date
He, like me, should go on days like these
Following his father, by right, like a soldier,
When saying goodbye to him, remember me.
Minsk highway. 1941.
Boris Lavrenev
A BIG HEART
He stood in front of the captain - snub-nosed, high-cheeked, wearing a short coat with a red beaver wool collar. His round nose turned purple from the icy steppe dry wind. The peeling, blue lips trembled, but the dark eyes were fixed intently and almost sternly on the captain’s eyes. He did not pay attention to the Red Navy men, who, curious, surrounded him, an unusual thirteen-year-old visitor to the battery - this harsh world of adults, people scorched by gunpowder. He was wearing shoes that were not suitable for the weather: in gray canvas shoes, worn out on the toes, and he kept shifting from foot to foot while the captain was sorting out the accompanying note brought from the headquarters of the station by the Red Navy liaison officer who brought the boy:
“He was detained in the morning at the front line. According to his testimony, for two weeks he observed German forces in the area of the New Path state farm. He is heading to you as he could be useful for the battery.”
The captain folded the note and put it over the side of his sheepskin coat. The boy continued to look at him calmly.
- What is your name?
The boy straightened up, raised his chin, and tried to click his heels, but his face tightened, he looked fearfully at his feet and, drooping, said hastily:
- Nikolai Vikhrov, comrade captain.
The captain looked at his shoes and shook his head.
- Your wet feet are out of season, Comrade Vikhrov. Are your feet cold?
The boy looked down. He tried his best to keep from crying. The captain thought about how he made his way in these shoes across the iron-frosted steppe. He himself felt chilly. He shrugged his shoulders and, stroking the boy’s red cheek, said:
- Welcome! We have a different fashion for Lieutenant Kozub shoes!
The strong little lieutenant saluted the captain.
- Order the guard to immediately find and bring me to the casemate “felt boots of the smallest size.”
"Casemate - a shelter in fortresses protected from shells and bombs
Kozub ran at a trot to carry out the order. The captain took the boy by the shoulder:
- Let's go to my house. Once you warm up, we'll talk.
In the commander's casemate, the stove was blazing, crackling and humming. The Red Navy man stirred the coals with a poker. Orange otoleski trembled on the white wall. The captain took off his sheepskin coat and hung it on a hook. The boy stood at the door, looking around. He was probably struck by this vaulted underground room, sparkling with white enamel repaint, flooded with strong lamp light.
“Take off your clothes,” the captain suggested. “It’s hot here, like on the Artek beach in July.” Get warm!
The boy pulled his coat off his shoulders, carefully folded it with the lining facing out and, standing on tiptoe, hung it over his capitol sheepskin coat. The captain liked his careful attitude to clothes. Without a coat, the boy turned out to be small and very thin. The captain thought that he was probably starving.
- Sit down! Let's eat first, then work. There was, you see, in the old days, some commander who said that the way to a soldier’s heart runs through his stomach. He was quite a smart guy. A fighter with a full belly is worth five hungry people. Do you like strong tea?
The captain filled his thick earthenware mug to the top with dark, steaming liquid. He cut off a healthy slice of loaf, heaped a finger-thick amount of butter on it, and crowned this structure with a layer of smoked brisket.
The boy glanced almost in fear at this monstrous sandwich.
- Put in sugar!
And the captain brought the guest a sawn-off six-inch shell filled with bluish pieces of refined sugar, sparkling like snow. The boy looked at the captain from under his brows with a strange look, carefully took a piece of sugar and placed it next to the cup.
- Wow! - the captain laughed. - Fights, you’re so unaccustomed to sweets. Here, brother, we don’t drink tea like that. This is only damage to the drink.
And with a splash he dumped a hefty lump of sugar into the mug. The boy’s thin face wrinkled, and uncontrollable, very large tears fell from his eyes onto the table. The captain sighed, moved closer and hugged the bony shoulders of his guest.
- Well, that's enough! - he said cheerfully. “Come on!” What happened has passed away. You won't be offended here. You see, I have a baboon like you, only his name is Yurka. And in everything else - like two drops of water, and the nose is the same, like a button.
The boy quickly and bashfully brushed away his tears.
- It’s nothing, comrade captain, I didn’t get upset for myself. I remembered my mother.
“Look here,” the captain drawled. “Mom?” Is mom alive?
“Alive.” The boy’s eyes lit up. “We’re just hungry.” Mom collected potato peelings from the German kitchen at night. Once the sentry caught her. On the hand - with the butt Still the hand does not bend
He pressed his lips together, and the tenderness floated from his eyes. A hard and sharp shine was born in them. The captain patted him on the head:
- Be patient, we’ll help Mom out. Lie down and take a little nap.
The boy looked pleadingly at the captain:
- Then I don’t want to sleep. First, I'll tell you about them.
There was such an intensity of persistence in his voice that the captain did not insist. He moved to the other end of the table and took out a notepad:
- Okay, come on!.. How many Germans do you think are on the state farm?
The boy answered quickly, without hesitation:
- The first is an infantry battalion. Bavarians. One hundred and seventy-sixth regiment of the twenty-seventh division. Arrived from Holland.
The captain was surprised at the accuracy of the answer:
- How did you know that?
- I saw numbers on the shoulder straps. I listened to how they were talking. I studied German well at school, I understand everything. Then there was a company of motorcycle-machine gunners. Platoon of medium tanks. There are trenches along the northern edge of the state farm. Two pillboxes with field and anti-tank guns. They have strengthened themselves greatly, Comrade Captain. All the time they carried cement by trucks. I peeked from the window.
- Can you pinpoint the exact location of the pillboxes? - asked the captain, leaning forward. He suddenly realized that in front of him was not an ordinary boy, but a very vigilant, conscious and accurate scout.
- They have a big pillbox on the melon patch behind the old electric current. And the other one
- Stop! - interrupted the captain. - It’s great that you tracked everything down so well. But, you see, we didn’t live on your state farm. Where the melon is, where the current is, we don’t know. And ten-inch naval artillery, my friend, is a serious thing. Let's start nailing at random, we can chop up a lot of excess until we get it to the point. But there are our people there and your mother
The boy looked at the captain with bewilderment:
- So don’t you, comrade captain, have a map?
- There is a map. Can you figure it out?
“Here’s another thing,” said the boy with casual superiority, “my dad is a surveyor.” “I can draw maps myself. Dad is now also in the army. He’s the commander of the sappers!” he added proudly.
“It turns out that you are not a boy, but a treasure,” the captain joked, unfolding a half-kilometer staff marker on the table.
The boy knelt on the stool and bent over the map. His face perked up, his finger pressed against the paper.
“Here you go,” he said, smiling happily, “right in the palm of your hand.” What a good map you have! Detailed, like a plan. Here, behind the ravine, there is an old current.
He unmistakably understood the map, like an experienced topographer, and soon a palisade of red crosses, marked by the captain’s hand, marked the map in all directions, pinpointing targets. The captain was pleased.
- Very good, Kolya! - He patted the boy on the shoulder approvingly. - Just great!
And the boy, for a moment ceasing to be a scout, childishly pressed his cheek to the captain’s palm. The caress gave him back his true age. The captain folded the map:
- And now, Comrade Vikhrov, as a form of discipline - sleep!
The boy did not resist. His eyes were closing from the rich food and warmth. He yawned sweetly, and the captain gently laid him on his bunk and covered him with a sheepskin coat. Then he returned to the table and sat down to compile the initial calculations. He got carried away and didn't notice the time. A quiet call tore him from his work:
- Comrade captain, what time is it?
The boy sat on the bed, worried. The captain joked:
- Sleep! What do you care about time? If a fight starts, we'll wake you up.
The boy's face darkened. He spoke quickly and insistently:
- No no! I need it back! I promised my mom. She will think that I was killed. When it gets dark, I'll go.
The captain was amazed. He could not even imagine that the boy was seriously going to make a second time through the terrible journey through the night steppe, which he accidentally managed to do once. It seemed to the captain that his guest was not fully awake and was speaking sleepily.
- Nonsense! - the captain got angry. - Who will let you in? Even if you don’t get caught by the Germans, then on the state farm you can fall under our shells. Sleep!
The boy frowned and blushed:
- I won't get caught by the Germans. They sit at home at night because of the frost. And I have all the trails by heart. Please let me in.
He asked stubbornly and persistently, and the captain thought for a moment: “What if the boy’s whole story is a deliberate comedy, a deception?” But, looking into the clear children's pupils, he was surprised by this assumption.
- You know, Comrade Captain, that the Germans do not allow anyone to leave the state farm. If they miss me in the morning and find me, it will be bad for my mother.
The boy was clearly worried about his mother's fate.
“I understand everything,” said the captain, taking out his watch. “It’s sixteen thirty.” We will go with you to the observation post and check everything again. When it gets dark, they escort you out. Clear?
At an observation post located close to the infantry positions at the line, the captain sat down with a rangefinder. Oit saw the hilly Crimean steppe, covered with blue stripes of snow blown into the gullies by the winds. The pink light of sunset was dying over the fields. The gardens of a distant state farm darkened in a narrow strip on the horizon.
The captain looked for a long time at the arrays of these gardens and the white specks of buildings between them. Then he called the boy:
- Well, look! Maybe you'll see mom.
Smiling at the captain's joke, the boy looked into the eyepiece.
The captain slowly turned the horizontal steering wheel, showing the guest a panorama of his native places. Suddenly Kolya pulled away from the eyepiece and boyishly joyfully tugged at the captain’s sleeve:
- Birdhouse! My birdhouse, comrade captain! Honest pioneer!
Surprised, the captain bent down to the eyepiece. In the field of view, towering above the network of bare poplar tops, above the green, rust-stained roof, a tiny square darkened on a high pole. The captain saw it very clearly in the pale sky. And this gave him an unexpected thought. He took Kolya by the elbow, took him aside and spoke quietly to the boy under the perplexed glances of the Red Navy rangefinders.
- Understood? - asked the captain.
And the boy, all beaming, nodded his head.
the sky darkened. An icy biting winter wind blew in from the sea. As the message progressed, the captain led Kolya to the line. He called the company commander, briefly told him the matter and ordered the boy to be secretly taken abroad. Two Red Navy men sank with the boy into the darkness.
And the captain looked after him until the new felt boots brought to the boy’s command casemate by the battery manager stopped turning white. The captain waited with anxiety - whether sudden shots would burst out in that darkness. But everything was quiet, and the captain went to his battery.
He couldn't sleep that night. He drank tea and read endlessly. Before dawn he was already at the observation post. And as soon as it became lighter in the east and a tiny square could be distinguished on this brightening stripe, he gave the command. The first sighting salvo from the tower split the silence of the winter morning. Thunder rolled slowly over the fields. And the captain saw the dark square on the pole swing twice and, after a pause, a third time.
“Flight to the right,” the captain translated for himself and ordered the second salvo.
This time the birdhouse did not move, and the captain switched to firing with both towers. With the excitement of an artilleryman, he watched as blocks of concrete and logs flew upward in the smoke of explosions. He grinned and after three salvos he transferred fire to the second target. And again the birdhouse carried on a friendly silent conversation with him. The fire hit where a red cross on the map marked a fuel and ammunition warehouse. This time the captain was lucky with the first salvo. A wide strip of pale fire blazed above the horizon. Everything disappeared in a cloud of smoke: trees, roofs, a pole with a dark square. The explosion was very strong, and the captain thought with alarm about what this explosion could have done.
The phone beeped. People from the line asked to cease fire. The marines that went on the attack had already advanced towards the German trenches.
Then the captain jumped into the sidecar of the motorcycle and rushed openly across the field to the line. From the state farm came the crackling sound of machine guns and the impact of grenades.
The stunned Germans, having lost their strongholds, resisted weakly. Cheerful semaphore flags were already blinking from the outskirts, reporting the enemy’s retreat.
Abandoning the motorcycle, the captain ran straight across the steppe, through the place where the day before the appearance of a man had caused a flurry of lead. Gray-white smoke of burning gasoline floated over the gardens of the state farm, and exploding shells roared dully in it. The captain hurried to the green roof between the broken poplars. From a distance he saw a woman wrapped in a scarf at the gate. A boy was holding her hand. Seeing the captain, he rushed towards him. The captain immediately picked up the boy and squeezed him. But the boy, apparently, did not want to be small at that moment. He pressed his hands on the captain's chest and struggled from his embrace. The captain released him. Kolya stood in front of him, putting his hand to the red cap:
- Comrade captain, scout Vikhrov completed his mission.
A woman with tortured eyes and a tired smile approached and extended her hand to the captain:
- Hello!.. He was waiting for you. We were all waiting. Thank you, dear ones!
And she bowed to the captain with a good, deep Russian bow. Kolya stood next to the captain.
- Well done! Did a great job!.. Was it scary in the attic when we started shooting? - asked the captain, drawing the boy towards him.
- Scary! Oh, how scary, comrade captain! - the boy answered sincerely. “As soon as the first shells hit, everything began to stagger, as if it was falling through.” I almost waved from the attic. It just became embarrassing. I started saying to myself: “Sit, sit!” I sat there until the warehouse exploded. And after that I don’t even remember how I found myself down there.
And, embarrassed, he buried his face in the captain's sheepskin coat, a little Russian man, a thirteen-year-old hero with a big heart - the heart of his people.
Joseph Utkin
BALLAD ABOUT ZASLONOV AND HIS ADCUTANT
"Konstantin Zaslonov is the legendary commander of a partisan detachment, Hero of the Soviet Union.
The Nazis say:
- Boy Zhenya! Where is the squad?
Where is Zaslonov? All
Tell
- Don't know...
Where are the weapons? Where is the warehouse?
You say - money, chocolate.
No - rope and butt.
Understood?
- I don't know...
The enemy is burning Zhenya with a cigar.
Zhenya endures, Zhenya waits,
Silent during interrogation:
He won’t throw barriers.
Morning. Square. Sun. Light.
Gallows. Village Council.
The partisans are not visible.
Zhenya thinks: “Kaput,
Ours, apparently, will not come,
I can see I’m going to die.”
I remembered my mother. Father. Family.
Dear sister.
And the executioner has one bench
He puts it on the other one.
- Climb -
Well, that's it!
And Zhenya got in.
Above is the sky. On the right is the forest.
With sad eyes
He looked around the expanse of heaven.
I looked at the forest again.
He looked and froze.
Is this reality or a dream?!
Rye, field - on three sides -
The partisans are rushing.
Ahead of Zaslonov - gallop.
Closer closer!
And the executioner
Busy with his own business.
I measured the loop - just right.
He grinned, waiting for an order.
An officer:
- Last time-
Where are the partisans?
Where is Zaslonov?
Zhenya: - Where?
On land and on water.
Both in oats and bread.
Both in the forest and in the sky.
On the threshing floor and in the field.
In the yard and at school.
In the church. In a fisherman's boat.
In a hut behind the wall.
You, the fool.
Behind your back!
The enemy looked back and - bang
To the ground with a groan:
The stranger right in the forehead
Zaslonov pleased.
P. Tsvirka
NIGHTINGALE
A small detachment of Nazi troops entered the village immediately after lunch. In truth, this was only the place where the village used to stand, since on both sides of the street there were only charred ruins. The orchard trees with barely visible buds stood bare and charred.
The lieutenant, sitting on a camp kitchen wagon, looked first at the map laid out on his lap, then at the sad traces of the war, and seemed to be searching for something with his eyes. There wasn't a single living soul around. Just in the abandoned vegetable gardens, above the charred sunflowers and beds of somehow miraculously preserved blooming poppies, a flock of butterflies hovered.
The dusty, gray faces of the soldiers spoke of extreme fatigue; their legs were giving way.
At the end of the village, where the road turned into a darkening forest nearby, diverging into three poorly traveled country roads, the officer stopped the detachment. The soldiers' worried glances turned with hope to the commander, who jumped off the cart and began to look at the area through binoculars.
During this short respite, when the soldiers could wipe their sweaty foreheads and straighten their duffel bags, a bird was suddenly heard singing. Ringing iridescently in the air, this song awakened the silence of a summer day. The trills of the birds fell silent for a short time, then they rang even stronger and more clearly. Not only the soldiers, but also the lieutenant himself listened for a moment, and then began to search the bushes. Parting the branches of a roadside birch tree, they saw a boy on the edge of a ditch. Barely noticeable in the grass, in a khaki jacket, without a hat, his bare feet lowered into the ditch, he was diligently whittling some piece of wood, resting it on his chest.
- Hey, you! - the lieutenant shouted and motioned to the boy.
Stopping work and hastily putting the knife into his jacket pocket, shaking off the shavings, the thirteen-year-old boy approached the lieutenant.
“Show me,” said the lieutenant in Lithuanian.
The boy took some kind of wooden thing out of his mouth and wiped it
saliva from it and handed it to the lieutenant, looking at him with blue, cheerful eyes. It was a simple birch pipe.
- Skillful boy, skillful! - the lieutenant shook his head, and for a moment his angry, unpleasant face was softened by a smile, which had an infectious effect on the soldiers standing nearby and watching.
Everyone was surprised at the simplicity of this musical instrument.
-Who taught you this? - the lieutenant asked again, without a smile.
- I myself, sir, I can also play a cuckoo
The boy cackled. Then he put the wet pipe into his mouth again, pressed it with his tongue, and whistled.
- Tell me, whistler, are you alone here? - the lieutenant continued the interrogation.
- No, there are many of us here. Only most of all sparrows, crows and partridges. I am the only nightingale
- You bastard! - the officer interrupted him. - I’m asking you: not here more people?
“No,” the boy answered. “When your guys started shooting and the village caught fire, everyone shouted: “The animals, the animals are coming!” - they took it and ran away in all directions.
- Why didn’t you run away?
- I wanted to look at the animals. When we went to the city, they showed me a big cat, about the size of a calf, for fifty dollars.
“As you can see, you fool,” said the lieutenant, addressing the soldiers in his own language. “Tell me, kid, do you know this road through the forest to Surmontai?” Isn't that what she's called?
“How could I not know, sir,” the boy answered confidently. “And we went there to the mill to fish.” There are such pikes there that they swallow two-month-old goslings alive.
- Okay, lead the way. If you do it soon, you’ll get this.” The lieutenant showed the boy a lighter. “If you deceive me, I’ll break my head along with that very whistle of yours.” Understood?..
The squad moved. In front of the camp kitchen, next to the lieutenant, the boy also walked, never stopping for a minute to play his pipe, imitating either a nightingale or a cuckoo. Waving his hand to the beat, he either knocked down roadside tree branches or collected cones and seemed occupied only with himself. The forest became denser, the road meandered between clearings overgrown with birches, and again turned into a dark pine forest.
- What do people say here about partisans? Are they found in your forest? - asked the lieutenant.
- There are no such. There are russula, boletus and honey fungus,” the boy answered without blinking.
Realizing that there was no point in engaging in further conversations with such a man, the German fell silent.
In the very depths of the forest, in a young and dense spruce forest, from where the bend of the road was visible, several people were lying. They lay not far from each other; Their guns stood nearby, leaning against a tree. From time to time they quietly exchanged a word or two, carefully moving away the branches of the trees and carefully looking around the forest.
- Do you hear? - said one of them, looked at his comrades, stood up a little and turned his head in the direction from where the distant trill of a nightingale could be heard through the unclear noise of the forest.
- Didn’t you imagine it? - asked another, listened and heard nothing, but still took out four grenades from under the stump and put them in front of him.
- Well, what now?
The bird's singing became more and more clear. The one who heard him first began to carefully count:
“One, two, three, four,” and he counted with his hand. “A detachment of thirty-two people,” he said finally, listening carefully to the trills of the bird, speaking in such a clear language, but only one of the partisans could understand it.
Suddenly a cuckoo was heard cuckooing.
“Two machine guns,” he determined from the sounds coming.
“Let’s begin,” said a bearded man, all belted with machine-gun belts, taking up his gun.
“Hurry up,” answered the one who was listening to the trill of the bird, putting down the grenades, “They are waiting for us there.” Uncle Styaps and I will let them pass, and when you start, we will start frying
at them from the rear. Don't forget Nightingale if anything happens. He hasn't eaten anything since yesterday, poor fellow.
After some time, a detachment of Germans appeared near a young spruce tree. The nightingale continued to sing with the same fervor, but for those who understood the language of his trills, this was only a repetition of what was already known to the people hiding in the thicket of the forest.
When the soldiers entered a small clearing, a whistle echoed from the bushes to the singing of a nightingale. The boy, who was walking along the edge of the path, ducked into the thicket of the forest.
The fired volley, breaking the silence, knocked the lieutenant off his feet, he did not even have time to raise his weapon. He fell onto a dusty path. One after another, struck by a well-aimed bullet, the soldiers fell. Moans, screams of horror, confused shouts of commands were in the air.
But soon the forest fell silent again, and only the soft, sandy soil drank enough of the enemy’s blood.
The next day, at the very end of the village, at the crossroads, in his usual place, near the ditch, a thirteen-year-old boy again sat and planed something out of wood. From time to time he vigilantly looked around the road leading to the village. It seemed as if he was expecting something again. And again a wonderful melody shimmered in the air, which an overly familiar ear would not have distinguished from the trill of a nightingale.
A. Zharov
MARCH OF YOUNG PIONEERS
Rise up the fires,
Blue nights!
We are pioneers -
Children of workers.
The era is approaching
Happy years.
Pioneer's Cry:
"Always be prepared!"
Young and brave.
Friendly crowd
We'll be ready
To work and battle.
Let's be an example
Struggles and labors.
Pioneer's Cry;
"Always be prepared!"
With a joyful step,
With a cheerful song
We are performing
For the Komsomol.
The era is approaching
Happy years.
Pioneer's Cry:
"Always be prepared!"
We'll thunder together
I will delete the song
For the pioneers
World family.
Let's be an example
Struggles and labors.
Pioneer's Cry:
"Always be prepared!"
We raise
Scarlet Banner.
Children of workers
Feel free to follow us!
The era is approaching
Happy years.
Pioneer's Cry:
"Always be prepared!"
1922
A. Aleksin
SOWING BOILERS IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
A few years ago, Anatoly Aleksin’s story “The Extraordinary Adventures of Seva Kotlov” was published. Now A. Aleksin has written a continuation of this story - “Seva Kotlov beyond the Arctic Circle.” We publish chapters from it in this book.
I WILL BE A CORRESPONDENT
That evening, when dad announced at the “family quartet” (our family consists of four people) that we were going to Zapolyarsk, I sang the famous song that I broadcast on the radio almost every day:
We are going, friends, to distant lands!..
But the next day, on the way to school, I suddenly felt sad. I thought that soon the alley along which I had been running in the mornings for five and a half years, waving my briefcase, to school, would be far, far away from me. And no one will shout to me in the morning: “Great, Kotelok!” And no one will even know that my name is Cauldron. Maybe they’ll come up with another nickname for me, which I’ll never get used to anyway (well, for example, they’ll call me “steam boiler” or something like that). Or maybe they won’t give you any nickname at all.
All these thoughts made me look so bad that the chairman of the detachment’s council, Tolya Bulanchikov, said in his usual unhurried and respectable voice:
- I see. Seva, that you are in deep thought. And that’s very good: right now we just need your ingenuity and your, so to speak, rich creative imagination!
“You will soon no longer have my rich imagination,” I said in a deathly voice.
- Pet? Why? You are wrong. Summer will soon come, and we will have a city Pnoner camp in the school yard - so we want you to come up with some exciting summer activities
Tolya recently began to speak as if on behalf of the entire detachment council: “we want”, “we expect from you!”
“I won’t be with you this summer,” I said quietly and sadly.
- We understand that you’ll probably go to a country camp, right? But then you will come back, and then
“I will never return to you,” I said even more sadly.
Tolya Bulanchikov looked at me with surprise and even fear:
- You might think that you were going to die!
- No, I won’t die. But I will go very, very far. To the city of Zapolyarsk
A few minutes later our entire class knew about this news. And then I felt even more uneasy: I realized that the guys didn’t want to part with me. And even those who... I thought they wanted to get rid of me. No, no one wanted to get rid of me
- You will always be with us, dear Seva! We won't forget you! - Tolya Bulanchikov said solemnly.
- Here’s another thing: he started a funeral speech! - exclaimed sarcastically Galya Kalinkina, whom we recently elected as the editor of the wall newspaper for this very sarcasm of hers, which Tolya Bulanchikov called “the ability to think critically.” “Let’s better make sure that he doesn’t part with us.”
“This is impossible,” I said. “Mom has already packed her things.”
“No, you didn’t understand me,” Galya began to explain, “I want you not to part with us in the figurative sense of the word.”
- How is it - B figurative?
- It’s very simple. I came up with something: you will be our special correspondent in the Arctic Circle! You will send all sorts of interesting notes to each issue of the wall newspaper (that means at least three times a month!). We will read them and, as it were, talk with you, we will hear your voice. So we will not part!
This is cool! Well done, Galya!.. This is wonderful! - they started shouting from all sides. - Now we will have our own correspondent!
- It would be good if we all went in different directions - and then we would have correspondents everywhere! - our squad poet Tymka Lapin was carried away.
“No, why should we all leave and thereby destroy the team?” objected Tolya Bulanchikov. “Then
There will be no one to read the wall newspaper - everyone will just write!.. In general, Galya’s proposal is very reasonable. A sensible proposal, I would say.
- Still would! - exclaimed Tymka Lapin. - Let him tell us about all his affairs in the Arctic Circle, about all the life there, and then, right after school, the whole class will come to Zapolyarsk to work. A? HEALTHY I read that some graduates do just that: the whole class goes straight to different impact sites! Let's do it too, shall we?
- Let's! Let's go to shock sites! - everyone shouted and began to pat Tymka on the shoulder so joyfully that he even squatted down.
“Okay,” I agreed, “I’ll be your correspondent.” Right from the fall I will send the first article by the first of September!
- No, we will all just die of impatience! - Galya Kalinkina disagreed with me. - As soon as you arrive, write immediately. Better yet, send your first correspondence from the road. You know, there are “travel notes” like this. Here you come
- But summer is already coming and our wall newspaper will close until September.
- The newspaper will be published without interruption! - said Galya. She always abbreviated the word “wall newspaper” and simply said “newspaper”: it sounded more respectable. “After all, in the summer here, in the yard, there will be a city pioneer camp, and it won’t do without a newspaper either!”
- Okay, I’ll write to you as soon as I arrive.
"IDEA NUMBER ONE"
It came to me completely unexpectedly, like all my most brilliant ideas. This was the very first idea that dawned on me in the Arctic Circle. But I’m getting ahead of myself again
And it was like this. Returning with my new (polar!) friend Ryzhik from the theater, I noticed a large line near one of the stores.
“They’re behind the furniture,” said Vovka Ryzhik. “We have a lot of houses being built in Zapolyarsk, people are moving into new apartments, which means everyone needs furniture.” That’s what’s missing. You can’t transport so many cabinets and sofas at once along the Yenisei!
I realized that my mother and I would have to stand for more than one day in such a long tail.
“We even have a homemade bookcase and table at home,” continued Vovka Ryzhik. “You’ll come and see.” I made it in the school carpentry workshop under the guidance of Van Vanych.
- Under the leadership of whom?
- Van Vanycha! Well, our labor teacher’s name is Ivan Ivanovich, and he is very energetic and always demands: “Don’t waste your time on trifles!” So, for the sake of speed, so as not to waste time on trifles, we shortened his first name and patronymic. “Van Vanych” worked.
“Interesting. And at our school, in Moscow, we also made stools ourselves,” I remembered. “Only not for ourselves, but for the residents of the new house that was built near our school.” Tymka Lapin, a squad poet, even wrote poems about it.
I stopped and, remembering that Ryzhik was a future artpst (he really dreamed about this!), I recited with maximum expression:
Oh, kids, kids, kids. Let's put together stools! We’ll put them in the kitchens - And glorify our squad!
Remembering these verses, I again felt sad for my school, for my comrades, for Vitik-Nytik, who was there, in Moscow, my most faithful friend.
- You know how many close friends I had in Moscow! - I said.
Ryzhik frowned:
- A person cannot have many close friends. There can only be one true friend, and for life! That’s what I think And everyone else is just like that, comrades or acquaintances. For example, my father is a friend for life! We don't have a mother. She died.
- And you will never have any more friends? - I got worried.
All the sad memories immediately flew out of my head: I really wanted to become a “true friend” for Ryzhik, and “for life.” But he didn’t answer my question, as if he hadn’t heard it, and I again felt uneasy.
And ten days later I remembered that it was time to send my next correspondence to Moscow. I knew that the malicious Galya Kalinkina, who from here, from afar, did not seem malicious to me at all, but on the contrary, kind and very pretty, that our respectable Tolya Bulanchikov, and our highly conscious Natasha Mazurina, and Vitik-Nytik, who was in love with me, and even compassionate Lelka Mukhina - everyone is waiting for a message from me about some wonderful things that I personally came up with and organized. After all, Tolya Bulanchikov said this to me when he said goodbye:
“You should turn around there as wide as you can; let them know what kind of initiative children our school and our pioneer detachment raise!”
But I haven’t turned around “to its full extent” yet. What was there to write about? And it was also impossible not to write, because my Moscow friends might think that I was not at all going to prove to everyone here in Zapolyarsk “what kind of initiative children our school and our pioneer detachment are raising” under the leadership of Tolya Bulanchikov.
What to write about?!
And suddenly I jumped straight from the balcony to the desk. He grabbed a pen and quickly scribbled on the paper:
"Idea number one"! I decided to call this note that way because I want to tell in it about my very first idea, which was born here, beyond the Arctic Circle, among blizzards, blizzards, low-growing bushes and polar nights. That is, there is nothing like that yet - no blizzards, no polar nights, but there are only low-growing bushes, but all this will come soon. And so, preparing to fight natural difficulties, I decided to come up with something that would make life polar explorers are lighter and happier!
And I must tell you, my dear guys, that a lot of residential buildings are being built here, and if you walk along the main streets, you won’t be able to distinguish them from Moscow. But there is still not enough furniture: after all, the city is still completely new, just under construction, and that means everyone needs furniture. And so I decided to propose that the carpentry workshop of the school where I will soon be studying should be urgently renamed into a “furniture workshop” and begin to produce various furniture for the local population: bookcases, chairs, tables, stools.”
Here I wanted to stop, but my pen wouldn’t stop; it simply tore further across the paper and, against my will, dragged me along with it. I continued to write:
“All the local pioneers were indescribably delighted when I outlined my plan to them. And everyone, as one, began to exclaim: “These are the kind of enterprising children the Moscow school and the Moscow Pioneer detachment are raising! Thank them for such guys!..” And then everyone gathered in the table workshop, in no time they redid the sign on the doors, wrote: “Furniture workshop,” and immediately grabbed planes, saws and chisels! The work went so hot that soon, I am sure, the shortage of furniture in the city will be completely eliminated! Or almost completely. Moreover, all schools, of course, will take up our initiative! I suggested delivering the finished products directly to the furniture store. And the store director was very happy and also exclaimed: “Oh “What kind of initiative children are raised by the Moscow school and the Moscow Pioneer detachment!..”
Here I hardly took a breath, re-read my correspondence and noticed with horror that the second half of it was a complete lie. Or better yet, fantasy! In the first half I simply wrote about my ideas, but in the second I wanted to cross out this second half, but I felt very sorry: everything was so cool and beautiful there! I imagined how happy all my Moscow friends would be, how proud they would be of me, and I couldn’t cross it out, I just didn’t raise my hand!..
I hastily, so as not to change my mind, put this correspondence in an envelope, took it to the post office, sent it by registered mail, and hid the receipt in the side pocket of my jacket.
And only then I was truly horrified: “What if my friends find out the truth? What a shame it will be! They'll just give up on me! They will despise me! And they will be right. What to do? How to proceed?"
And I decided: I need to make sure that every line of my letter becomes true!
And then it turns out that I simply got ahead of, or, as they say, “anticipated” the events.
I immediately rushed to look for Vovka Ryzhik, who just that day in the morning intended to go into the school yard to meet the guys there and, as he put it, “knock the ball” a little, that is, play football.
FANTASY BECOMES FALSE
Two days later I went with Ryzhik to school, where in a few months I would sit at a desk. I walked and quietly hummed to myself: “We were born to make a fairy tale come true!..” This song was very suitable at that moment, because I really needed to make the “fairy tale” that I depicted “come true” on paper and sent by registered mail to Moscow.
But Ryzhik knew nothing about this letter and therefore said:
- Stop whining! You have no hearing!
Alas, my older brother Dima told me the same thing. And just like Dima, I answered Ryzhik:
- I’m not going to sing in the theater
Vovka Ryzhik did not argue. And in general he was in that morning good mood: After all, two days ago I revealed to him all my plans for the furniture workshop! Vovka Ryzhik immediately ran home to Van Vanych, and he also liked my “idea number one”. Together they called many children, and almost all of them promised, despite the holidays, to come to school at the agreed time. Moreover, some of them themselves did not stop carpentry in the workshop in the summer.
And then, two days ago, so that everything would correspond exactly to my note, I suggested to Vovka Ryzhik:
- Let's write on the doors of the carpentry workshop: “Furniture workshop.”
“But there’s no workshop yet,” objected Vovka Ryzhik. “When we create it, then we’ll get drunk!”
Honestly, sometimes with his “high consciousness” he reminded me of our boring, terribly fair Natasha Mazurina.
- Yes, understand: a sign is a very important matter! - I convinced Vovka Ryzhik. “What’s it like in cinemas?” First they write an advertisement, put up a poster, and then they show the new film. And if posters weren’t posted, no one would know what was on the screen, and no one would go to the cinema. It’s the same with us: if we put up a sign, everyone will know!
“Okay,” Vovka Ryzhik finally agreed. “Since the idea is yours, let it be your way!”
Now, when we went to the school to meet the future “furniture makers” there, the sign, gleaming with fresh paint, was already hanging on the door.
About thirty guys came from different classes. Vovka Ryzhik began to introduce me and said to everyone:
- Seva Kotlov from Moscow! Seva Kotlov from Moscow!..
And everyone shook my hand so tightly, as if they were sure that I was probably a good guy and deserved all respect. And all because I was from Moscow!
Everyone started asking me about Moscow. Did I meet Yuri Gagarin at the airfield or did I only see him on TV? Was I on Red Square on Pioneer Day, May 19? Did you take the metro to Fili or only on the old lines? Did I swim in the “Moscow” pool and is it good to swim in it?.. I understood: they, far from Moscow, wanted to always be with her and therefore they knew everything about her, as about a loved one who, although she lives far away, but still the dearest!..
And when Vovka Ryzhik told me that it was I who came up with the idea of setting up a “furniture workshop,” everyone began to praise me:
- Well done! And how did you get this into your head? We didn’t think of it, but you just arrived and immediately thought of it!
- What's so surprising about that? Moskvich!
For the first time I realized that “Muscovite” is not just an ordinary word, but like an honorary title. You say to yourself: “Muscovite” - and they already look at you in a special way and expect something good from you.
And then the guys began to invite me to their school for good, assuring me that it was the best in the city.
“He will study with us, don’t worry,” Vovka Ryzhik reassured everyone in a tone as if he were the school principal or even the head of the school. “I’ve already thought about this question: Seva is just coming up to us in the area!”
- It actually suits us!.. It really suits us! - voices rang out in response.
Van Vanych, the labor teacher, who was busily walking around the workshop in black overalls, did not like the enthusiasm for me.
“We’ll see,” he said in a hoarse voice, stroking his graying mustache, “whether he’s suitable or not!” Submitting ideas is, you know, half the battle. And we’ll check it out at a real job. Let's test its strength!..
This immediately spoiled my mood: I might not have passed the test of strength, because in Moscow I mainly gave ideas, thought through all sorts of stunning things, and only others carried them out. That is, I, of course, took part in something, and I also worked in the workshop, but lately Tolya Bulanchikov protected me, because he considered me the “main think tank” of the or-row council. In general, I could put together a stool with someone, but making a bookcase or a table is unlikely.
Van Vanych winked at me slyly: now, they say, we’ll find out what you are like!
Van Vanych's face seemed very familiar. Any person who saw him would immediately say: “We met somewhere!” This is how we usually imagine advanced revolutionary workers: deep wrinkles on the cheeks and forehead, a gray mustache and intelligent, restless eyes. Van Vanych, it turns out, came to school from production - from a metallurgical plant, where he worked in the workshop as a foreman.
- There is no need to waste time on trifles! Doing things like that, and chatting like that!.. - said Van Vanych, somehow in a special, workman’s way, wiping his hands with a rag up to the elbows.
- Right! “We need to get down to business quickly,” I supported Van Vanych, “otherwise other schools will get wind of it and jump ahead.”
- Look what you are: they’ll get wind of it! - Van Vanych angrily shook his head. - And let them get wind: there will be more furniture!
- Certainly! Let them sniff!.. - I caught myself. - But we must be the first to start: after all, we came up with the idea!..
All the guys sorted themselves out into different professions: some started making tables, others - bookcases, others - chairs, and others - painting.
- I will paint! - I immediately volunteered. It seemed to me that swinging a brush was probably easier than sawing, planing and hammering nails.
- No, you and I will take care of the bookcases! - Vovka Ryzhik pulled me by the sleeve.
- And I know how to paint well! From the early childhood I loved, you know, coloring pictures, and then fences, like Tom Sbyer!..
- Tom Sawyer didn’t paint fences, he used cunning to force others to do so. And you are the same worker, right? Probably, you only know how to give ideas! - Vovka whispered all this quietly: he didn’t want to disgrace me in front of my comrades. And he loudly declared: “Seva and I will be a “shelf brigade”!”
“I don’t know how,” I pleaded again in a whisper.
- Nothing, stay close and watch. And in the evenings, at our house, you’ll learn!
"WITH PIONEER GREETINGS"
The first batch of our homemade shelves, tables and chairs was ready! At my suggestion, a sign was attached to each item with the inscription: “Furniture workshop “With Pioneer greetings!” This name for the workshop was very apt: a person will sit on a chair and know that we welcome him; lean his elbows on the table - and also remember his young pioneer years.
But the director of the furniture store, it turns out, did not want us to greet him at all, and did not greet us with that joyful exclamation that I mentioned in my correspondence. No, he did not shout with happiness: “Oh, what kind of initiative children are raised by the Moscow school and the Moscow pioneer detachment!” On the contrary, he doubted it for a very long time, shook his head and said that it would be good for us to send our furniture not to the store, but to the “skillful hands” exhibition. But we explained to him that we made our shelves, tables and chairs not for exhibitions, but for people: so that they would have something to sit on, something to dine on and where to put their books.
A few days later, a whole committee arrived at our school. She looked and felt our “finished products” for a long time, knocked on the shelves, and sat down in full force
on the chairs, leaned on the tables with such force that I thought they would crack and fly into pieces. But they did not crack or fly apart.
“Come on, come on,” Van Va-nych encouraged the commission. “You can even climb onto the table with your feet and jump on it to check, although in life this is done quite rarely. Our products will withstand the strength test!”
And she really survived. The authoritative commission stated that as a “temporary measure” our furniture can be sold, but at a very low price.
- That's fine! - I exclaimed. “We’re giving it away completely free of charge: we don’t need anything, well, we just don’t need anything!” And people will be happy: the quality is high and the price is low! And in general, they will write a note about our furniture in the newspaper, so go away!
The commission also said that our products would probably be suitable for youth hostels, but that first we need to “test all this on the buyer.” Therefore, they were going to display the furniture in the store and see how the buyer would react to it: whether he would rush headlong at it or, on the contrary, jump headlong to the side!
It was dangerous: who knows, the buyer! You never know with what mood he will come to the store. Maybe he still won’t figure it out properly and will write a note about our products, but not in the newspaper, as I wanted, but in the “Book of Complaints.” Anything is possible.
But I had no intention of sitting idly by and waiting to see what the customers, whom the store director for some reason called “consumers,” would do. I came up with a great plan, bold and very simple! I immediately revealed it to Vovka Ryzhik, and he also approved of it.
Arriving home, I immediately gathered our entire “family quartet”.
“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “you will have to complete one combat mission.”
- Which? - everyone asked in unison.
- Buy one bookcase, one table and one chair. But don't just buy!
And then I explained in detail exactly how this would need to be done.
The next morning, all four of us walked straight to the opening of the furniture store. From afar, I saw Vovka Ryzhik and his father, the artist Vladimir Nikolaevich, who managed to arrive before us.
As soon as the store opened, the line immediately, as they say, poured inside. And we, too, “gushed in.” The store director was walking right next to the shelves, chairs and tables with signs that cheerfully addressed each customer: “Pioneer greetings!”
Even the day before, we agreed that we would not show our family relations: everyone came on their own!
My mother was the first to “completely accidentally” draw attention to our furniture - she enthusiastically shouted to the entire store:
- Oh, what an interesting new product! How simple and how elegant it is!..
“And most importantly, how cheap it is,” my brother Dima gloomily supported my mother.
“Just think,” my mother continued, “and our schoolchildren did all this!” Our children! Our shift!
To be honest, I didn’t expect this from my mother. She, it turns out, miraculously “reincarnated.”
“It would simply be a sin not to support the children in person and not to buy this furniture,” Dad entered the conversation, not entirely successfully, it seemed to me.
“No, you’re wrong,” Vladimir Nikolaevich said quietly and softly, “reincarnating,” as he liked to put it, into an intelligent buyer. “What does “pochin” have to do with it? We shouldn't buy bad furniture just for the sake of it. That would be wrong. And even unpedagogical! And this furniture deserves all praise, regardless of
It depends on who made it. For example, I wouldn’t even have guessed that it wasn’t factory made!
- And I just dreamed of sitting on such chairs all my life! And keep books on just such shelves! - Mom exclaimed again.
“And I dreamed too,” Dima mumbled.
“Me too,” dad supported much more cheerfully.
And mom continued:
- Simplicity, even some deliberate roughness of work - it’s so fashionable now!
“No, pay attention to the price,” the leisurely, intelligent buyer in the person of Vladimir Nikolaevich entered again. “It’s actually for nothing!” For free! Without hesitation, I buy a table!..
“You just don’t have enough dining table,” I thought, “so you won’t regret your purchase!..”
“I’ll buy a bookcase,” my mother said decisively.
There was already a whole crowd of buyers around our furniture.
- How lovely!
- This is labor education! It bears fruit!
And everyone also rated it very highly.” low price" In a word, many wanted to buy products from the furniture workshop “With Pioneer Greetings!”
But then, having pushed everyone aside, a very agile young man in a tunic, with a thick briefcase in his hands, rushed forward.
- Sorry, comrades, but wholesale buyers always come first! This furniture is very suitable for our youth hostel: simple, cheap and comfortable! I am the commandant of the hostel, and I buy everything at once!..
He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and sighed happily. Of course: he’s so lucky! I managed to buy it! I immediately realized that a “wholesale buyer” is one who grabs “everything and everything” and leaves nothing for others.
There was immediate noise all around:
- I must say that our guys do not stop there!
The store director barely squeezed forward and reassured the customers:
- Don't worry, comrades! Representatives of the furniture workshop “With Pioneer greetings!” are present here,” he pointed to Vovka Ryzhik and me, “and we will ask them to convey all your wishes directly to the destination.”
“Yes, yes, we will definitely deliver them to their destination,” I assured the buyers.
And when we went outside, I said to Vovka Ryzhik:
- Everything is fine! Everything is honest and noble: after all, the furniture is really good! And almost free. Otherwise they wouldn’t believe it, they would doubt it, they would feel it until the evening
- Of course, it’s good! - Mom unexpectedly, already seriously agreed. “I didn’t even think that you could do that. I’ll just be happy to put this bookcase in my room!”
In general, my fantastic correspondence “Idea number one” suddenly became the pure truth! I just “anticipated” the events a little
B. Zheleznikov
ASTRONAUT
The new guy was sitting on the last desk. It was impossible not to notice him: he had bright red hair.
“We have a newcomer,” said Levushkin.
- Where did you come from? - I asked.
- Our house was demolished. And we got a new apartment.
- Your last name?
- Princesses.
- How did you study physics?
- This is my favorite subject.
Still, he was very red, and I involuntarily looked at his hair and did not see his face.
I started explaining new formulas. Every time I turned to the board to write a formula or draw a drawing, Levushkin whispered and giggled behind my back.
“Don’t bother me to listen,” the princess’s voice came to me.
I looked around: Levushkin looked so confused, as if he had taken a sip of hot tea, had been badly burned and did not know whether to spit out this tea or swallow it.
“Princess,” I said, “go to the board and solve the problem using the new formula.”
He quickly solved the problem and explained everything clearly, without hesitation. I liked the way he answered. Many of the children in our class spoke unnecessary words, but the Princesses did not.
After the bell rang, when I was leaving the class, I heard Levushkin’s voice:
- Did you see which one? I'm disturbing him. It’s the first day and it’s already putting things in order. Academician Fok!" You can’t move. He’s red-haired, and he’s also a suck-up.
"Academician Fok is a famous Soviet physicist, laureate of the Lenin Prize.
“I myself know that he’s a redhead,” Knyazhin answered calmly. “And you’re a fool for teasing.” This is absolutely true.
A week later, I saw from the senior counselor the lists of children who had signed up for different clubs. Knyazhin was the first to enroll in the physics club. “Okay,” I thought. “Knyazhin is the right guy.”
I looked through the lists of other circles, and in each list I came across the name Princess. And in zoological, and in mathematics, and in sports. Only he didn’t sign up for the singing club.
During recess I called out to Princess.
- Why did you sign up for all the clubs? - I asked. - In my opinion, this is somewhat frivolous.
“I need it,” he answered.
- Maybe you don’t know what fascinates you most?
“No, I know,” he answered stubbornly. “But I need it.” This is my secret.
“It’s a secret or not,” I said, “but you don’t have to come to the physical circle classes.” If you work in zoological, mathematical and sports clubs, then you will have no time left for physics.
The prince was very upset and even turned pale. I regretted that I spoke to him so harshly: after all, he was still a boy.
“I must know everything, I must be indispensable,” he said. “I will be a spaceship pilot.” And I didn’t tell this to anyone, but you forced me.
- A-ah! - I drawled. And for the first time I looked him straight in the face. Under his red forelock he had a bulging forehead, and his eyes were blue and desperate.
“This one will fly,” I thought, “this one will fly!” I remembered how I jumped with a parachute during the war and how scary it is when you jump into the void. You look at the distant land, at the trees that look like just hillocks of moss, at the rivers with streams of rain, and whether you want it or not, you think: what if the parachute doesn’t open? And then the earth becomes not desirable, but terrible. “But it will be even worse for those who fly into space. But this one will still fly.”
“Then I don’t mind, since this is the case,” I said.
“Thank you,” answered Knyazhin.
For three months he did not miss a single physical class, and then suddenly he stopped going. And in class he was absent-minded and even lost weight.
“Princess,” I asked, “why did you leave the circle?” Don't have time?
He looked up at me. These were the eyes of another person. They were not desperate, but sadder and lost their blue color.
“I’ll still be walking,” he answered.
Levushkin told me (he became friends with Knyazhin):
- He's in big trouble. I can’t tell you, but it’s a big nuisance.
I decided to talk to Prince the other day, but chance brought us together that same evening. I was standing at the counter in a bookstore and suddenly I heard a familiar voice behind me:
- Is there anything new?
“Boy,” answered the girl-seller, “there can’t be something new every day.” You'd come in twice a week.
I looked back. The Prince stood in front of me, but there was something unfamiliar in the expression of his face. I didn’t guess right away, but then I realized: he had glasses on his nose. Small childish glasses with white metal frames.
We stood in silence for a minute. The princess turned crimson-red, his cheeks, ears and even his nose turned red.
“Ah, Prince,” I said.
I didn’t have time to add anything more, he took off running.
I rushed after him.
- Princesses! - I shouted. “Princesses, wait!”
A man looked at me, and a woman shouted:
- Hold the boy!
Then Knyazhin stopped. He didn’t look at me, took off his glasses and hung his head low.
- and aren’t you ashamed? How many people wear glasses and are not at all ashamed of it? Forgive me, I think this is stupid.
He said nothing.
- Run away because of such nonsense. And Levushkin said: The prince is in big trouble. Nonsense!
Then he raised his head and said quietly:
- But now they won’t take me as a pilot, I found out that they don’t take nearsighted people, and I can’t fly spaceships. I hate these glasses.
Ah, that's the thing! That's why he's so unhappy and thin. His first dream was shattered into pieces, and he suffered. Alone, quietly.
“You shouldn’t be suffering so much,” I finally said. “You’ll fly on a spaceship as an astronomer, engineer or doctor.”
- So you think I can still hope? Can? - He grabbed my words with joy. - How come I didn’t realize it myself? Just a fool, that's for sure.
He was so happy! And I thought: “It’s good when a person has a clear goal in life and everything is ahead.”
A. Tvardovsky
FOR THE FEAT OF THE CENTURY
A majestic feat of the century.
For the sake of the happiness of all people
Hammer and sickle power
Leads his sons and daughters.
Homeland of peace and freedom.
Let your enemies threaten you:
Your peoples are always with you -
For a friend, friend.
For brother, brother.
Our strength is invincible.
Under the red banner she
And opened a new path for the earth,
And directed towards the starry land.
Soar, Lenin's banner.
Shading the way forward for us.
Half the world walks with us under it.
The day will come -
The whole world will go.
Already in the first days of the war, while defending the Brest Fortress, a student of the musical platoon, 14-year-old Petya Klypa, distinguished himself. Many pioneers participated in partisan detachments, where they were often used as scouts and saboteurs, as well as in carrying out underground activities; Among the young partisans, Marat Kazei, Volodya Dubinin, Lenya Golikov and Valya Kotik are especially famous (all of them died in battle, except for Volodya Dubinin, who was blown up by a mine; and all of them, except for the older Lenya Golikov, were 13-14 years old at the time of their death) .
There were often cases when teenagers school age fought as part of military units (the so-called “sons and daughters of regiments” - the story of the same name by Valentin Kataev, the prototype of which was 11-year-old Isaac Rakov, is known).
For military services, tens of thousands of children and pioneers were awarded orders and medals:
The Order of Lenin was awarded to Tolya Shumov, Vitya Korobkov, Volodya Kaznacheev; Order of the Red Banner - Volodya Dubinin, Yuliy Kantemirov, Andrey Makarikhin, Kostya Kravchuk;
Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree - Petya Klypa, Valery Volkov, Sasha Kovalev; Order of the Red Star - Volodya Samorukha, Shura Efremov, Vanya Andrianov, Vitya Kovalenko, Lenya Ankinovich.
Hundreds of pioneers were awarded
medal “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War”,
medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" - over 15,000,
“For the Defense of Moscow” - over 20,000 medals
Four pioneer heroes were awarded the title
Hero of the Soviet Union:
Lenya Golikov, Marat Kazei, Valya Kotik, Zina Portnova.
There was a war going on. Enemy bombers were buzzing hysterically over the village where Sasha lived. The native land was trampled by the enemy's boot. Sasha Borodulin, a pioneer with the warm heart of a young Leninist, could not put up with this. He decided to fight the fascists. Got a rifle. Having killed a fascist motorcyclist, he took his first battle trophy - a real German machine gun. Day after day he conducted reconnaissance. More than once he went on the most dangerous missions. He was responsible for many destroyed vehicles and soldiers. For carrying out dangerous tasks, for demonstrating courage, resourcefulness and courage, Sasha Borodulin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in the winter of 1941.
Punishers tracked down the partisans. The detachment escaped them for three days, twice broke out of encirclement, but the enemy ring closed again. Then the commander called for volunteers to cover the detachment’s retreat. Sasha was the first to step forward. Five took the fight. One by one they died. Sasha was left alone. It was still possible to retreat - the forest was nearby, but the detachment valued every minute that would delay the enemy, and Sasha fought to the end. He, allowing the fascists to close a ring around him, grabbed a grenade and blew them up and himself. Sasha Borodulin died, but his memory lives on. The memory of the heroes is eternal!
After the death of her mother, Marat and her older sister Ariadne went to the partisan detachment named after. 25th anniversary of October (November 1942).
When the partisan detachment was leaving the encirclement, Ariadne’s legs were frozen, and therefore she was taken by plane to the mainland, where she had to have both legs amputated. Marat, as a minor, was also offered to evacuate along with his sister, but he refused and remained in the detachment.
Subsequently, Marat was a scout at the headquarters of the partisan brigade named after. K.K. Rokossovsky. In addition to reconnaissance, he participated in raids and sabotage. For courage and bravery in battles he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medals “For Courage” (wounded, raised partisans to attack) and “For Military Merit”. Returning from reconnaissance and surrounded by Germans, Marat Kazei blew himself up with a grenade.
When the war began and the Nazis were approaching Leningrad, high school counselor Anna Petrovna Semenova was left for underground work in the village of Tarnovichi - in the south of the Leningrad region. To communicate with the partisans, she selected her most reliable pioneers, and the first among them was Galina Komleva. During her six school years, the cheerful, brave, inquisitive girl was awarded books six times with the caption: “For excellent studies.”
The young messenger brought assignments from the partisans to her counselor, and forwarded her reports to the detachment along with bread, potatoes, and food, which were obtained with great difficulty. One day, when a messenger from a partisan detachment did not arrive on time at the meeting place, Galya, half-frozen, made her way into the detachment, handed over a report and, having warmed up a little, hurried back, carrying a new task to the underground fighters.
Together with Komsomol member Tasya Yakovleva, Galya wrote leaflets and scattered them around the village at night. The Nazis tracked down and captured the young underground fighters. They kept me in the Gestapo for two months. They beat me severely, threw me into a cell, and in the morning they took me out again for interrogation. Galya didn’t say anything to the enemy, didn’t betray anyone. The young patriot was shot.
The Motherland celebrated the feat of Galya Komleva with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
Chernihiv region. The front came close to the village of Pogoreltsy. On the outskirts, covering the withdrawal of our units, a company held the defense. A boy brought cartridges to the soldiers. His name was Vasya Korobko.
Night. Vasya creeps up to the school building occupied by the Nazis.
He makes his way into the pioneer room, takes out the pioneer banner and hides it securely.
The outskirts of the village. Under the bridge - Vasya. He pulls out iron brackets, saws down the piles, and at dawn, from a hiding place, watches the bridge collapse under the weight of a fascist armored personnel carrier. The partisans were convinced that Vasya could be trusted, and entrusted him with a serious task: to become a scout in the enemy’s lair. At the fascist headquarters, he lights the stoves, chops wood, and he takes a closer look, remembers, and passes on information to the partisans. The punishers, who planned to exterminate the partisans, forced the boy to lead them into the forest. But Vasya led the Nazis to a police ambush. The Nazis, mistaking them for partisans in the dark, opened furious fire, killed all the policemen and themselves suffered heavy losses.
Together with the partisans, Vasya destroyed nine echelons and hundreds of Nazis. In one of the battles he was hit by an enemy bullet. The Motherland awarded its little hero, who lived a short but such a bright life, the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 1st degree.
She was executed twice by the Nazis, and for many years her military friends considered Nadya dead. They even erected a monument to her.
It’s hard to believe, but when she became a scout in the partisan detachment of “Uncle Vanya” Dyachkov, she was not yet ten years old. Small, thin, she, pretending to be a beggar, wandered among the Nazis, noticing everything, remembering everything, and brought the most valuable information to the detachment. And then, together with partisan fighters, she blew up the fascist headquarters, derailed a train with military equipment, and mined objects.
The first time she was captured was when, together with Vanya Zvontsov, she hung out a red flag in enemy-occupied Vitebsk on November 7, 1941. They beat her with ramrods, tortured her, and when they brought her to the ditch to shoot her, she no longer had any strength left - she fell into the ditch, momentarily outstripping the bullet. Vanya died, and the partisans found Nadya alive in a ditch...
The second time she was captured at the end of 1943. And again torture: they poured ice water on her in the cold, burned a five-pointed star on her back. Considering the scout dead, the Nazis abandoned her when the partisans attacked Karasevo. Local residents came out paralyzed and almost blind. After the war in Odessa, Academician V.P. Filatov restored Nadya’s sight.
15 years later, she heard on the radio how the intelligence chief of the 6th detachment, Slesarenko - her commander - said that the soldiers would never forget their fallen comrades, and named among them Nadya Bogdanova, who saved his life, a wounded man...
Only then did she show up, only then did the people who worked with her learn about what an amazing destiny of a person she, Nadya Bogdanova, was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and medals.
For the operation of reconnaissance and explosion of the railway. bridge over the Drissa River, Leningrad schoolgirl Larisa Mikheenko was nominated for a government award. But the Motherland did not have time to present the award to her brave daughter...
The war cut the girl off from her hometown: in the summer she went on vacation to the Pustoshkinsky district, but was unable to return - the village was occupied by the Nazis. The pioneer dreamed of breaking out of Hitler's slavery and making her way to her own people. And one night she left the village with two older friends.
At the headquarters of the 6th Kalinin Brigade, the commander, Major P.V. Ryndin, initially refused to accept “such little ones”: what kind of partisans are they? But how much even very young citizens can do for the Motherland! Girls were able to do what strong men could not. Dressed in rags, Lara walked through the villages, finding out where and how the guns were located, the sentries were posted, what German vehicles were moving along the highway, what kind of trains were coming to Pustoshka station and with what cargo.
She also took part in combat operations...
The young partisan, betrayed by a traitor in the village of Ignatovo, was shot by the Nazis. The Decree on awarding Larisa Mikheenko the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, contains the bitter word: “Posthumously.”
On June 11, 1944, units leaving for the front were lined up in the central square of Kyiv. And before this battle formation, they read out the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding the pioneer Kostya Kravchuk with the Order of the Red Banner for saving and preserving two battle flags of rifle regiments during the occupation of the city of Kyiv...
Retreating from Kyiv, two wounded soldiers entrusted Kostya with the banners. And Kostya promised to keep them.
At first I buried it in the garden under a pear tree: I thought our people would return soon. But the war dragged on, and, having dug up the banners, Kostya kept them in the barn until he remembered an old, abandoned well outside the city, near the Dnieper. Having wrapped his priceless treasure in burlap and rolled it with straw, he got out of the house at dawn and, with a canvas bag over his shoulder, led a cow to a distant forest. And there, looking around, he hid the bundle in the well, covered it with branches, dry grass, turf...
And throughout the long occupation the pioneer carried out his difficult guard at the banner, although he was caught in a raid, and even fled from the train in which the Kievites were driven away to Germany.
When Kyiv was liberated, Kostya, in a white shirt with a red tie, came to the military commandant of the city and unfurled banners in front of the well-worn and yet amazed soldiers.
On June 11, 1944, the newly formed units leaving for the front were given the rescued Kostya replacements.
Leonid Golikov was born in the village of Lukino, now Parfinsky district, Novgorod region, into a working-class family.
Graduated from 7th grade. He worked at plywood factory No. 2 in the village of Parfino.
Brigade reconnaissance officer of the 67th detachment of the fourth Leningrad partisan brigade, operating in the Novgorod and Pskov regions. Participated in 27 combat operations. He especially distinguished himself during the defeat of German garrisons in the villages of Aprosovo, Sosnitsy, and Sever.
In total, he destroyed: 78 Germans, 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, 2 food and fodder warehouses and 10 vehicles with ammunition. Accompanied a convoy with food (250 carts) to besieged Leningrad. For valor and courage he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the medal “For Courage” and the Partisan of the Patriotic War medal, 2nd degree.
On August 13, 1942, returning from reconnaissance from the Luga-Pskov highway, not far from the village of Varnitsa, Strugokrasnensky district, a grenade blew up a passenger car in which there was German Major General of the Engineering Troops Richard von Wirtz. The detachment commander's report indicated that in a shootout Golikov shot the general, the officer and driver accompanying him with a machine gun, but after that, in 1943-1944, General Wirtz commanded the 96th Infantry Division, and in 1945 he was captured by American troops . The intelligence officer delivered a briefcase with documents to the brigade headquarters. These included drawings and descriptions of new models of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other important military papers. Nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
On January 24, 1943, in an unequal battle in the village of Ostraya Luka, Pskov Region, Leonid Golikov died.
Valya Kotik Born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district. In the fall of 1941, together with his comrades, he killed the head of the field gendarmerie near the town of Shepetovka. In the battle for the city of Izyaslav in the Khmelnytsky region, on February 16, 1944, he was mortally wounded. In 1958, Valya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Wherever the blue-eyed girl Yuta went, her red tie was always with her...
In the summer of 1941, she came from Leningrad on vacation to a village near Pskov. Here terrible news overtook Utah: war! Here she saw the enemy. Utah began to help the partisans. At first she was a messenger, then a scout. Dressed as a beggar boy, she collected information from the villages: where the fascist headquarters were, how they were guarded, how many machine guns there were.
Returning from a mission, I immediately tied a red tie. And it was as if the strength was increasing! Utah supported the tired soldiers with a sonorous pioneer song and a story about their native Leningrad...
And how happy everyone was, how the partisans congratulated Utah when the message came to the detachment: the blockade had been broken! Leningrad survived, Leningrad won! That day, both Yuta’s blue eyes and her red tie shone as it seems never before.
But the earth was still groaning under the enemy’s yoke, and the detachment, together with units of the Red Army, left to help the Estonian partisans. In one of the battles - near the Estonian farm of Rostov - Yuta Bondarovskaya, the little heroine of the great war, a pioneer who did not part with her red tie, died a heroic death. The Motherland awarded its heroic daughter posthumously with the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree, and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
An ordinary black bag would not attract the attention of visitors local history museum, if it weren’t for the red tie lying next to her. A boy or girl will involuntarily freeze, an adult will stop, and they will read the yellowed certificate issued by the commissioner
partisan detachment. The fact that the young owner of these relics, pioneer Lida Vashkevich, risking her life, helped fight the Nazis. There is another reason to stop near these exhibits: Lida was awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree.
...In the city of Grodno, occupied by the Nazis, a communist underground operated. One of the groups was led by Lida’s father. Contacts of underground fighters and partisans came to him, and each time the commander’s daughter was on duty at the house. From the outside looking in, she was playing. And she peered vigilantly, listened, to see if the policemen, the patrol, were approaching,
and, if necessary, gave a sign to her father. Dangerous? Very. But compared to other tasks, this was almost a game. Lida obtained paper for leaflets by buying a couple of sheets from different stores, often with the help of her friends. A pack will be collected, the girl will hide it at the bottom of a black bag and deliver it to the appointed place. And the next day the whole city reads
words of truth about the victories of the Red Army near Moscow and Stalingrad.
The girl warned the people's avengers about the raids while going around safe houses. She traveled from station to station by train to convey an important message to the partisans and underground fighters. She carried the explosives past the fascist posts in the same black bag, filled to the top with coal and trying not to bend so as not to arouse suspicion - coal is lighter explosives...
This is what kind of bag ended up in the Grodno Museum. And the tie that Lida was wearing in her bosom back then: she couldn’t, didn’t want to part with it.
Every summer Nina and her little brother and my mother took her little sister from Leningrad to the village of Nechepert, where there is clean air, soft grass, honey and fresh milk... Roar, explosions, flames and smoke hit this quiet region in the fourteenth summer of the pioneer Nina Kukoverova. War! From the first days of the arrival of the Nazis, Nina became a partisan intelligence officer. I remembered everything I saw around me and reported it to the detachment.
A punitive detachment is located in the village of the mountain, all approaches are blocked, even the most experienced scouts cannot get through. Nina volunteered to go. She walked for a dozen kilometers through a snow-covered plain and field. The Nazis did not pay attention to the chilled, tired girl with a bag, but nothing escaped her attention - neither the headquarters, nor the fuel depot, nor the location of the sentries. And when the partisan detachment set out on a campaign at night, Nina walked next to the commander as a scout, as a guide. That night, fascist warehouses flew into the air, the headquarters burst into flames, and the punitive forces fell, struck down by fierce fire.
Nina, a pioneer who was awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree, went on combat missions more than once.
The young heroine died. But the memory of Russia’s daughter is alive. She was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. Nina Kukoverova is forever included in her pioneer squad.
He dreamed of heaven when he was just a boy. Arkady's father, Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin, a pilot, participated in the rescue of the Chelyuskinites, for which he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And my father’s friend, Mikhail Vasilyevich Vodopyanov, is always nearby. There was something to make the boy's heart burn. But they didn’t let him fly, they told him to grow up.
When the war began, he went to work at an aircraft factory, then he used the airfield for any opportunity to take to the skies. Experienced pilots, even if only for a few minutes, sometimes trusted him to fly the plane. One day the cockpit glass was broken by an enemy bullet. The pilot was blinded. Losing consciousness, he managed to hand over control to Arkady, and the boy landed the plane at his airfield.
After this, Arkady was allowed to seriously study flying, and soon he began to fly on his own.
One day, from above, a young pilot saw our plane shot down by the Nazis. Under heavy mortar fire, Arkady landed, carried the pilot into his plane, took off and returned to his own. The Order of the Red Star shone on his chest. For participation in battles with the enemy, Arkady was awarded the second Order of the Red Star. By that time he had already become an experienced pilot, although he was fifteen years old.
Arkady Kamanin fought with the Nazis until the victory. The young hero dreamed of the sky and conquered the sky!
1941... In the spring, Volodya Kaznacheev graduated from fifth grade. In the fall he joined the partisan detachment.
When, together with his sister Anya, he came to the partisans in the Kletnyansky forests in the Bryansk region, the detachment said: “What a reinforcement!..” True, having learned that they were from Solovyanovka, the children of Elena Kondratyevna Kaznacheeva, the one who baked bread for the partisans , they stopped joking (Elena Kondratievna was killed by the Nazis).
The detachment had a “partisan school”. Future miners and demolition workers trained there. Volodya mastered this science perfectly and, together with his senior comrades, derailed eight echelons. He also had to cover the group’s retreat, stopping the pursuers with grenades...
He was a liaison; he often went to Kletnya, delivering valuable information; After waiting until dark, he posted leaflets. From operation to operation he became more experienced and skillful.
The Nazis placed a reward on the head of partisan Kzanacheev, not even suspecting that their brave opponent was just a boy. He fought alongside the adults until the very day when his native land was liberated from the fascist evil spirits, and rightfully shared with the adults the glory of the hero-liberator native land. Volodya Kaznacheev was awarded the Order of Lenin and the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" 1st degree.
The Brest Fortress was the first to take the enemy's blow. Bombs and shells exploded, walls collapsed, people died both in the fortress and in the city of Brest. From the first minutes, Valya’s father went into battle. He left and did not return, died a hero, like many defenders of the Brest Fortress.
And the Nazis forced Valya to make her way into the fortress under fire in order to convey to its defenders the demand to surrender. Valya made her way into the fortress, talked about the atrocities of the Nazis, explained what weapons they had, indicated their location and stayed to help our soldiers. She bandaged the wounded, collected cartridges and brought them to the soldiers.
There was not enough water in the fortress, it was divided by sip. The thirst was painful, but Valya again and again refused her sip: the wounded needed water. When the command of the Brest Fortress decided to take the children and women out from under fire and transport them to the other side of the Mukhavets River - there was no other way to save their lives - the little nurse Valya Zenkina asked to be left with the soldiers. But an order is an order, and then she vowed to continue the fight against the enemy until complete victory.
And Valya kept her vow. Various trials befell her. But she survived. She survived. And she continued her struggle in the partisan detachment. She fought bravely, along with adults. For courage and bravery, the Motherland awarded its young daughter the Order of the Red Star.
Pioneer Vitya Khomenko passed his heroic path of struggle against the fascists in the underground organization “Nikolaev Center”.
...Vitya’s German at school was “excellent,” and the underground members instructed the pioneer to get a job in the officers’ mess. He washed dishes, sometimes served officers in the hall and listened to their conversations. In drunken arguments, the fascists blurted out information that was of great interest to the Nikolaev Center.
The officers began sending the fast, smart boy on errands, and soon he was made a messenger at headquarters. It could never have occurred to them that the most secret packages were the first to be read by underground workers at the turnout...
Together with Shura Kober, Vitya received the task of crossing the front line to establish contact with Moscow. In Moscow, at the headquarters of the partisan movement, they reported the situation and talked about what they observed on the way.
Returning to Nikolaev, the guys delivered a radio transmitter, explosives, and weapons to the underground fighters. And again fight without fear or hesitation. On December 5, 1942, ten underground members were captured by the Nazis and executed. Among them are two boys - Shura Kober and Vitya Khomenko. They lived as heroes and died as heroes.
The Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree - posthumously - was awarded by the Motherland to its fearless son. The school where he studied is named after Vitya Khomenko.
Zina Portnova was born on February 20, 1926 in the city of Leningrad into a working-class family. Belarusian by nationality. Graduated from 7th grade.
At the beginning of June 1941, she came for school holidays to the village of Zui, near the Obol station, Shumilinsky district, Vitebsk region. After the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Zina Portnova found herself in occupied territory. Since 1942, a member of the Obol underground organization “Young Avengers,” whose leader was the future Hero of the Soviet Union E. S. Zenkova, a member of the organization’s committee. While underground she was accepted into the Komsomol.
She participated in the distribution of leaflets among the population and sabotage against the invaders. While working in the canteen of a retraining course for German officers, at the direction of the underground, she poisoned the food (more than a hundred officers died). During the proceedings, wanting to prove to the Germans that she was not involved, she tried the poisoned soup. Miraculously, she survived.
Since August 1943, scout of the partisan detachment named after. K. E. Voroshilova. In December 1943, returning from a mission to find out the reasons for the failure of the Young Avengers organization, she was captured in the village of Mostishche and identified by a certain Anna Khrapovitskaya. During one of the interrogations at the Gestapo in the village of Goryany (Belarus), she grabbed the investigator’s pistol from the table, shot him and two other Nazis, tried to escape, and was captured. After torture, she was shot in a prison in Polotsk (according to another version, in the village of Goryany, now Polotsk district, Vitebsk region of Belarus).
