by Oleg Krivoshapov
[REGNUM] Those who went through the most terrible war in our history and who have lived to this day are left to die for. More than 78 years have passed since the victory. The living victorious fighters are about a century old. And many of them clearly remember and vividly watch how our army passes through the same battlefields as in 1943.
Correspondent IA Regnum, thanks to the initiative of the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland (KSVO), was lucky enough to talk with three veterans living in the near and far Moscow region. Participants in the Great Patriotic War conveyed congratulations on the upcoming New Year and personal messages with words of support to Russian soldiers fulfilling their duty in the zone of a special military operation.
These unique people are Nikolai Nikolaevich Bagaev, Maria Mikhailovna Rokhlina and Vera Ivanovna Panova.
Nikolay Bagaev, 105 years old. “We must eliminate resurgent fascism”
We came to visit Nikolai Nikolaevich on the eve of his birthday. Ourinterlocutor is no longer just the same age as the century. He turned 105 on December 18.
On the uniform, which Nikolai Nikolaevich was preparing for the special occasion, but which he put on a little earlier - at a meeting with us, there is a whole “iconostasis”.
Recipient of the Order of the Patriotic War, two Orders of the Red Star, three medals “For Military Merit,” a medal “For Victory over Germany,” a medal “For the Capture of Königsberg,” a commemorative medal “For the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Moscow” and many other awards.
Our interlocutor was drafted into the army before the war. More precisely, in Europe there was already a war going on - World War II.
“On October 6, 1939, I began my military service; it was a special conscription into the NKVD troops. And I gave my all to the service from the very beginning. In 1941, already on the third day of the war, our 251st Rifle Division was near Moscow. It was difficult for the Nazis to bomb Moscow, and they landed troops from airplanes twenty, ten, even five kilometers from Moscow. And when our division arrived, half began to dig trenches and build structures, and the other half went around Moscow to destroy the enemy,” says Nikolai Nikolaevich.
The next memory is associated with the most difficult days and weeks of the battle for Moscow. At the beginning of December 1941, the enemy approached the capital. They took the village of Krasnaya Polyana, within the current boundaries of Lobnya. “And on the fifth, in a thirty-degree frosty night, our troops, including our regiment, went on the offensive... By that time I was already a senior sergeant and commanded a regimental reconnaissance platoon,” says the veteran.
Then, on the frosty December days, it became clear for the first time that the enemy’s forces were not limitless. After one of the battles, in which Bagaev’s unit also participated, “the Germans could not stand it, abandoned their personal weapons, and fled.” “We were catching up with them. They abandoned huge warehouses of ammunition of various calibers, huge warehouses of fuel and lubricants,” the interlocutor recalls. After the most difficult weeks of the battle near Moscow, the enemy retreated from our capital in just three days.
And on December 24, Nikolai Bagaev was seriously wounded.
“The bullet entered the right lung and exited between the fourth and fifth rib,” the veteran said. - Frost, cold, you exhale - and blood flows in a stream... About three or four hours later, orderlies - a girl and a guy - took me from the front line and took me to a medical center in the forest. There they provided help, and me and another lieutenant - he was seriously wounded in the head - were put on a sleigh. They covered me with a tarpaulin and I lost consciousness. I opened my eyes and saw a young girl sitting at my head; I later found out that she was sixteen years old.”
The girl turned out to be a donor. She voluntarily offered her blood for the wounded man. The calendar showed December 27, 1941.
“The doctor who treated me said: “You, senior sergeant, are a twice-happy man. They took you to us for two days, you’ve been lying with us for a day now, but there’s no blood. And suddenly the door opens and a girl comes in. I read an announcement that they were accepting blood from the public. The blood type of you and the girl matched,” Bagaev shared.
He still had many years of service ahead, from which Nikolai Bagaev retired with the rank of colonel. But he carried the memory of his miraculous salvation after being seriously wounded in the winter of 1941 near Moscow and his gratitude to the young girl who gave him her blood through many decades.
“Many today went to defend their homeland voluntarily, and I would like to say that they are now doing a great job,,” said the veteran. — It is necessary to eliminate resurgent fascism in Ukraine and free the Ukrainian people from these troubles. This is a great task. We must fight and stay alive. This is the main wish. You are participants in great events, I wish you to fulfill your task with dignity and, of course, stay alive. In 1945, we were very happy about the victory, and many cried. It’s not for nothing that the song about Victory speaks of “a holiday with tears in our eyes.” We were then given strength by our love for our homeland, and we won.”
Two participants of the Great Patriotic War - Maria Rokhlina and - joined in congratulating the 105-year-old hero of the day Bagaev Vera Panova.
Both are women legends, each of whom has already exchanged 99 years. Both have difficulty moving when they put on tunics covered with dozens of military awards. Both, like Nikolai Bagaev, asked to give their New Year’s greeting letters with words of support to the SVO soldiers.
Maria Rokhlina, 99 years old. "I am a little soldier of a big war"
Maria Mikhailovna Rokhlina spent the entire war as a medical instructor. She took part in the Battle of Stalingrad, fought on the Kursk Bulge near Prokhorovka, participated in the crossing of the Dnieper, and in 1945 she reached Prague. Risking herself every day, she saved the lives of hundreds of soldiers and officers.
She seriously undermined her health, but is not broken to this day. Today she is the chairman of the council of veterans of the 95th Guards Rifle Division of the Poltava Division. Once a week he works at the Moscow Committee of War Veterans.
Rokhlina, unsurprisingly, has her most vivid memories from the events of the Battle of Stalingrad, in which she took a direct part.
“It was hard in the winter of 1942. We were gathered in one of the workshops of the tractor plant - fighters from different units who were retreating and were defeated,” says Maria Mikhailovna. — We took an oath until our last breath, to hold on until the last drop of blood. And they survived."
Now, when fighters of the Russian Armed Forces are slowly but surely knocking out the enemy from Avdeevka “industry”, Maria Rokhlina’s story seems like a fresh combat report. Half of the territory of the tractor plant in Stalingrad was held by ours, the other was occupied by the Germans - and for many weeks “the line of contact resembled a real hell. Until the turning point in the Battle of Stalingrad.
“And when on November 19, 1942 we heard artillery barrage, we celebrated the victory,” said Maria Mikhailovna. — Everyone hugged each other, kissed: “We won!” And when they ask me how I celebrated Victory Day, I always answer that I met it twice.”
The medical instructor Rokhlina had to endure many trials.
“In winter, frost freezes everything, and with mittens, especially in Stalingrad, it is impossible to bandage a wound, provide assistance, apply a tourniquet or splint. I applied it with my bare hands. I forgot my gloves where I put them,” admitted Maria Mikhailovna. — And once, in October - early November of '43, I was transporting one seriously wounded man across the Dnieper, generally rowing with my hands. And my hands became stiff from the cold, I even lost consciousness.”
And the former medical instructor Rokhlina experienced one incident at the front years after the war with renewed vigor.
“In our division, a very young boy lieutenant had severely damaged feet of both legs,” said the veteran. — The guy was waving a pistol, shouting to everyone: “Shoot me!” Who needs me?! I’m not yet twenty years old, but I’m already without legs! Who will marry me! And I was called to him. I approached, he thrust a gun at me: “Shoot me or marry me.” What, I say, right here and now? "Right now". And his feet were torn apart.”
At the same time, the torn pieces of the wounded man’s boots, according to Rokhlina, were literally mixed with fragments of flesh. Several more fragments lay nearby, on the raincoat. “I applied tourniquets to stop the bleeding, then pulled out and threw away the pieces of boots that I could take out. My legs were literally blinded. I show him: “Why are you yelling! Look, your feet are intact.” But he still threatened with a pistol and screamed heart-rendingly,” shared the former medical instructor.
Thirty years later, Maria Mikhailovna arrived in Poltava, where at a meeting of veterans, an unfamiliar man with a cane approached her. “He took off his shoes, socks, lifted his pants legs and said: “Look at my feet.” He had them intact, although traces of wounds, of course, remained,” Rokhlina said.
It turned out that a few days after Maria Mikhailovna “blinded” the legs of the wounded officer, he threatened everyone with a pistol. Then he still had surgery. “They put me to sleep, examined my feet, they were warm,” the veteran said. “They operated on, selecting the remaining pieces of boots that had already begun to grow into the skin.”
The lieutenant was demobilized, but he retained his legs. And years later he became the rector of a pedagogical university. “He remembered me,” Rokhlina explained. — He showed his legs, and then turned to me, knelt in front of me, and put his head on them. And the whole hall stood up."
Maria Mikhailovna calls herself a little soldier of a big war. And he adds that today we all need another victory. The one that is forged in the NWO zone.
“I feel very sorry for the guys who are there now, who are fighting and will be away on New Year’s,” admitted Rokhlina.
At the same time, she appealed to today's fighters to follow the banner of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. "I wish you good luck. Live long, love your homeland. We are united, reaching out to each other. We have common goals. Guys, act like a soldier,” said Maria Mikhailovna.
Vera Panova, 99 years old. "Take care of yourself. Smash the enemy!"
Vera Ivanovna Panova, a disabled person of the 1st group, served as a telephone operator during the war, then as a sanitary instructor. She retired to the reserve after the victory over Germany, in August 1945.
Vera Ivanovna asked the activists of the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland who came to her to convey a message to the soldiers on the front line for the New Year. We present it in full.
“Hello, our dear defenders of the Fatherland! Vera Ivanovna Panova, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, writes to you. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, I was seventeen years old. I completed nine years of high school and evening nursing courses. She started working in the surgical department as a nurse. At the call of the Komsomol, I voluntarily went to the front to defend my homeland. The population of our country had a high sense of patriotism. Boys in the ninth and tenth grades went to the military registration and enlistment office and asked to be sent to the front, but they were refused. And they signed up for the fighter regiment.
I celebrated victory in the city of Krakow.
I watch the SVO news every day. I'm proud of you, I'm worried about you. Take care of yourself. Smash the enemy. Take care of each other. Remember, yours are here, at home, mothers, wives, children and our entire country. I wish you health, mutual assistance and inexhaustible energy.
Every year I take part in the Victory Parade. I am proud and admire our armed forces and their commander-in-chief Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
I congratulate you all, your loved ones, on the new year 2024, the year of Victory. I wish you to return home safe and healthy.
Sincerely, Vera Panova."
Vera Ivanovna asked to convey her words to those who cannot yet celebrate the New Year with their loved ones. The head of the KSVOYulia Belekhova assured her interlocutor in the same way as the two other participants in the Great Patriotic War whom we visited that day: the messages will reach the recipients. Words of support from those who performed their soldier’s duty from the first days of the war until the Victory are very important for our soldiers today, Belekhova emphasized.