It was told by the son of the frontman Alexander Vasilyevich Kurilkin, born in 1935.

My father was named Vasily Andreevich Kurilkin. We lived in the village of Khutorovka Muravljansky district of the Ryazan region. There were six people in the family – a father with a mother, a grandmother and three children, of whom I am the eldest. In the spring of 1941, his father sold a cow to learn to drive. Training was paid. What is it for a village family with children to lose a cow - it is difficult to decide. But apparently it was worth it. To become a driver for a collective farmer with a three-class education was then, as we will now call it, a social elevator.

His father studied in Morchansk and received a driver’s license. He began his training at the Reuters organization. Our places are steep. And all organizations were heated with turf. For the population, areas were allocated where the inhabitants themselves excavated turf, dried it and then exported.

The War Began

On June 22, 41 I remembered a strong thunderstorm from which the house opposite burned. The roofs were all slopes. And the fire escaped people, who were previously gathered in the council to declare the beginning of the war. The telephone and the radio plate were only in the council, located in a neighboring large village one and a half kilometers from our Khutovka. They ran, and my mother said, “War!”

Two days later, my father came to the agenda - to appear on 27.06.41 at the district military committee. I and my neighbor’s girl, who was two years older, took my father’s agenda at Reitorff. He immediately calculated, came home... Torf for heating was not picked up these days – the water was not sleeping enough. So my father, in order to provide us with warmth for the winter, cut off the six wheels that were growing near the house, sprinkled and carved us wood for the winter, and went to war.
In the 1970s, I asked him about everything.

They arrived mobilized in Ryazhsk. They built them. Drivers and tractors were ordered to leave. The father came out and showed the certificate of the trainee. He was immediately taken to the photographer and issued the driver's license the same day. Then – Moscow, Alabino, where the regiment of reactive mortars “Katyush” was formed. He was appointed a half-turn driver - not with a jet installation, but with support machines.
From Alabino he wrote home: “Hungry! If you can, send a package. Even the sweaters...”

My mother came to the government, where they gave bread to the families of the Red Army. Gave bread, mother dried, sent a package, and then - more and more. I sent four packages. But he only got the first – he got surrounded. Letters came from him first. In October they stopped.

surrounded by

In the first half of October, they formed a column with military property and were sent to Smolensk. They carried uniforms, products, ammunition, bandages and medicines. On the other hand, refugees. On tracks and on foot, with knots, children, with wheelchairs and carts - who how. And the Red Army are going – who has rifles, who is unarmed, who is wounded... And the wounded are carried. They came to the place, unloaded somewhere in the slope... The “German” flew, bombed, and they sit in this forest 150 meters from the road – as I understand it was the Warsaw highway – and the Germans went on the highway. Tanks, artillery, infantry, warships and trucks... The Germans knew that in the woods they were surrounded, and one tank on this side of the road, the other on that side, went along the side of the road forward and forward, and sometimes shot from machine guns on the gun.

The day went by, the second, the week... I read a book about these events, in which it was said that the surroundings were first and foremost removed from the command.

Someone had a team to burn cars. They burned. And here, my father told me, he is lying on the roof, looking at the road. Then one of the boys came and said, “Let’s go to captivity and surrender.” In prison, I will not go.” He flaps, the father hears the noise, and then some noise and silence. The father looks around – he lies with a hole in his forehead. My father did not hear the gunshot. He probably stood up and caught a shale bullet.

Another week passed – the nights became cold... One morning someone appeared to them. He was thrown into his eyes, as his father said, “new clothes.” Their uniforms from climbing the forest were dirty, worn out. And this – in a purely new form or in a civil – the father did not explain – and with a tablet, and then it turned out that he had a compass, a lamp... And he says: “Those who want to get out of the surroundings tonight gather on this lawn. We, as it gets dark, will accumulate in front of the road, make a rush through it. There is also a forest along the road. I will bring you all to my own. Having weapons and military possessions.” He kept confident. It aroused confidence, a subconscious desire to listen.

My father had an anti-gas. As it was dark, we gathered on the field. The man came and brought more people. He was gathering all over the forest. They gathered closer to the road, ran through it, ran for forty minutes through the woods, then stopped on the road, gathered together. A large group is 150 people or more. He took them further. We went to the forest in the morning. They seem to have been waiting for them here. Products were prepared. Supported with potatoes, tea, soup were...

I went to Moscow for more than two weeks. We spent the night in rigs, barracks of some, in cattle gardens. Eating colloquial products. Somewhere they cooked potatoes. In one collage, a year-long calf was cut off. The calf was eaten immediately. True, the father threw the anti-gas there, and put a little meat in the anti-gas bag. Later they cooked and ate. Some locals were skeptical of the rough and dirty surroundings: “Run?” The father and the others replied, “We will come back.” And they said again, “Well, yes... you’ll come back...”

This comrade brought them to Moscow, to some club, and handed them over to someone. They settled in this improvised barracks. My father walked out of the club and looked at the car. Number from their regiment. I went to the sergeant in the club – so and so, there is a car from our regiment. Sergeant to Lieutenant. He orders the sergeant to bring the senior – who is there with the car. The sergeant brought. Their own? The OUR! Take it! My father returned to the regiment. No inspections, nothing

And here I will now make a small retreat - I will tell from myself. Once in one company, where I didn’t know everyone, there was a conversation about war, and I told that story. And one there was a Uzbek a little younger than me, he was noticeably surprised, worried during my story. Then he took me to a sidewalk and said, “Here’s what you’ve been telling me about surrounding me, crossing the road, going out to Moscow and staying in a club – my father told me the same thing. He graduated from military school in the 1930s. was an officer. And, as you have now told, word by word, pulled people out of the surroundings under Yelnea.” I did not agree with the Uzbek at the time. And I still regret not taking his address, not asking for more details... I tried to find him later – it didn’t work. But that is not all. I recently read the book “The Invisible Front”. It is made up of individual cases, episodes. The author is a former employee of the NKVD. And when he describes how NKVD personnel were thrown into guerrilla units, from where they were then transported through the front line wounded, children and women.. - the author says, among other things: "I myself crossed the front line more than five times near Yelnea, bringing out groups of surrounders." Per the author of this book and pulled out of my father’s surroundings. Even more likely, the NKVD sent dozens of its officers out of the front line in order to organize and lead the outgoing of the surroundings to their own. Do not allow them to be killed in vain or captured. And how our there in German captivity "survived" in the caviar, we all know. Therefore, I worship this officer and all the others who brought out the surroundings.

The front roads

And at his father the roads were then lying... He called Yuchnov, Old Russa, Mohaysk, Kalinin, Stalingrad... He hardly remembered Stalingrad. When there were many dead, they dug a long pit, and on the one hand they overthrew the Germans as necessary, and on the other hand they carefully laid the line of our fighters. These are his words. Another case told... at the front batch a battalion or regiment is beaten out – new ones are coming. Those who are left are taken away, these are taken into their barracks. In the hole - there they are called "balls" - gathered, those who arrived, here the air strike, and very well bombed - almost all laid. It was very terrible there. The Germans complained about it. Our cholera started there – stopped on time. Once – the father says – it was foggy, they decided to “burn lice.” Bowl on fire. Inside the bars, the clothes were laid down on them, and then the fog broke up, the German arrived. began to bomb. Everyone is where. Who is dressed and who is naked? The Germans destroyed 11 cars. But literally the next day, new ones came from the reserve.

He talked about Belarus. After 42 years of age, his father most often carried the reconnaissance. What does this mean for the Katyush Regiment? - If somewhere you need to shoot, an officer sits up to the car, they go, determine the site from where you can hit the planned areas, and so that there are conditions for hidden rapid deployment, and even faster withdrawal after the shell. Not to fall under retaliatory fire.

And they go on a forest road, whether the map was wrong, whether the officer was confused with something, or the situation changed, which the officer did not know, but suddenly, literally ten meters in front of the car, the Germans with rifles jumped out of the bush. Father walked on them – they went back into the bushes. The Germans followed the fire, scattered the body, and fired the rear wheels. It is good that the road after 10-15 meters turned, and the target shooting was short. It was ZIS-5. He had the paired wheels on the leading rear bridge... The outer wheels were shot, but they were able to reach their own.

There was another case. Bring some cargo to the front. He came out of the cabin – a click, scratched his hair. They say to him, “Lieve me! Sniper!” he fell to the ground – he is screamed that two have already been killed. He lay dark. The car was unloaded at night.

After the victory

He met his father in Königsberg. After the victory, we had to ride a lot. Not more than during the fighting. I went to Germany, wherever I went. That’s why I got on my lips. He moved from flight to flight, and again returned to his position, he has a new prescription for tomorrow. He said, “What am I?” No other drivers, right?Some commander says, “Take him on your lips!” They took him to the basement, brought a mattress, brought food... Closed... Eaten, slept... tomorrow, closer to lunch, they come:

Have you slept?

He is asleep!

Have you gone?

We have gone!

And in July 45 they built a staff: "Who wants to go to Poland to harvest the harvest?" I called. I went to Stettin. He worked on a hammer. I gave her snaps. All Poles treated the Russians normally, except for one woman. It was very bad for the Russians. The father said, “The bite is literally ready.” Others explained that her husband fought on the side of the Germans and died.
In October, the father returned from the cleaner to the regiment, and it turned out that his call has already been demobilized, and the formed train to Moscow has already gone. The father in the headquarters: “How about me now?” the headquarters says: “Send him with the Kiev train. He will get there.”

More about Victory

In our school jumped a deliberate - a messenger from the council. He said, “O guys! Go to the fields, gather the people. The war is over!”

What a lesson! We run to the stall. Understand the horses. And with a hole – without seeds, of course – jumped into the fields. We were all riding horses for three years. There were hundreds and a half horses in the village. Although, as the war began, 20 or 30 were given to the army.

Everyone gathered in the horse yard. The whole village. Of them only two men. One - by age did not go to the front, the other - commissioned for injury. They removed the gate from the cockpit, placed on the cart - a common table. They brought people who had food. Self-race, of course – we chased it out of sugar beets. A lot of crying. Then we went around the village with songs and dances. The music was a stove and a knife knocked on it.

He returned home on October 27, 1945. Worked as a driver.
He was awarded medals “For military merits”, “For courage”, “For the defense of Stalingrad”, “For victory over Germany”. It was given to him after the war. He was awarded the medal “For the Defense of Moscow”. He gave her to the commissariat, but she was lost, and there was no medal. I asked in the Podolsk archive – the answer was somewhat unreasonable, but negative.

60 people left the village. It was the first military summer. The first funeral took place in July. And then one by one. And after 43 years, we stopped being afraid of the funeral. Not for whom to receive. Everybody was upgraded. Only 15 to 18 people returned. There are five drivers. The rest - who after the injury was commissioned, and most did not fight at the very front. Who was the carpenter - carpenters and in the army were needed. Who is in the wharf, where else... Most of them – immediately into the barracks to the most advanced, and died.

And how our village lived through the war, how old and small people worked for defense, the army and the country were fed – I will tell you the next time.

Filed to:Victor Gladkov