Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

On holidays, sometimes on Sundays, we would bake pirogi, pastries, jam patties, and sometimes a pirog with a jam or meat filling (pirogi are small pies, a pirog here refers to a large one for the whole family – translator’s comment). For New Year our father would buy a New Year tree, decorate it with toys, candles which we lit in the evening and sweets if we had them. At Easter, my mother and grandmother baked two Easter cakes; sometimes they went to the church to sanctify them; they would leave early and then stay there for a very long time. My father rarely invited guests – his friends with their wives, sometimes with children. Mother’s friend, aunt Shura, her former classmate, would come to visit her sometimes.

Before leaving for school for the first shift (as there was a lack of schools, some of them had to organize teaching in two shifts – the first one in the morning and the second one in the evening), we had tea and bread with butter if we had it; we did not have any hot meal. After coming back from school we had soup or schi (traditional Russian soup; the main ingredient is cabbage – translator’s comment) for the first course; for the second course we had potatoes, pasta, millet porridge or buckwheat porridge, sometimes we had fried cutlets or fish. In the evenings we had tea with bread, very rarely we had sausage. We had free breakfasts at school.

On Sundays we went with friends to watch films for children at a cinema or to the Markov club or the ‘3rd International’ cinema next to Bumanskaya Metro station. The Markov club was next to the school where I studied, on Bolshaya Pochtovaya street.

I went to the parades on Red Square on a regular basis on 1 May and 7 November, together with our school or with the workers from the factory where our neighbour Sergei Glazkov, a highly professional turner, worked. I liked going to parades – it was fun, people were dressed in festive clothes, sang songs, danced, orchestras played music everywhere and children received gifts from the factories (sweets, cookies and soft drinks).

Until the age of 13 or 14 I was a sickly and thin child. I would fall sick very often, I had scarlet fever, measles, pneumonia and inflammation of my middle ear. I was shy, I was often lost when I had to answer in class, I could not always express my thoughts properly. First I had trouble with mathematics, then I got it sorted out, but I never learned to write properly – my writing has always been full of mistakes. In order to improve my health I started to do sports: athletics, cross-country skiing, soccer and volleyball. We had high jump and long jump competitions. For two years I was in the wrestling section at Lokomotiv stadium, at the same place where I lifted weights in order to strengthen my muscles. In the school we boys jumped over the vaulting horse and did some exercises on the horizontal bar. Sports did me good, for I became stronger physically and illness left me alone. In the 10th grade I was the school’s best high jumper, together with my classmates Fakin and Zolotukhin. I took part in the district-level ski race, but did not achieve any outstanding success, the same with wrestling. When I was called up to the army in September 1941, I was 180 cm high and weighted 70 kilograms, which was a normal combination for an 18 year old boy. Sports helped me to take the physical stress in army life and at the front. Later, in the army, I discovered a talent for shooting small-arms, especially pistols.

I was not too brave and so I got into fights very rarely; not only because I did not know how to fight, but also because of my character – I felt bad hitting someone in the face, especially a friend. I was never angry with anyone, unlike some other boys. A couple of times I was hit and just could not bring myself to hit back.

I think I was the last one in our class to join Komsomol. That was as late as 1939. I was a Pioneer in junior classes, so I had my red tie before I entered (the Young Pioneers was a youth organization for 10- to 15-year-olds, highly ideological in character with aims of educating children about the Soviet state, the history of the Communist party, etc. – translator’s comment).