One metal is poured - a medal for battle, a medal for labor
The forty first year was the most difficult for the country. The situation became critical with the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, and most of western Russia ... When they talk about the war and victory in the Great Patriotic War, they more often talk about the feats on the front line. But the front had to continuously supply weapon, equipment, fuel, ammunition, fighters had to be fed, clothed and footed. On the shoulders of people in the rear lay the task of supplying the troops with everything necessary. People worked on 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. The Soviet people made a feat in the rear, equal to that of a soldier, and ensured the defeat of the enemy.Rear town
Due to the threat of capture, more than 2000 enterprises, 17 million people, were evacuated. Essentially, an entire industrial country was moved east. For almost a year, by July 1942, the Soviet economy was rebuilt on a war footing. Cities of the Urals and Siberia, Transcaucasia and Central Asia around the clock gave the front Tanks, aircraft, ammunition and equipment. Literally harnessed to the work of the village.
I know about the heroism of people in the rear town from the stories of my mother. They then lived in multinational Baku. In the event of a seizure of the city by the fall of 1942, the oil fields were plugged and prepared for the destruction of the 764 well, and the 81 set of drilling equipment and personnel were transferred to Turkmenistan. At the same time, Baku provided the front with oil (70% of all-union production and more than 85% of aviation gas production), restoring and exploiting old wells. It also produced a significant number of military equipment and ammunition. The city was the most important transportation hub in providing the USSR with military and humanitarian aid from the Allies, through Iran. During the war years, Baku, as a rear town, received about 440 thousands of wounded from the front. It operated 41 military hospital on 31400 seats.
Rear in many books, films we associate with the release of weapons, tanks and airplanes. But an undressed and hungry army does not gain much. With the beginning of the war, the light, textile and food industries quickly reorganized in a military manner. Garment factories began to manufacture overcoats, summer uniforms, earflaps. At the textile enterprises, the manufacture of the garment cloth, technical fabric, medical gauze, cotton wool, and surgical silk was set up.
My grandfather Avak Sarkisov worked (he had a “reservation”, they did not take especially necessary specialists to the front) at the car-repair plant where they made and repaired armored trains and wagons. In 1942, he died. His wife, my grandmother, was seriously ill from grief. They were orphaned and had three children in the orphanage. My oldest mother, she was then 12 years old, relatives, adding 2 years of age, identified the school FZO (factory training). Having trained as a weaver, she had been working on machine tools along with adults since 14 for years. Before the outbreak of hostilities textile mill them. Lenin, where my mother worked, produced goods for the population, with the beginning of the war all production was switched to the needs of the army. In 3, the shifts released cotton fabric for uniforms, medical gauze. Regime in the factory, as elsewhere, was tough. Without holidays and vacations. It was forbidden to leave the work without permission and transfer to another enterprise. For petty theft or being late for work - criminal article. Mom told me how a young guy was killed - he climbed over the factory fence with a piece of yarn. Vohrovets opened fire. The laws of wartime ... The work of a weaver even today is considered hard. And then - many hours standing on their feet, high humidity of air required for raw materials (with normal humidity for a person, the thread breaks), night shifts and noise. Teenagers and women often hungry worked for wear.
“Can you tell me about it,
What years did you live in!
What immense gravity
On the women's shoulders lay! " - wrote Mikhail Isakovsky.
Mom, then Zoya Sarkisov, after victory on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War".
In the list of USSR military awards that existed during World War II (12 orders and 20 medals), these two medals are the most massive.
Medal for the fight ...
Medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." was established by Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of May 9, 1945. This is the most common award of the Soviet Union (immediately after the war, about 13 million 670 thousand soldiers and officers were awarded), which is associated with the massive participation of Soviet citizens on the fronts and in the rear in the defense of the homeland. As indicated in the regulation on the medal, she was awarded “all military personnel and civilian personnel who took in the ranks of the Red Army and the Naval Fleet and the NKVD troops were directly involved on the fronts of World War II or who ensured victory with their work in the military districts, ”as well as workers in the rear hospitals and partisans.
The question of the "winning" medal for the participants of the war was discussed in October 1944. The chief of the rear of the Red Army, Army General Khrulev 5, May 1945, gave the task to develop a draft award. The sketches of artists Gapf (depicting a soldier, a worker, a collective farmer on the obverse) and Kiselev (salute in Moscow) did not pass. He chose the option of artists E. M. Romanov and IK Andrianov. Stalin only removed the laurel and oak wreaths around his portrait and the inscription of the USSR. The first medals came from the Mint for the 15 award on June 1945 of the year, received by the top military leaders - Marshals of the Soviet Union K. K. Rokossovsky and F. I. Tolbukhin, army generals A. I. Antonov and M. A. Purkayev, Colonel-General Berzarin and others. Later it was received by Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev and Army General S. M. Shtemenko. Among the numerous awards to four times Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal G. K. Zhukov was this medal.
The medal "For the Victory ..." was received by sergeants M. V. Kantaria and M. A. Egorov, who hoisted the 1 of May 1945 on the flag over the Reichstag. The front-line writers V. Astafyev, V. Bykov, V. Pikul had this award (in 1942, the boy was evacuated from Leningrad, his parents died, run away to junior school in Solovki, and fought young man in the navy) and Nobel laureate M. Sholokhov. Kievans signalman S. V. Vysotsky (father of the famous poet) and designer of small arms V. M. Margolin. We can recall another designer who was awarded the medal "For the victory over Germany." He began the war in August 1941, commander of a tank, in the rank of senior sergeant. In October, was seriously wounded. In the hospital he caught on the idea of an automaton. Developed a submachine gun. In 1947, the legendary AK-47 was adopted by the Soviet Army. This, of course, is about M. T. Kalashnikov.
The great clown Y. Nikulin fought by an artilleryman, had, in addition to the medals "For Courage" and "For the Defense of Leningrad", the medal "For Victory over Germany". After the war, she was awarded the head of the Soviet atomic project, three times Hero of Socialist Labor, a physicist and scientist I. V. Kurchatov. The medal was awarded to the pilot of Kharkiv V.S. Grizodubova and the AS-bomber A.I. Molodchy - the first twice-lifetime Hero of the Soviet Union (1941, 1942), a native of Lugansk, who was twice presented to the title in 1943 for the liberation of Kiev and in 1944 for the liberation of Ukraine. In 1945, three times Heroes of the Soviet Union A.N. Pokryshkin and I.N. Kozhedub were added to their award set.
The intelligence officers S.A. Vaupshasov and G.A. Vartanian, the prototype of the hero of the film “Tehran-43”, declassified only in 2000 year, 55 years after the war were proud of the medal. And also the Hero of Ukraine, the famous "Major Whirlwind" E. S Bereznyak. Two medals "For Victory over Germany" and "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War" were awarded to A. N. Poskrebyshev, head of the secretariat of I. V. Stalin (1928-1952). He was directly involved in the development of many military operations. The Assistant Supreme Commander worked on 15-18 hours per day. The Supreme himself practically did not carry his several awards (except for the asterisk of the Hero of Socialist Labor), but on his tunic along with two diamond orders “Victory” and the platinum order of Suvorov, the modest medal “For the Victory over Germany” sparkled 1. Among foreigners, Marshal H. Choibalsan, the future presidents of Czechoslovakia, General L. Svoboda and Poland V. Jaruzelsky, had this medal.
The medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" was made of brass. On the obverse, the profile bust image of Supreme Commander JV Stalin in the form of Marshal of the Soviet Union, turned to the left (on the analogous 1945 medal of the year “For the victory over Japan” Stalin looks to the right, i.e., to the East). In the upper part of the medal on the circumference there is an inscription “OUR BUSINESS OF THE RIGHT”, in the lower part - “WE WON”. On the back side of the medal is the inscription “FOR VICTORY OVER GERMANY”. The ribbon on the block is “Georgievskaya”, black and orange color. The medal was also awarded in the post-war years - in total there were 14,9 million awards.
Labor Medal
The medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" was established a month after the medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War" by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 6 June 1945 and was intended for home front workers. It was awarded to workers, engineers, civil servants, collective farmers, scientists and institutions, "who ensured the victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in the Great Patriotic War with their valiant and selfless labor."
The drawing on the front side of the medal is identical with the previous one (the authors-artists are the same, IK Andrianov and Ye.M. Romanov), only the reverse (the reverse side) and the color of the tape on the shoe differed. On the back side of the medal there is an inscription “FOR VALUE WORK”. The medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" was made of copper.
The medal "For Valiant Labor" and "For Victory over Germany" was awarded to N. A. Dukhov, a native of Poltava region (three times Hero of Socialist Labor) and Dnipropetrovsk region J. Ya. Kotin, both chief designers of heavy tanks KV and IP, designers of small arms P. Stechkin and A. Sudayev. The medal "For Valiant Labor" was held by scientists M. V. Keldysh and I. K. Kikoin, "the most Stalinist people's commissar" D. F. Ustinov (became people's commissar of weapons of the USSR in 33 of the year) and L. I. Brezhnev. The singer L. Ruslanova, who gave more than 1120 concerts at the front, and the poet, songwriter Sacred War and Broad My Country, V. I. Lebedev-Kumach (served as a political worker in the Navy) won the medal.
The same award for labor feats was marked by the future Nobel Prize winner writer B. Pasternak and artist M. Saryan. In 1946, a philologist D. Likhachev was awarded the medal, who in 1941 and 1942 began in the besieged Leningrad, defended his thesis and published the book Defense of Russian Cities. During the war years she remained in the besieged city and was awarded the medal by the poet O. Bergholz, every day she turned to the courage of Leningradians, she owns the words carved on the granite of Piskarevsky memorial cemetery, “Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.”
Kiev E. E. Bystritskaya after graduating from nursing courses as a teenager worked in a hospital. Among the two dozen awards famous actress - two medals "For the victory over Germany" and "For valiant work." Two medals "for the battle" and "for labor" were awarded to the chief surgeon of the Red Army (1937-1946), a participant in four wars, academician, colonel-general of the medical service N. N. Burdenko. During the war years he personally conducted several thousand operations. In 1946, the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" was awarded to a group of clergy who made a significant contribution to the victory over Germany. By the end of 1944, the total amount of contributions of the Russian Orthodox Church to the needs of the war was more than 200 million rubles.
The legendary tank column "Dmitry Donskoy" (40 T-34 tanks) was completely built with church funds. Few know that the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in 1944 put more than 70 thousand rubles into the defense fund. In total, by the summer of 1945, more than 300 million rubles were collected by believers (if you convert this money into combat aircraft, it would turn out to be 3000 pieces), and this is without taking into account jewels, products and things.
Help the clergy of the country was not only in money. This includes digging trenches, air defense assistance, organizing shelters and shelters for the wounded.
Many hospitals were located in monasteries, and hundreds of clergy, especially women, worked there. The medal "For Valiant Labor" was awarded to Archbishop Luke (V.F. Voyno-Yasenetsky), the future Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. The great priest and surgeon, being at the start of the war in exile, asked the authorities for permission to contribute to the victory. He worked as a doctor in a hospital, did hundreds of operations, and returned the Stalin Prize (130 thousand rubles) for his work “Essays on Purulent Surgery” to orphans. Medals were honored by Archbishop Bartholomew, Abbess of the Odessa Mikhailovsky Convent Abbess Anatolia and many others.
In June 1991, President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev signed a decree “In order to restore historical justice and taking into account that Soviet citizens from among the Germans and other peoples who underwent illegal forcible resettlement, who were mobilized into working columns during the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1945, contributed by their conscientious work to the achievement of victory ”, on awarding these citizens. In total, as of January 1, 1995, about 16,1 million people were awarded the medal.
If you go back to the words of the poet in the title, experts on the awards will mark not quite the right remark about the "metals". Medals "poured" from different metals. The first is yellowish, made of brass, the other is copper. A combat medal "For Courage", for example, is made of silver. It seems that the poet-front-line A. Nedogonov (verses are often attributed to A. Tvardovsky) knew about this and wrote about the equivalence of the feat.
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