Under the sun of Tashkent
On the marble slabs of the tribune on the parade ground of the Tashkent Higher Tank Command Order of Lenin named after the twice Hero of the Soviet Union Marshal of the Armored Forces, P.S. Rybalko carved poems:Born in storms, tested in battles
Glory to your pets.
Our school - the Order of Lenin
Forge steel frames.
Went 1918 year. In the conditions of the Civil War and foreign military intervention, the young Soviet state was in dire need of trained command personnel. A network of command courses, schools, and military schools for the preparation of the commanding personnel of the Red Army is being created in an expedited manner in the country. One of such military schools are the Nizhny Novgorod Soviet infantry courses for officers of the Red Army, organized on the basis of the order of the Military Training Directorate of the All-Russian General Staff from November 16 1918 of the year and becoming the forerunner of TVTCU, whose 95 anniversary is celebrated these days.
The first cadets were the young workers of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant. Teaching departments were occupied by commanders with military experience, many of them military experts, such as the generals of the tsarist army I. Zhilinsky, B. Moravsky, K. Bussov. The courses were also led by a military expert, former Colonel A. Goryachev, the educational unit was led by N. Pukhov, later Colonel General, Hero of the Soviet Union (in 1938-1940 he commanded our tank school).
Troop internships cadets were directly on the fronts of the Civil War. Here on the Southern Front in the summer of 1919, the first release of the Red commanders took place in a combat situation. Among them, graduates F.Smekhotvorov, M. Krainov, P. Berezin, I. Khokhlov, T. Dudorov, G. Zaitsev, I. Komarov became major generals, and the commander of the cadet platoon M. Volkov became lieutenant general of tank forces.
In 1921, the courses are converted into the Nizhny Novgorod Infantry School of the Red Army commanding officers with a three-year training period. And 15 March 1932, it is reformed into the Nizhny Novgorod armored school named after I.V. Stalin. A new training and material base is being created, a tank course, a race track, and a tank test site are being built. The cadets are beginning to master the formidable fighting vehicles. The school formed the first tank battalion, which was headed by M. Terekhin, later lieutenant-general of tank forces, Hero of the Soviet Union.
In order to strengthen the military-technical and general education of cadets in February 1934 of the year, an order of the USSR Revolutionary Military Council was issued to increase the duration of training in armored and other technical schools from 3 to 3,5, which helped raise the quality of training of future tankers.
The first graduation of commanders for armored troops took place in the fall of 1934. Lieutenant G. Skleznev, the first among tankers who received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for participation in battles in Spain, and Lieutenant S. Sokolov, future Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal of the Soviet Union stood in the ranks of graduates.
In March, 1938, the school changes its place of deployment and receives a new status and name - Kharkiv Armored School named after I.V. Stalin. Its graduates take part in the battles at Lake Hassan, Khalkhin-Gol, in the Finnish campaign.
“Get up, great country, get up for mortal combat!” The school responded to this call of the Homeland with the release of 252 lieutenants, who immediately went to the front. In addition, among the best cadets and commanders in July of the 1941, a consolidated cadet shock tank battalion headed by Major Grishin was formed. Equipped with medium-sized T-34 tanks and heavy KVs, which had just left the factory assembly line, the battalion departed to the Western Front in three days.
When in September 1941 the front line came close to Kharkov, the school as a whole took up defense in the area of the station of Buryn and Mikhailovsky Farm, where, together with the infantry school, stood in the way of the fascist German hordes. In the meantime, the front badly needed commanding personnel from the tank crews. And by order of the Supreme Command Headquarters from 22 September 1941, the school is relocated to Uzbekistan, in the city of Chirchik, Tashkent region.
Despite the disorder, two months after the redeployment, the school produced another graduation of tank commanders. But a cruel and ruthless war demanded the constant replenishment of the thinning ranks of junior commanders. And the period of training in the school was reduced to six - nine months.
In the pre-war years, family tank crews appeared in the Red Army, and tank dynasties began to emerge. Then the glory of the tank crew of the Mikheyev brothers was thundering all over the country.
Not left aside from the initiative and our school. The collective farmers Grigory Sidorovich and Olga Vasilyevna Popovy wrote a letter to the then People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov with a request to allow their four sons, Fyodor, Alexander, Ivan and Nikita, to serve in the same carriage. The People's Commissar thanked Popov for raising up patriotic sons and gave instructions to take the Popov brothers to our tank school.
The eldest of the Fyodor brothers met the war with a tank company commander, the rest were his platoon commanders. In the battle near the village of Yana, replacing the deceased battalion commander Major Markevich, Fyodor Popov, having made a bypass maneuver with a battalion, with an attack he broke through the enemy defenses and destroyed his anti-tank battery. In this battle, killed Alexander and Ivan. The commander's tank of Fyodor was set on fire. His arm was torn off and his leg was smashed, but he continued to command until he lost consciousness. After healing, he achieved a return to service, returned to his native school, where he was appointed commander of the training battalion. The younger brother Nikita reached Berlin. Burned several times in a tank, was wounded three times. After the war, he graduated from the Academy of Armored Forces, where he became a candidate of military sciences and for a long time worked as a teacher.
He continued the family tradition of his father, the tank commander and Waldemar Chalandin. After graduating from high school in Tashkent, he became a cadet of our school. And in the 1942 year - already in the army. In the Kursk Bulge, a tank platoon of guard Lieutenant Chalandin held defensive positions for 10 hours near the height of the village of Yakovlevo against his enemy tank battalion that attacked him continuously. The officer continued to fire, even when his tank caught fire from a direct hit by a German projectile. The entire field near the village was littered with flaming padded fascist tanks and the corpses of the Nazis. For this unprecedented feat of the guard, Lieutenant Valdemar Shalandin was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). In the place of the death of the Hero, a monument was erected near the village of Yakovlevo.
In 1943, the school was awarded the Order of Lenin. The only 147 military schools awarded the highest award of the Motherland, it received it not on the occasion of a holiday or anniversary, but “for outstanding success in training officer personnel for armored and mechanized units and military service to the Motherland”.
No matter how far Victory Day was from us, it has come. Graduates of the Tashkent Tank School, who trained more than 7.000 tank commanders during the Great Patriotic War, made an invaluable contribution to his approach. For courage and bravery shown during the Great Patriotic War, 74 graduate school was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and A. Beloborodov and A. Novikov were awarded the highest degree of military distinction twice. Five pupils of the school are forever enrolled in the lists of military units. They are Heroes of the Soviet Union G. Skleznev, V. Shalandin, V. Krayev, I. Konorev, N. Malyuga.
In 1946, the school moves from a shorter term to two years. And the following year, the first post-war graduation of officers took place. 1949 year was marked by two events: Tashkent Tank School ranks first among the armored universities and it establishes a three-year period of study.
In December, the school was named after the twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Armored Forces Pavel Semyonovich Rybalko.
Life, as we see, does not stand still. In April, in connection with the improvement of military equipment and the increased requirements for the training of officers, the school switched to a higher education profile with a four-year training period. The curriculum is changing radically. Now, on graduation, the lieutenants, together with the officer's shoulder straps, began to receive diplomas of higher military special education and the qualification of an engineer.
Whatever trouble we have had on people, be it an 25-year-old earthquake in Armenia or a recent flood in the Far East, the army comes first. In April, 1966, as a result of the strongest earthquake, a third of Tashkent turned into ruins. And if the cadets did not turn out to be on time at the crash site, the consequences of a natural disaster would be much more significant.
Although the time after 1945 is called post-war, during these years thousands of people in uniform did not go out of battle. Get at least 10-year war in Afghanistan. Here, to the glorious constellation of graduates of the school - the Heroes of the Great Patriotic War - were added Heroes of the Soviet Union, who received this title for fulfilling international duty. This is Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Sokolov, Colonel-General E. Vysotsky, Major-General V. Karpukhin, Col. F. Pugachev. And hundreds of officers, "Tashkent" for their courage were awarded the military orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star.
At all stages of its stories the school fully met its mission - to train qualified command personnel for the Armed Forces. Proof of this is the participation of our graduates in the fighting in “hot spots”. For the courage shown in counterterrorist operations in the North Caucasus, six students of the school were awarded the title of Hero of Russia: Colonel-General V. Bulgakov, Colonel-General V. Shamanov, Lieutenant-General M. Ashurov, Colonel Z. Ivanov, Major S. Kurnosenko, Senior Lieutenant S. Firsov.
On these jubilee days, we cannot but recall those commanders who began serving the Motherland with cadets of our renowned school. More than 250 of them became generals. These are army generals A. Beloborodov, A. Gribkov, V. Arkhipov, V. Shuralev, colonel generals V. Moltenskoy, B. Shein, N. Zvinchukov, Yu. Bukreev, lieutenant generals V. Borzhko, V. Konstantinov, E Churaev, A. Osetrov, Y. Bychkov, S. Skokov, A. Khrulev, V. Rozhko, V. Afonin and others.
Many generations of students of military academies are obliged to comprehend military science to such teachers as Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General of Tank Forces F. Lokhmatikov, Major General A. Beregovoi, Major General B. Suvorov, Colonel A. Bolotov, Colonel A. Elizar. All of them are graduates of TVTCU of different years.
Creator of the T-90 tank, outstanding designer V. Potkin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Lieutenant-General V. Zhilin, Red Star correspondent, Army Writer V. Vozovikov, First Minister of Defense of the Republic of Tajikistan, General A. Shishlyannikov, Ministers of Defense of the Republic of Uzbekistan Generals R. Akhmedov, Y. Agzamov and H. Tursunov - these names are known to many, but not everyone knows that each of them came from the walls of the Tashkent Tank School.
The generals V. Rozhko, V. Sultanov, O. Sokolov, V. Afonin, V. Lipinsky noticeably transformed and gave a new look to the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The generals M. Kolesnikov and V. Nasonov showed themselves in leading posts in the Ministry of Emergency Situations. They are also graduates of TVTCU.
With particular gratitude we cannot but remember our mentors - commanders and teachers, who gave us a start in the officer's life. These are Major Generals of Tank Forces V. Demchenko and A. Shamray, Colonels P. Ryzhov, Sh. Umarov, U. Muminov, V. Graf, Yu. Ulanov, F. Zolotkovsky, A. Ivanischev, A. Markov, Lieutenant Colonels A. Shpak, I. Lottamyys, D. Sverchkov, I. Bugayov, Y. Kryuchkov and many others. A deep bow to all of them for the “science of victory” presented.
Times change, years pass. But unchanged remains the pride of the native school, which gave us a start in life.
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