Nabat on Don
Don is rapidly growing smaller, which represents a significant threat to national security, since even non-specialists can see how the river leaves every year, its withered banks are covered in death. But the Don today is cut into several parts, and not every region is concerned about the fate of the river. For many years, no one has bothered to carry out more or less cleansing work that has not been done for more than a dozen years.
A powerful blow to the water system of the river was struck in the 50's.
27 July 1952 was signed a resolution on the launch of the Volga-Don ship canal. Lenin. He connected two great rivers and five seas: the Azov, Black, Baltic, White and Caspian, changing the lives of people in the whole region and the Don River, which today turns from a navigable stream into a stream: shoals, islands and sandbars fill the wounds of a serpentine body of a once-deep river.
Remembering this construction of the century, they criticized Stalin and emphasize that the prisoners were driving her, and that she was all on human bones. Helpful imagination quickly draws terrible details. It is often said by people who either did not witness the events or spent very little time on the construction site. I met a man whose 40 years of life were given to the Tsimlyansky hydroelectric complex. There are two entries in his employment record - accepted and fired. This is Yevgeny Alekseevich Sagin, a resident of the Romanovskaya village of the Rostov Region.
“Terrible stories about construction, to put it mildly, do not correspond to reality,” he shares his opinion. - The only person you can trust in this issue is the historian Vera Nikitichna Boldyreva, who has collected extensive, truthful material. It is not clear to me why Stalin is accused of the appearance of the man-made Tsimlyansky Sea, the shipping canal, the hydroelectric power station. As if he gave the order and construction began immediately. Not! Back in 1944, the first expedition arrived in the Don, consisting of scientists from the "Hydroproject" city of Leningrad. At the end of the war, the second expedition worked. And it was scientists who gave advice on construction, which began in the 1949 year. And the idea of connecting the Volga and the Don came to mind at all not to Stalin, but to Peter I. By his order, they began to erect a dam, now known to us as the Petrovsky Gateway.
Yevgeny Sagin, a vocational school graduate, arrived at the construction site of the century in 1948. He was instructed to make a breakdown of the fence under the woodworking plant, together with subordinates - prisoners who were much older than him and did not feel much sympathy for the "boss". Sagin was confused, did not know how to lead and what to say. And suddenly he had a thought that among them there should be builders.
"Comrades, are there builders among you?" - asked the young man. "What are you to comrades - citizens," - corrected the convoy. But the beginning of a good relationship has already been laid. Eugene admitted that he had no experience. Former builder Pavel Ivanovich Yakubovsky took the "chief" under guardianship, and the work began to boil. Subsequently, PI Yakubovsky became the chief engineer of the construction trust, and then the deputy head of the regional department "Agropromstroy".
- In "Volgodonskstroy" worked more than 120 thousands of prisoners. Very many of them remained at the construction site after the end of the sentence. They lived and worked with us, and there was no separation into former “cons” and there were no free ones, - Yevgeny Alekseevich recalls. - There were different people among the prisoners. Some tried to escape, but it always ended in failure. The fugitives were punished by the punishment cell. At first, prisoners from among the thieves tried to establish their own rules. They selected the arriving workers' parcels. And complaints to the leadership did not change the situation. And then the workers decided to restore order. And bringing order in Russia, as it was customized, is carried out with the help of fists, after which other measures of influence are used. In the book about "Volgodonskstroy" it is written that there was a revolt, and no one went to work 10 days. This is a great exaggeration. Only two days did not work. Head of construction Vasily Arsentevich Barabanov entered the zone alone, without protection. I do not know what he told the prisoners, but the next day both the "convicts" and the freemen set to work. The "convicts", who were especially zealously setting their own rules, were loaded into the wagons and taken away in an direction unknown to me. The rest began to pay wages, opened stores.
Even prisoners of war penetrated the grandeur of the planned construction. It was the Germans who suggested getting to the villages and farms, where they bought food, by boat, and they themselves did it, which greatly simplified the solution of the problem with the delivery of food.
Mass heroism, but not hard labor
- The work of people working in construction can be called mass heroism. And nothing else. And those who think that it was a hard labor and nothing else are wrong, says Evgeny Alekseevich Sagin. - A holiday is not an abundance of food on the table, but a state of mind. We could have fun with roasted fish and boiled potatoes on the table. Having crossed the Don to the stanitsa of Kumshatskaya, they arranged such dances that the roof shook. In the local club was organized a powerful initiative, to which some modern professionals far. Before the army, I was engaged in acrobatics, and many acrobatic etudes have not been repeated so far. In 1951, I and another guy were sent to a youth festival in Berlin, and our performances were no worse than the others.
Sometimes I want to compare the builders of these objects with aliens. We differ from modern people in their way of thinking and attitude to their land. Arriving from all over the country, we decided for ourselves: here our Motherland, and everything connected with it, is sacred for us.
How to block the channel of the Don
Evgeny Sagin from those who scored the first pegs on the construction of Volgodonsk, was an eyewitness to the overlap of the channel of the river Don.
- In 1948, the construction of the Tsimlyansk hydroelectric complex was in full swing, quite large volumes of work were done. Already poured the canvas for the device of the railway, so that the power train gave energy to the whole construction. A large number of barracks were built in which the prisoners lived. Nearby were the barracks for conscripts and civilian soldiers. Many caught up with equipment, both earthmoving and lifting: she worked at full power. There was a bakery, a bathhouse, water intake and a filtration station were built. Everything was aimed at the main task - dam washing and construction of hydropower plants.
Even today, the Tsimlyanskaya HPP has foundations for the capacities of a large concrete plant, without which the construction of the Tsimlyanskaya HPP would be impossible. It was a modern, technically equipped factory for the production of ready-mixed concrete brand 700, it was completely mechanized. At the same time, the concrete was loaded into special tanks of two trains. In order to prepare the concrete mix, the machines delivered materials uninterruptedly to the plant: crushed stone, sand, then they were fed to the mixers in fractions. Laboratory technicians monitored the quality of the produced concrete. A special selection of exported concrete was made, time was put on each square, who took out and who made it. Housing construction was going fast.
22 September 1951 in the afternoon, one hundred MAZ-205 vehicles prepared for the storming of the Don River. Behind the wheel were the best drivers of construction. Among them was Pavel Andreevich Zubkov, who was awarded the Order of Lenin.
To bridge the channel of the Don a special bridge was built. At 17 hours, the time is not quite accurate, a test drive was made to the bridge of vehicles with empty bodies. Headed the column Pavel Andreevich. When the cars descended to load the rubble stone, the head of the third construction area reported on readiness. In 18 hours 30 minutes on the radio was given the command to all heads of departments to prepare for closing the channel of the Don.
Humming cars - Don overlap began. Three divers, Lesin, Nazarenko and Veselovsky (all three of the Romanovskaya village), were to follow the process of overlapping in water. The first to sink into the water was Veselovsky. Came out of the water and says: "The enemy is strong." The strong current carried the diver, but left the situation in this way: Veselovsky took the rail in one hand to make it heavier, while the other worked. After a short time, the divers changed each other.
35 hours - this was the estimated time to overlap. Finished work about two hours earlier. Thousands of workers and guests witnessed this great historical moment.
When building materials were mined, unexploded shells were found in the ground. The memory of the past war is alive. And I remembered that during the war years the Don was a dividing line between the warring parties and in the area where the Tsimlyanskoe reservoir is now located, local underground fighters were active. The sabotage actions carried out by the underground workers, although they did not have serious consequences for the invaders, nevertheless made a feasible contribution to the common struggle against the occupiers.In memory of Romanov underground workers
On the eve of the New Year holidays, events that happened many years ago are not forgotten. In early January, a traditional rally will be held, dedicated to the next anniversary of the liberation of the Volgodonsk region from the Nazi invaders.
From the book of A. Kalinin "Ivan Smolyakov":
"... Far after midnight, Alexander Nikiforovna Smolyakova was awakened by a cautious knock on the shutter.
- Who? - anxiously asked Alexandra Nikiforovna.
- It's me, Mom, open.
- Vania? - Pushing the bolt, she retreated from the threshold. - You? How did you come here? Get out now! In the village the Germans. - Alexandra Nikiforovna quickly closed the door, passing him into the hut.
- I know, mom. Hush. That's why the Germans came. Eat me, starved for these days.
She gathered him on the table and, stopping near the stove, folding her arms under her apron, watched him eat potatoes, bite off bread, and move it hard with taut jaws. She tried to ask him, but waited for him to speak first. What did he say? Or maybe she only heard this? He knows that the Germans in the village, and therefore came here? To them, to the Germans? Her son ?!
And he silently ate dinner, drained the milk to the bottom and only then raised his eyes from the table.
- Yes, Mom, therefore, came that the Germans. - And, seeing that she did not understand, he stood up, put his hand on her shoulder - tall, big. - How could I leave you and everything? - He put his hand around him, pushing the hat walls away with this gesture. - How could I leave, mom?
She understood and, seized by a sudden fear for him, the most beloved of all her eight children, whispered fiercely:
- What are you, son, go, where are you in the partisans? You're sick, every passer-by recognizes you here, every little boy can point with a finger. Go, Vanya, it’s night now, maybe you’ll hide, maybe they’ll catch up with you.
- Mom, mom, I will not go anywhere, we will not talk about it anymore.
To save him, she said:
“You’re not the only one who will perish, and you’ll draw after me.” Have you thought about this, Vanya?
- Do not slander yourself, mom, you're not at all like that.
Then, defeated, she cried, leaning against him. He gently wiped the tears on his cheeks with his hands. So they sat silently on the bench for a long time. Then, crying out, in a low voice, she began to tell him the stanitsa news:
- In the movie, the slaughterhouse was opened, the sheep for the officers were slaughtered. The commandant arrived, his neck was like a bull. Ataman set Arkov, you should know him.
- Is that what seeds sold?
- He is.
“They always pick them up,” Ivan said thoughtfully.
He recalled that Arkov’s daughter was a Komsomol member. "I wonder how she feels with such a dad now?"
“Ten thousand were promised for the head of each partisan,” Alexandra Nikiforovna continued, suppressing a sigh.
“Cheap they appreciated our heads,” Ivan smiled.
They sat up to the roosters, until streams of light began to seep through the slit of the shutters. Alexandra Nikiforovna was worried.
- Razvidnilos, Vanya, where should I bury you?
Poor little head ...
- Bed me, mom, on the stove, I want to sleep. Neighbors in this room do not let, do not carry the message, and can blab. And not at all a poor little head, see how much the Germans give for it.
He slept until the evening. Alexandra Nikiforovna locked the door and went to the neighbor. In the evening, Ivan came to his old friend Vasily Kozhanov. Together they all night long talked in the upper room. Kozhanova's wife from the next room heard scraps of their conversation.
“To act, Vasya, it is necessary to act, so that from the first day they have smelled our hand,” said Smolyakov.
- one? - Kozhanov asked.
- Why one? Are few people? Only gukni - the whole area will rise. Or have we been throwing seeds for nothing all these years?
And Smolyakov in a low voice began to list names.
- Tyukhov Valentine - this is your time. Petka Yasin, closing his eyes, will go. Still Victor Kuznetsov, Mozharova Klava ... Do you know Mozharova?
On the same night, Smolyakov and Kozhanov visited the apartments of the Romanov Komsomol members. Smolyakov spoke with Yasin and Kuznetsov, Kozhanov - with Tyukhov. Ivan was not mistaken: no one said "no." And only everyone asked the same question:- BUT weapon?
- It will, - smiled slyly Smolyakov. He knew the place where the automatons were buried. - For the first time, enough, and then we must arm ourselves.
In the morning, in the village, white sheets were handed over from hand to hand. This was the first leaflet that the guerrillas wrote: "Comrades, do not forget that you are masters of your land, and do not allow a good-natured German to stand on your soul. Remember that bread is your bread, cattle is your cattle and you yourself free people. Beat the invaders! "
Someone scattered leaflets at the bazaar, at the church porch, and they taped the walls of the police. The police were scraping them with scaffolds. In the evening, raids began in the village. They came to Smolyakov, but Ivan was not at home. From Kozhanovs soldiers also left with nothing. “He is with his brother, on the farm,” Kozhanov’s wife told the soldier. The soldier turned the house upside down, scattered flour on the floor, spun a children's toy revolver for a long time and then put it in his pocket, took a handkerchief from the headboard and left. When he left the yard, a man spoke to him. He went next to the soldier, letting him light up, asking trustingly about something. The soldier confidently responded to a random companion. And when they crossed the street, a terrible blow knocked the soldier down. Something fell on him, crushed him to the ground, and the soldier remained lying in the middle of the street. At the other end of the village, at midnight, a shot cracked shortly, and a policeman, a traitor who sold himself to the Germans for money and vodka, fell off a cliff head downwards ... "
The names of the Romanov underground fighters are immortalized not only on memorial plates. Their names are the streets, schools, and in the recent past, the names of the underground workers were assigned to pioneer detachments and squads. In 1974, in the city of Volgodonsk, the first Greco-Roman wrestling tournament named after Ivan Smolyakov took place, and in 1977, it already became All-Union. Held to this day.
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