I was a penalty boxer. “War will write everything off”? download book in fb2, PDF, TXT, JAVA

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Alexander Urazov
The fate of the penalty box
“War will write everything off”?

From the author

I was sixty-five years old when I began writing this story. Many details of the events of the Great Patriotic War in the post-war decades were erased from memory, and I had to uncover the events themselves in the depths of memory, just as archaeologists uncover layer by layer, layer by layer of layers of many years in order to get to the bottom of the material evidence of historical eras. Why did I do this, why did I write this autobiographical story about the war? He who does not have memory does not live in truth.

Books, theater and cinema gave the post-war generations the opportunity to easily and pleasantly - at home on the sofa, in a theater or cinema chair - to experience death without dying, to know the pain of wounds without being wounded, to drown in swamps without feeling the wild fear of a sucking quagmire, to lie in snowy trenches and make your way through the blizzard towards death, without feeling the freezing cold and inhuman physical and mental torment. New generations know all this, all this has been experienced in the most diverse versions of human destinies - from an ordinary soldier to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. But... the war is artistically processed and generalized. Something is enhanced, something is muted or deliberately removed. All events are presented to the reader or viewer so smoothly, so warmly, so comfortably, so brightly in the makeup, pose, light, and sound needed by the writer or film director in order to achieve maximum artistic effect.

The reality was both simpler and more complex; pain and fear were felt to the point of horror, physical torment led to tired indifference, complete stupor. Writers and directors, readers and viewers imagined, imagined, implied all this - we actually experienced all this, experienced it ourselves.

How much do new generations of people know about such aspects of war as penal companies and penal battalions? They were there, they acted on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and made their contribution to the Victory, to the education and development of the human personality, its rehabilitation. This topic was closed in art for a long time, and then, suddenly becoming fashionable, it was exaggerated and distorted.

The reader will also find in the story some aspects of front-line reality that are avoided in literature and art for various reasons, and in particular those for which people ended up in penal companies and battalions. But, as they say, “you can’t take words out of a song,” the war should be viewed from this point of view: a person at the front found himself in various situations that would have been impossible in peacetime - the war revealed, along with heroism, the unsightly sides of human nature.

However, with all the diversity of people, their mental and physical qualities, with all the variety of tests to which they were subjected in the war, the majority still had one main task - to defeat the enemy even at the cost of their own lives...

Start

After Sunday's amateur concert and dance, final year students of the Rostov Construction College slept in their dormitories like a dead sleep. On Monday morning, everyone hurried to get themselves in order and, without breakfast, went to the technical school to complete their diploma papers. The hall, filled with drawing machines, quickly filled with graduate students. So Khomenko ran into the hall, came back and ran in again, shouting:

- Yes! I forgot to tell you, brothers: today the German fascists bombed our cities. You heard - the war has begun! War, brothers!!!

Nobody believed it.

– How can you believe that a mongrel will kill a bear in the taiga! - someone answered. - Yes, we’ll throw our hats at them!

– Don’t believe me? - Khomenko cried. – Then listen to the radio, I turned on Moscow!

And Molotov confirmed on the radio that the war had begun. The audience went deaf! Ossified! She froze! Then there was a rally, cries of indignation...

Soon, graduate students began to receive summonses from the military registration and enlistment office about conscription into the army, to war. During the defense, they grabbed sheets of their work, hung them in front of the diploma commission, said something, the chairman of the commission said: “That’s enough!” - the graduate was given a certificate of protection, and he ran to the military registration and enlistment office at the appointed time, afraid of being late.

A commission from the USSR State Construction Committee arrived to distribute specialists to cities and enterprises. I, who defended my diploma with honors, was not drafted into the army, but was sent to the construction of a military plant in the city of Kamensk along with other guys who received reservations.

But there was not enough time to complete construction at the military plant - the enemy was moving across Ukraine. The newly arrived master builders worked for only two months, and by order of the Commander-in-Chief, construction trust No. 23 was transformed into the military field construction department No. 23 and sent to build defensive structures in Ukraine, beyond Kharkov. All trust property and personnel were concentrated at the railway station awaiting departure. People slept near the railway so as not to delay the loading of wagons and the dispatch of trains to Ukraine.

The loading has finally begun. Everyone worked together, cheerfully, with jokes - everyone was tired of sitting at the station all the time, seeing the tears of their wives and children. If you go, do it quickly! They quickly loaded the property, laid down the gangplank and brought the struggling horses into the carriages, arranged bunks in the residential carriages, and laid hay on the bedding. Groups of people spontaneously organized themselves, took their fancy and took places in the carriages - on the upper bunks, on the floor.

We, young specialists, had not yet become accustomed to work teams, and we did not want to travel in heated vehicles for 30 people each. And it wasn’t just the crowd that confused us - at that time there was also subordination between workers and engineers, constrained relationships, and differences of interests. The workers themselves would not want to go with us.

Only two months separated us from the students. I, Petya Ponomarev, Volodya Pavlov, separated from our comrades - we had not yet found ourselves in the new conditions, we were yearning for friends and student life and therefore held each other tightly. We were joined by Fedor Kurichenko and Petr Minchenko, who also graduated from the technical school in absentia several months ago. But they were family people and had more production and life experience.

Minchenko was a particularly efficient, cheerful and sneaky fellow. It was he who offered to live on an open platform under a trailer loaded with coal for the forge and covered with a huge tarpaulin. Workers secured the tarpaulin to the sides of the railroad platform, creating a spacious tent. We further equipped it by stuffing hay along the sides for insulation and making a soft bedding for the bed, covering it with a cape. We placed our suitcases and duffel bags with groceries at our heads.

Now the families of the workers no longer went home, waiting for the train to depart. But where? To the south, to Central Asia, to the Urals, to Siberia? Or to the front? But if we go to the front, then why do we need window and door frames, hinges, latches, fittings, asphalt, drying oil, nails, pipes and other building materials? We were waiting to see which side the locomotive would be hitched to. We slept that night in a new place.

Having seen our “tent”, young spouses Peter and Marta Serkins asked to join us for company. Peter was a foreman, and I worked as a foreman under his leadership. Martha was a planner in the office. After graduation, they also worked for the first year.

At dawn, the morning silence was disturbed by the crowing of roosters and the mooing of cows. The edges of the cirrus clouds turned golden, and the sun, swollen from sleep, rose from the horizon like a red disk. People were moving around, they began to wash themselves, and someone was lighting a fire in the distance. The family had already sat down on the hay around an oilcloth filled with food, glasses sparkling in the sun above their thrown back heads. The life of a new day began.

The head of the UVPS Krasnov and the chief engineer Bukhno walked along the train, warning people not to leave the cars. On the other side of the station tracks, the second echelon began loading.

At ten o'clock the buffers of the cars clanged, everyone jumped up and rushed to the train. A steam locomotive puffed from the southern end of the train.

- On the horses! - rang loudly and melodiously along the train, and this cry was repeated in many voices. Women rushed to their husbands, hugs and kisses began, and lamentations were heard. We sat on the platform - no one saw us off, no one shed tears.

The train, slowly picking up speed, moved south towards Rostov-on-Don, but, going beyond the border of the station, bending in an arc, turned west. So, to the front, towards the war!

We additionally fenced our platform with sheets of plywood to prevent the cold from blowing in at night. Economic issues were resolved by our “old men” Kurichenko and his friend in life and work Minchenko. They received dry rations, pooled together to buy those products that were not included in the general layout (sausages, lard, wine), purchased kitchen utensils, buckets for water and other things needed on the road.

The train rushed along the “green street” towards war and the unknown. We sat on the platform, sang “Katyusha”, “The order was given for him to go west”, “Three tankmen”. In the fields along the railroad, women were harvesting grain. They waved their headscarves at us and shouted something. Minchenko and Pavlov invited them to their place with signs, and showed with gestures how tightly they hugged them. The girls stretched out their hands to us, called us to them, pointing to their shocks, and fooled around. By lunchtime the initial excitement had subsided and the novelty had worn off. The Serkin couple laid out a cape on a free space on the platform and began arranging food and bottles. They decided to celebrate the first camp lunch as a festive one. A bottle of vodka leaned towards our mugs, but I covered mine with my palm and asked for water - the sight and smell of vodka made me sick.

While still third-year students, we organized a bachelor party on May Day. At that time, vodka was relatively cheap - 6 rubles 30 kopecks, which was cheaper than a kilogram of smoked saber fish, and almost five times cheaper than a kilogram of cheese.

In the hostel we set up tables and put out bottles, among which snacks were bashfully hidden. Young and green - we ended up drinking ourselves to hell. Then Volodya Pavlov pulled out an unprecedented pipe - the black head of Mephistopheles was decorated with bulging porcelain eyes. He stuffed it with terry cloth (cigarettes and “Turkish” tobacco were beyond our means) and lit it. The tube went around in a circle, and it was my turn. I didn’t smoke, my three brothers didn’t smoke, my father and his brothers didn’t smoke, and my very devout grandfather Matvey didn’t smoke. But what can’t you do at 18 years old to look like everyone else? Not knowing how to smoke, I took a mouthful of tobacco smoke and began to swallow it rather than inhale it. The entire company's attention was focused on me. Having somehow swallowed the smoke, I passed the pipe further around the circle with a victorious look. Everything started spinning in my head, and I, holding on to the chairs and table, began to make my way to the exit. I don’t remember how I got to my room and fell onto my bed, as if into an endless abyss. When I started to feel sick, I fell out of my bed and crawled to the trash can, bleeding green saliva. There were four of us living in the room, everyone walked until the evening, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the trash can. Late in the evening they lifted me from the floor - I myself could not lie down on the bed - and removed the traces of my crime. It seemed to me that I was dying, I kept falling into a black abyss.

What help could my drunken friends give me? It was impossible to call a doctor - they would be kicked out of the hostel, or even from the technical school. In those days, the rules in the hostel were strict, the commandant observed them strictly. I lay on my bed for two days without touching food, and the tea I drank came back as a green, viscous liquid. Since then, I have developed a persistent aversion to the smell of tobacco smoke and all types of alcohol.

And the train rumbled along the rails... The slowly rotating terrain began to bulge, more excavations, embankments and bridges appeared over rivers and ravines, and a small tunnel quickly passed. But then the train slowed down, and suddenly intermittent alarm beeps were heard. We began to search the sky with our eyes. An unusually shaped plane was flying high, as if it were two planes connected together. The train was pulled into a large recess, and then dived and stopped in the darkness of a tunnel filled with steam locomotive smoke. Within a minute I started coughing and then writhing from the gas. In the carriages, the gas may not have been felt so strongly, but on the open platform it penetrated into the lungs like a prickly ruff. Coughing and alarmed cries were heard everywhere. I started breathing through the handkerchief, but it didn’t help much.

I thought that it was necessary to wet it, but in the dark a bucket of water could not be found. Curses and harsh language were heard. When it seemed that the end was coming, and red circles began to appear in my eyes, the train clanged its buffers and slowly crawled forward. He rode in the tunnel for what seemed like an eternity until the road ahead began to turn gray and then daylight began to approach. For a long time, with blue faces and watery eyes, we cleared our throats, swearing and blowing our noses. Now the train moved slowly, stopping occasionally, and then men and women would jump out of the carriages and run to the nearest folds of terrain. The men laughed out of awkwardness, but the women had to blush. At first, no one could have guessed that the railway embankment had two sides - the right for women and the left, with a passage through the railway track under the cars, for men. The train did not stop at stations and stops.

The sun hid behind the clouds and it began to get dark. The passing day seemed like a week in terms of intensity. We lay down under the trailer, hitting our heads on some parts of it, and began to go to bed. The Serkins separated themselves from us with their suitcases. They got married only a few months ago, and now they are off on their “honeymoon.” Both came from intelligent urban families, and when someone swore with coal dust in their eyes, Marta Kazimirovna, as she allowed herself to be called, without allowing familiarity, said sharply: “Stop being rude!”

This was the end of the rude words, although more than once they had accidentally escaped from the lips out of old habit. In the technical school, in the first and second years, there were no girls in our group of plumbers, and, as in the Zaporozhye Sich, free relations and freedom of speech were created. Among us there were such personalities as a pickpocket, a homeless child, Vitaly Zaporozhtsev, who dreamed of becoming a man, but died in his second year from jaundice and chronic malnutrition, a child of the village outback, fatherless Vanya Polonsky, a Rostov resident Alexei Klochkov, who was left with his younger brother without parents and help, other guys.

Maxim Sushitsky, for example, lived on a stipend of 32 rubles (lunch in the canteen cost 1 ruble 5 kopecks), passionately dreamed of becoming famous in order to have big money and distribute it to us, the students of the group, and, of course, to get enough of it himself. He became the “greatest celebrity” by discovering a way to reassemble living geniuses from the atoms left over from the once deceased Pushkin, Lomonosov, and Mendeleev. And it happened like this.

On Sunday we attended an evening of amateur performances and dancing. Our classmate Sasha Osadchy played what he claimed was a “Stradivarius violin”, Petya Kovalev played scenes from “Hamlet” and “The Miserly Knight”, Lida Goldfarb sang several songs from films accompanied by the same Osadchy on the piano. Then dancing began in the lobby of the assembly hall.

We returned to the hostel on Khalturinsky Lane on Nakhalovka late and were surprised: Sushitsky, who had remained at home when we left for the amateur performance evening, despite the late hour, was sitting in bright light at the table in front of the open periodic table and writing something down. We burst in noisily, but he didn’t pay much attention to us. Then Vanya Polonsky asked:

– Maxim, why aren’t you sleeping?

“Eh, brothers, I don’t have time to sleep,” he answered. – Do you know what invention I made?! You and I will soon become rich!

– Oh, look what an inventor!

– Why should I talk to you! Listen up guys! – And he began to expound his “theory” using the periodic table, how he would again return to the world the brilliant people of the past from atoms. Polonsky was about to get involved in an argument, but I said:

– It’s late, go to bed!

And before my head touched the pillow, I was already asleep. At 7 o'clock in the morning I always woke up instantly, as if someone was pushing me in the side. This time, when I woke up, I saw Maxim sitting at the table with all the lights on. He muttered something, the notebook in front of him was covered with writing.

– Maxim, what are you doing? - And I turned off the light.

– This is me writing a report to Comrade Stalin. Today the director of the technical school will take me to Moscow in his car, and I will report everything to Joseph Vissarionovich.

We quickly got dressed. I had to make my bed, get ready, have a snack on the go, and walk to the technical school in 20 minutes. Therefore, in our haste, we didn’t really listen to Maxim’s story. The morning sun illuminated the clouds and the plane floating in the sky. Maxim, excited by our inattention, loudly and persistently called to the window.

“Look,” he said, “see the shadow behind the plane?” These are the molecules of the dead flying. Among them there are molecules and Pushkin. I found a way to collect them and recreate the living Pushkin from them. Can you imagine what this is?! This is a brilliant discovery! I will recreate and bring back to life all the famous people in the world. The capitalists will make me rich for reviving George Washington, Jack London, James Fenimore Cooper - anyone I want. All the rulers of the world, the kings, will bow before me. I will divide all the money and gold equally between us, friends, and we will live comfortably! I made this discovery based on the periodic table. As a sign of gratitude, I will revive him first.

We stood amazed. Only now we realized that this was not a joke. Maxim spoke with inspiration, his eyes sparkled on his thin pale face, he could not stand still, he walked around the table, bumping into chairs. It became clear what happened to Maxim, but we did not know what to do. We began to persuade Maxim to get ready for technical school - time was running out. However, he told us that the director himself would come for him in an Emke passenger car. We had to convince him that the director didn’t know anything yet, he needed to tell all this not to us, but to himself personally.

Still, Maxim went with us, taking homework on drawing. We were late for the drawing lesson. Our class teacher, the failed artist Korolev, scolded us in Bursatian style and began checking our works.

– Sushitsky, where is your work?

Maxim sat and used ink to trace the lines of the drawing by hand to the thickness of a finger. He silently stood up and gave the drawing to the teacher. His eyebrows went up onto his forehead.

– What are you doing, Sushitsky? Are you crazy?

Maxim exploded, began to be rude, saying that he doesn’t care about these drawings, that he will go to the director...

– Sushitsky, you are a boor in nature! – the purple-faced teacher attacked him. But Vanya Polonsky and others secretly twirled their fingers at their temples, showing that Maxim was not himself. And he was already raging. Polonsky and Kolya Kurman jumped out of their seats, approached him and, grabbing him by the arms, began to persuade him to go to the director. He agreed - he had to go in the Emka to Stalin.

According to the guys' story, in the director's office Sushitsky began to demand a car to go to Moscow, scolding the drawing teacher for offending him. His! Do you know who he is?! Behind Maxim’s back, the guys expressively showed that he was not himself. The director said:

– I’ll give you a car. But you must see a doctor to prove that you are normal.

– Don’t you believe it either? - Maxim cried. But the guys had already grabbed him by the arms and began to persuade him to go to the doctor, where they would also treat his ears (before that he had gone to the clinic for ear treatment). The trick with the ears was a success, and Maxim left. Along the way, he waved his arms, talked incessantly, and pushed passers-by. We approached the clinic where Maxim was having his ears treated, and he turned through the gate. The guys took him by the arms and said that he needed to go through the other door.

– You want to hand me over to a madhouse! You don’t believe it either, and also friends!

– No, Maxim, we believe, but the director needs to prove that you are not sick. Let's go, they'll check it and give you a certificate.

They grabbed him by the arms and forcibly took him to a psychiatric hospital. He struggled and kicked a passing girl. When we approached the porch of the clinic, two burly men in dressing gowns ran out. Maxim struggled in their hands. He was thrown into a solitary cell with padded walls, and he began to go on a rampage there. Polonsky and Kurman gave information about Maxim.

The next day we collected some money, bought fruits and sweets, but they didn’t let us in and didn’t accept the transfer. Only on the fifth day did the orderly bring Maxim out to our lobby. He was covered in bruises, pale, thin and weak. He spoke to us quite reasonably and logically. And 10 days later he himself came to our technical school to say goodbye - he was on his way home, he was given a deferment in his studies. He was accompanied by his older brother, who was studying at a firefighting college. At the fire technical school they fed and clothed well, and it was easier to study. My brother told us that in a year he would get Maxim a job as a fireman. We never saw Sushitsky again.

Vitaly Zaporozhets, unable to bear the hunger, at the Rostov-Glavnaya station again reached into someone’s pocket. They probably beat him, because he fell ill, he was sent to the hospital, his bile overflowed, and he died.

It was under such conditions that our relationships were formed, so that the defects in our upbringing were not accidental; our conversation among ourselves did not shine with sophistication. In order to somehow soften the bursas, Lida Goldfarb was transferred to us from another group. She was older than us - she was 25 years old - and this became a deterrent to our liberties...

The train slowed down. He stopped more and more often among the fields, without stopping at stations. Black cones of waste heaps in Donbass have appeared.

In the morning, we got up somewhere in a parking lot in a field and started laughing at each other - the trailer we slept under was dusty with coal through the cracks, and we crawled out from under it like miners from a mine. The locomotive puffed angrily. There was a line with buckets for water at the well of the railway guardhouse. A woman stood with flags at the closed barrier and looked thoughtfully at the train and the queue at the well.

Someone had already lit a fire near the railroad bed, placing a kettle and bucket on the stones. No one knew how long we would stand, or where the next stop would be, so we used each stop, finishing the food in 2-3 steps.

More and more often we came across charred carriages under the slope, and near the railway embankment there were bomb craters. At the stations we ran to the railway workers to find out the latest news. They were increasingly alarming - the Nazis were quickly moving east, capturing more and more cities and villages.

In the evening, at the crowded Merefa station near Kharkov, our train stopped surrounded by others. Trust manager Krasnov and chief engineer Bukhno walked around the cars. Krasnov was short, lively, talkative, his gold teeth sparkled at every joke and he himself tried to cover up his anxiety with a joke. Bukhno, a tall, heavyset man, was interested in how things were, if there were any sick people, he asked and answered with restraint, in few words. He warned not to go far, but some, looking around anxiously, ran in search of food stores, kiosks, and buffets. Clouds began to cover the sky, and it began to get dark quickly. Strict military blackout laws were already observed here.

Minchenko and Kurichenko got hold of bread somewhere and had bottles of white-headed beer sticking out of their pockets. They had just started chewing when suddenly there was first one sound, followed immediately by many short and alarming factory and locomotive whistles. Many beams of searchlights pierced the clouds and began to search the sky, connecting and crossing, scattering in different directions. Somewhere nearby a gun went off. The howl of a bomb was approaching from the sky, forcing him to jump off the platform and crawl under it. The howl was interrupted by a terrible explosion. A brilliant plane appeared in the sky, dotted lines of tracer shells were reaching towards it from all over, and explosions sparkled in splashes all around. Automatic guns barked.

The entire space from sky to earth sparkled, flared, burst, shot, screamed. I crawled under the trailer and, throwing away the cloth on which the crumbling fragments were splashing, looked around. A curious fear vibrated through his body. This was the first baptism, the first encounter with war. We were not yet accustomed to managing our fear; we could not assess the danger that had arisen.

Our train jerked, clanging its buffers. I pulled away from under the train, and it slowly moved forward. The cacophony of war continued for some time as we drove, and then everything died down. Only the wheels of the carriages were knocking at the joints of the rails.

- Brothers, my underpants are wet! Maybe blood?! - Minchenko jokes.

“No, blood doesn’t smell like that,” answered Kurichenko, and everyone laughed, relieving fear and tension of nerves. Even Marta Serkina did not stop her wits.

The morning turned out to be beautiful and cheerful. The sky, washed overnight, was pristine blue without a single cloud. The grass sparkled with brilliant rainbow fire. The train stood at the station of the small town of Glukhov. A wooden staircase rose from the railway onto a high hill, and the top of the church was visible. Dressed up local people with baskets and sacks were walking up the stairs. It turns out there was a market nearby. Men and women raced up the stairs from the train. The Serkins also left, followed by our “old men” Minchenko and Kurichenko. I was afraid to fall behind the train, since it was not known when it would start. And it was impossible to leave our farm unattended - in peacetime there was always a fear of thieves, but now such a danger was growing day by day.

Opposite our platform stood a freight car of the neighboring train, going in the opposite direction to us. Through the pulled back door, bunks covered with straw were visible; children were crawling and sitting on the same straw on the floor of the carriage. An old man with a shaggy beard was looking from a bunk near the door, lying on his stomach, and a young girl was sitting by the door, her legs dangling, gnawing on a cracker. Her nose and eyes were red, and from time to time she would wipe her tears and sniffle.

The warm, sunny Indian summer day began to deteriorate. Gray clouds were approaching from the west, the sun began to play hide and seek. Our workers hurried from a high hill along a wooden staircase to the train, afraid of being late and falling behind the train. Since the route of our train was kept secret, a straggler could find himself in a difficult position. He could have been mistaken for a deserter or even a spy.

The Serkin spouses and the rest of the guys were returning to our platform in a crowd. Serkin was carrying a huge live goose, and the guys were carrying some bags, potatoes, apples, bottles peeping out of their pockets like white caps. The Serkins decided to give everyone a treat on the occasion of Martha's birthday. Marta solemnly announced that for lunch there would be Ukrainian borscht with goose. We had not eaten hot food for many days, so Martha's statement aroused enthusiasm among the men. Everyone offered their help.

I ran with a bucket and a saucepan to get water to the pump for refueling steam locomotives. While, having filled with water, I made my way back along the tracks and under the cars, our train had already clanged its buffers and slowly moved on its way. My heart sank. I rushed after him, splashing water, but Minchenko jumped off the platform, took the pan from me, and we safely climbed onto the brake platform of the car. It was cold driving on the platform; clothes splashed with water stuck to the body like ice. It’s good that the train soon stopped in a field, and Minchenko and I moved to our platform.

People poured out of the carriages. Kurichenko jumped onto the slope of the path with the goose under his arm, but the goose desperately rushed and rolled down the embankment. Kurichenko and Pavlov rushed to catch him. Screams of laughing mockers rained down from the carriages. Kurichenko pressed the caught goose to a telegraph pole, and Pavlov, bending the goose's neck around the pole, began sawing it with a penknife. A stream of blood splashed onto Pavlov, and he released the goose's head. The neck straightened and blood splashed onto Kurichenko. He threw the goose and jumped to the side. Throwing the jumping goose to the ground, the unfortunate slaughterers climbed onto the embankment and began to wash the blood from their clothes. At that moment the locomotive blew its whistle and jerked the train. Kurichenko rushed down the embankment, grabbed the goose and rushed to catch up with us.

Laughing heads stuck out of the carriages, everyone was laughing at the spectacle, whistling and shouting. But they got it later, when on the platform Minchenko began to pluck a goose - the fluff flew along the train like snow flakes, swirled around the cars, flying into the open doors and windows. Now Minchenko was laughing and, plucking more fluff, threw it into the headwind.

At the next stop in the field it was necessary to tar the goose. The whole difficulty was the lack of firewood and the uncertain duration of the stay. We jumped off the platform, rushed along the railroad tracks to collect wood chips and weeds, lit a fire and began tarring. The weeds were smoking, and the goose was covered in greasy soot. They shouted from the carriages, gave advice, made jokes, and asked for smoked goose. Minchenko did not mince words and responded harshly with poisonous words interspersed with abuse.

But we also had to laugh when he unsuccessfully washed the blackened goose with cold water, and then went ahead and soaped it up. Someone suggested taking a washcloth, Petya Ponomarev brought a razor and cologne. Martha rolled in the hay laughing. Gradually the goose turned from black to gray-yellow. We collected water from a well at some station and, having butchered the goose, put it in a bucket of water, set it on bricks, and lit a fire under the bucket. Before the water had time to heat up, the locomotive gave a signal, and Kurichenko, who was drying himself by the fire, threw sand on the fire, grabbed a bucket with a goose and caught up with our platform.

Now the trains moved slowly, in sight of each other, with frequent stops. Three or four times we started cooking the goose. Little by little, without waiting for the festive dinner, everyone had a snack, drowning out their hunger. Instead of lunch, a wonderful dinner was arranged, the borscht was especially delicious. The goose was still undercooked, but everyone had strong young teeth.

Early in the morning someone walked quickly along the train and, knocking on each car, shouted:

– We’ve arrived! Unload!

It was still dark, it was drizzling, and I was shivering not only from the cold and dampness, but also from the unknown. Something rumbled in the west, and it was clear that it was not thunder.

Work brigades, reorganized into construction departments, platoons, companies under the leadership of squad commanders (foremen), platoons (foremen), companies (foremen) began to unload cars along the railway embankment. The manager of the trust, Krasnov, ran along the train and gave orders where to put things. From today, he became the head of the military field construction department (UVPS) No. 23. His leather jacket was crossed by the straps of a field bag, a carbine and a tablet, he now gave the impression of a gallant commander.

The Serkins were involved, and we, the platoon commanders, when the construction of defensive structures began, had to form platoons from the local population.

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The author, Alexander Prokofievich Urazov (I was unable to find out anything about him except his date of birth - 1921, and the Eksmo publishing house, as is their habit, did not consider it necessary to report anything about its author) was truly a lucky man. Having finished the summer...

The author, Alexander Prokofievich Urazov (I was unable to find out anything about him except his date of birth - 1921, and the Eksmo publishing house, as is their habit, did not consider it necessary to report anything about its author) was truly a lucky man. Having graduated from the construction technical school in the summer of 41, he was a military builder until the spring of 42, engaged in the construction of defensive fortifications in the east. Not satisfied with what he was doing, he volunteered and, unexpectedly for himself, ended up in the Airborne Division - however, as a clerk (he had a very good and neat handwriting). It was because of the loss of staff documents that he ended up in a penal company - in the service platoon at the headquarters (where he remained until the end of the war). He took part in little combat, but when he had to, he fought truly heroically and deserved all his awards.
So, besides luck, there was something else - being at some distance from the combat positions, which gave any trencher a chance to stay alive.
The book is written very well, perhaps even without hope of publication (A.A. Urazov reports that he began working on it in the mid-80s, wanting to tell his descendants the truth about the war). The author really has real literary talent (one can hardly imagine that someone did this book for him).
The general vision of the war is extremely gloomy, the commanders are brawlers, rapists, grabbers and boors, the soldiers are one common mass, practically without faces. In Urazov’s memories there is a lot of cold, hunger and suffering, but there are plenty of available girls, girls and women from whom he constantly had to literally fight off (well, let’s believe him).
Only in the penal company was the author lucky enough to meet good people - soldiers and especially officers (this was confirmed by many former penal officers). But even there there was enough pain and grief, which Urazov vividly and figuratively narrates.
The publication turned out to be unusual in content. I almost never came across such literary memories. The author, having become an engineer and continuing to work in the construction profession after the war, clearly had the makings of a real writer. If I didn’t know that these were memoirs, I would have thought that this was a high-quality story about the war - Urazov’s memory retained too many details and colors more than 40 years after the war.
It is for this lively and direct, albeit gloomy, look at the war of a simple soldier that I recommend this work to everyone interested in the history of the Great Patriotic War.
This publication is a reprint of Urazov’s book entitled “The Fate of the Penalty,” published in 2012 in the “War and Us” series and in the “Winners” series. Front-line memoirs" in 2013 under the title "I was a penalty box."

How many writers, how few readers...

the book was disappointing. there is no harsh truth of war in it (which is understandable, because Urazov was a clerk). there is no view from the soldier’s trench, which is what I was hoping for. Moreover, the story was published in the author’s edition, which excludes “additions” from the editors, but also...

the book was disappointing. there is no harsh truth of war in it (which is understandable, because Urazov was a clerk). there is no view from the soldier’s trench, which is what I was hoping for. Moreover, the story was published in the author's edition, which excludes "additions" from the editors, but also excludes their interference in the book.
Question: why was the story published? and even under the heading “forbidden memoirs”. There is nothing forbidden in the book. Well, except that the homes of the Germans in Moldova were distinguished by their thoroughness, and loans for their construction were given for 25 years. and even the poverty that the author faced at home. and all this on more than 300 pages of text.
By the way, I didn’t find that the story was written well. I think the book would not have been published in samizdat.

I liked the book for its truthfulness. Everyone had their own war. The author described the cruelty of the war. The events on the scale of the war are small, but this is what makes up the overall picture. I have long wanted to read memoirs without fanfare. How it was through the eyes of a simple soldier....

I liked the book for its truthfulness. Everyone had their own war. The author described the cruelty of the war. Events on the scale of the war are small, but this is what makes up the overall picture. I have long wanted to read memoirs without fanfare. How it was through the eyes of a simple soldier. Without false heroism. Scary. and It’s not clear how with such officers (not all) we won this terrible war.

They say about people like the author of this book: “Born in a shirt.” Having gone to the front as a volunteer, Alexander Urazov served in the 8th Guards Airborne Division, and was put on trial and in a penal company “for the loss of secret documents.” “Washed away the guilt with blood” during the crossing of the Dnieper, neutralizing an enemy machine gunner and being wounded. After the conviction was cleared, he remained in the same company - but no longer in the “variable”, but in the “permanent composition”. Nominated for the Order of the Red Star for reconnaissance in force, completing a dangerous mission without loss. One of the few survived the fierce battles on the Dniester, where his entire penal company was killed, and received the Order of Glory for the storming of Vienna. I saw war in all its guises - not only the front side, but also the bloody underside: victories, and exploits, and self-sacrifice, and looting, and theft of the rear, and negligence of command, ruined destinies, crippled souls, for the rest of my life I hated the saying “ WAR WILL WRITE EVERYTHING AWAY” and spoke extremely frankly about what he saw and experienced in his book.

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From the author

I was sixty-five years old when I began writing this story. Many details of the events of the Great Patriotic War in the post-war decades were erased from memory, and I had to uncover the events themselves in the depths of memory, just as archaeologists uncover layer by layer, layer by layer of layers of many years in order to get to the bottom of the material evidence of historical eras. Why did I do this, why did I write this autobiographical story about the war? He who does not have memory does not live in truth.

Books, theater and cinema gave the post-war generations the opportunity to easily and pleasantly - at home on the sofa, in a theater or cinema chair - to experience death without dying, to know the pain of wounds without being wounded, to drown in swamps without feeling the wild fear of a sucking quagmire, to lie in snowy trenches and make your way through the blizzard towards death, without feeling the freezing cold and inhuman physical and mental torment. New generations know all this, all this has been experienced in the most diverse versions of human destinies - from an ordinary soldier to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. But... the war is artistically processed and generalized. Something is enhanced, something is muted or deliberately removed. All events are presented to the reader or viewer so smoothly, so warmly, so comfortably, so brightly in the makeup, pose, light, and sound needed by the writer or film director in order to achieve maximum artistic effect.

The reality was both simpler and more complex; pain and fear were felt to the point of horror, physical torment led to tired indifference, complete stupor. Writers and directors, readers and viewers imagined, imagined, implied all this - we actually experienced all this, experienced it ourselves.

How much do new generations of people know about such aspects of war as penal companies and penal battalions? They were there, they acted on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and made their contribution to the Victory, to the education and development of the human personality, its rehabilitation. This topic was closed in art for a long time, and then, suddenly becoming fashionable, it was exaggerated and distorted.

The reader will also find in the story some aspects of front-line reality that are avoided in literature and art for various reasons, and in particular those for which people ended up in penal companies and battalions. But, as they say, “you can’t take words out of a song,” the war should be viewed from this point of view: a person at the front found himself in various situations that would have been impossible in peacetime - the war revealed, along with heroism, the unsightly sides of human nature.

Start

After Sunday's amateur concert and dance, final year students of the Rostov Construction College slept in their dormitories like a dead sleep. On Monday morning, everyone hurried to get themselves in order and, without breakfast, went to the technical school to complete their diploma papers. The hall, filled with drawing machines, quickly filled with graduate students. So Khomenko ran into the hall, came back and ran in again, shouting:

Yes! I forgot to tell you, brothers: today the German fascists bombed our cities. You heard - the war has begun! War, brothers!!!

Nobody believed it.

How can you believe that a mongrel would kill a bear in the taiga! - someone answered. - Yes, we will throw our hats at them!

Don't believe me? - Khomenko cried. - Then listen to the radio, I turned on Moscow!

The fate of the penalty box. “War will write off everything ? Alexander Urazov

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Title: The fate of the penalty box. “War will write off everything”?
Author: Alexander Urazov
Year: 2012
Genre: Biographies and Memoirs, Books about war, Military affairs, intelligence services

About the book Alexander Urazov “The Fate of the Penalty. “War will write everything off”?”

They say about people like the author of this book: “Born in a shirt.” Having gone to the front as a volunteer, Alexander Urazov served in the 8th Guards Airborne Division, and was put on trial and in a penal company “for the loss of secret documents.” “Washed away the guilt with blood” during the crossing of the Dnieper, neutralizing an enemy machine gunner and being wounded. After his conviction was cleared, he remained in the same company - but no longer in the “variable”, but in the “permanent composition”. Nominated for the Order of the Red Star for reconnaissance in force, completing a dangerous mission without loss. One of the few survived the fierce battles on the Dniester, where his entire penal company was killed, and received the Order of Glory for the storming of Vienna. I saw the war in all its guises - not only the front side, but also the bloody underside: victories, and exploits, and self-sacrifice, and looting, and theft of rear officials, and negligence of command, ruined destinies, crippled souls - having hated the saying for the rest of my life “The war will write off everything” and spoke extremely frankly about what he saw and experienced in his book.

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Description: They say about people like the author of this book: “Born in a shirt.” Having gone to the front as a volunteer, Alexander Urazov served in the 8th Guards Airborne Division, and was put on trial and in a penal company “for the loss of secret documents.” “Washed away the guilt with blood” during the crossing of the Dnieper, neutralizing an enemy machine gunner and being wounded. After his conviction was cleared, he remained in the same company - but no longer in the “variable”, but in the “permanent composition”. Nominated for the Order of the Red Star for reconnaissance in force, completing a dangerous mission without loss. One of the few who survived the fiercest battles on the Dniester, where his entire penal company was killed, and received the Order of Glory for the storming of Vienna. I saw the war in all its guises - not only the front side, but also the bloody underside: victories, and exploits, and self-sacrifice, and looting, and theft of rear officials, and negligence of command, ruined destinies, crippled souls - having hated the saying for the rest of my life “the war will write off everything” and speak extremely frankly about what he saw and experienced in his book.