And tomorrow was war…

I’m giving word to the character of the book – Ivan Nikiforovich MEDYANIK.

“Well, it was in the global calendar sense. World War II was for the whole country. And my war started with the Finnish where I got after several changes in peaceful life. And here they are.

I worked as a garage mechanic at the Pyatigorsk regional executive committee. The executive committee was transferred to Stavropol but they did not part with me and I got an apartment there. The branch office of the Stavropol Tank School conducted classes for the officer school, where I studied at the distribution of the regional draft board and where I received the officer's rank.

Then I graduated with honors from Zhytomyr Tank School and was recommended to the Moscow Tank Academy.

I did not get to the academy because was recommended to serve in the NKVD. I graduated from law school and at the same time from Rostov road technical college.”

I cannot hold it, “Well, how many professions do you have, how many specialties, Ivan Nikiforovich?!”

“A lot, Volodya. And all my life something was added. Here, for example, being a beekeeper – a hobby or profession?”

“I think both. As well as a hunter, a fisherman.”

“That's it! So one can add a lot of things.”

Ivan Nikiforovich thinks for a minute. Then he continues the story, “So the war began for me from December 1939. I’m not the only one to remember it. There were terrible frosts at that time, snow piled above the head, the roads were not visible, a complete white veil! And we, with our BT-7 and BT-8 tanks, turned out to be helpless before the Finns, who very well knew their secret forest paths and roads covered with snowstorms. But against those frosts both people and equipment were powerless.

I do not want to stir up the wound that has long since healed!

It is only on paper that war fits in a few lines. And in fact any of the days of that short war, not even war, but as they called the Soviet-Finnish border dispute, is still experienced personally. And how humiliatingly Finns fooled us with their ski training. They ran like white devils, these famous “cuckoos”, but in fact snipers, elusive, accustomed to their swamps, forests, frost, skis.

What did we seem to them with our clumsy tanks, which even had no heating? Inside in the morning we were covered with frost. We spent half a day to start the engine. We used a blowtorch to heat up the fire bar…

And not to freeze we heated the salt in a tin and filled felt boots with it. Well, in short, it was necessary to finish this “forest tale” and as soon as possible.

A special, selective, mobile detachment of skishooters was sent. And our “skiers” were at their best – a defensive barrier defeated, and the Finnish campaign ended in April in 1940.

Ahead was a year of restless, anxious, but still peaceful life. Stavropol met me with windy spring. As friends were joking, this city is not in the seven, but seventy-seven winds. And nevertheless, it was my own house, it was my family, five-year-old Zhenka walked on the earth, in the evenings we gathered for dinner in the cozy dining room. A soft light poured from under the lampshade. Lyubov Alekseevna tried to keep the mark of a good housewife, a caring wife and mother.

June of 1941! How memorable it is to the present- day old men who have lived to the third millennium!

Light breeze blew on that day, poplar fluff flew, a crazy sweet smell of acacia teased enamored hearts. Life rang in all bells, youth – bright and happy time was spreading its wings, ready for peaceful labor, accomplishments, studies, love.

And no one could have imagined that this bright world and this silence, and this peace with fragrant acacias and poplar fluff would explode unexpectedly with the stern voice of Levitan, who announced Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union.

The strings of this ringing joy broke off on June 22, the date that without a pity cut life to pieces before and after the war…

You know, Volodya, my friend, I have already told everything Alexander Mosintsev, the author of the book “Without Guarantees of the Century”. Why should I tell the same thing again?”

“And still, Ivan Nikiforovich, what's wrong with that? Someone will read the book by Mosintsev, someone mine. And even more people will know about you. In fact, your fate is also the history of the country. I write in my own way. You will agree that repetitions can happen, the facts of your life before the war, during or post-war no one will cancel, change or alter. Do you agree with this?”

“Well, ok, let's do it? Just in general. There are so many books, poems, plays have been written about the war, so much research has been done, so many good and bad films have been shot that we will not repeat,” Ivan Nikiforovich told me. “I can only say about the memorable facts in my life which happened during the war time.

The beginning of the war coincided with my appointment as the head of the autotechnical department in the Stavropol Territory, and it turned out that it was equal to the auto-regiment, and I, so to say, the commander of the regiment of the special autobattalion with three dozen cars. I got this appointment by direct order of Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. He then and almost all of the war was the first secretary of the Stavropol regional party committee, and the whole partisan war in the region was led by him.

We were transferred to the barracks. And we began to live by the laws of war. From the very beginning of the war the Germans began to send paratroops to the Caucasus Mountains, and our units took the fight, catching paratroopers.

December 1941. The Germans were overthrown from Moscow.

But in the rear of the enemy on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus occupied by the Germans General Dovator's cavalry corps fought giving the invaders a lot of trouble.

The corps was formed in the Stavropol region. So, Dovatortsy were fellow countrymen.

From the very beginning of the war to be in the rear of the enemy advancing to the east and not only happen to be, but also to fight was real heroism.

February 1942… Dovatortsy unioned with the operating units of the Red Army. The corps came out having preserved the banner and was not disbanded.

After the death of Dovator, General Pliev took his place as commander. Several wounded Dovatortsy came home to Stavropol. They told about what they experienced: hunger, cold, lack of fodder for horses, lack of weapons, ammunition, medicines. Fellow countrymen required urgent help.

The whole of the Stavropol region responded to the proposal of the regional Committee of State Defense and the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the All Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to render all possible assistance to Dovatortsy. They collected twelve Pullman cars. Whole train! He was given a “green” light as a special train number 21.

The delegation of ten people for the delivery of aid to the capital was headed by the secretary of the regional committee of the party Vladimir Vasilyevich Vorontsov. And I was fully responsible for the entire train, for its movement, for the safety of the cargo.

So many thrilling moments come to mind! These were terrible bombings, each of which could turn out to be tragic, as, for example, in Lipetsk. We were taken to the second track. This was a violation of the charter for the movement of special trains, which, by Stalin's order, should have always be taken only on the first track and provided with a “green” traffic light.

But what was then going on at the stations!.. The railway stations were overcrowded with people who, in a panic, were moving from the advancing Germans literally in opposite directions… Getting into any train was, as they say, “a fight”. Shell burst, blood, crying children, women screams. And in this inconceivable confusion the almost mad station master, where we were taken to the second track, was trying to preserve at least some order… He was almost torn to pieces by mad with fear passengers, military commanders, chiefs of sanitary trains who had to rescue people came directly in time of bombing.

And when our people burned trains standing on the tracks so that the Germans would not get them?

Everyone had good reasons. Because there was a legitimate reason – the war. And so. My assistant did not get reception of the Lipetsk station chief. He was simply not allowed to him. I had to take control. Later, it sometimes seemed to me that the top priority of our special train was just as important, as any human grief. And a woman, for example, saving orphans from the occupied regions, also needed a special train.

But such thoughts, I repeat, were later. But at that time I made so much effort, so much artistic invention unexpectedly taken from somewhere, that I was amazed for myself. I even overstated my military rank to a lieutenant colonel. Well, in case of non-compliance, I even threatened to use weapons. The train was urgently sent and immediately after its departure German planes raided the station. Bombs fell on the track where our special train stood a few minutes before… So if it were not for my vigour,” Ivan Nikiforovich waved his hand, as if chasing away memories.

From Moscow there was still a way to Volokolamsk. The Dovator’s corps was located there.

I will not speak much about the condition of our horseman-fighters. They simply could not believe their eyes that such necessary help came from their native Stavropol. That this help reached, that they could not look back at the last bullet again, that they could warmly dress up, that they could eat enough.

It was a joy! Great! And on the part of our team, which provided the load, and on the part of those who expected help.

And these hunger bitten people, exhausted by malnutrition, colds, the need to fight in the rear of the enemy, these people tried to dandle me in their arms – as an artist or a winner.

I quickly fought off such an expression of jubilation. I, well-fed and dressed young man of unusual height, as you know, had to experience a feeling of unsolicited and burning guilt in front of them. Although I understood that my participation in their fate was not the last one, that I also served and also fought in my place.

We stayed for a week with the Dovatortsy. Even Kalinin came, Mikhail Ivanovich, “All-Union headman”. We photographed for the memory.

Well, and when they came back to Stavropol, we brought bags of letters of gratitude from Dovatortsy, all of them were neatly delivered to the Committee of Defense, and the radio, and the newspapers were publishing this news from the front for a long time.

V. V. Vorontsov made a report on the trip at the meeting of the Regional Committee of Defense, and was there awarded to the Order Badge of Honor. I also got the medal For Military Merit.

But Germans were approaching the cities of Mineralnye Vody and Stavropol. And there I had to show my skills: there were more than a hundred and fifty trips to Nevinnomyssk in which the whole regional committee of the regional administration, the autotechnical department, repair crews and officer families were evacuated.

I myself was the last to leave because I had to blow up my own car fleet, stores of combustive-lubricating materials. But I was unable to complete the assigned task because there were still a few families left on the territory. I left by a miracle when Germans were already in the city, and Victor Fateev took me away on a motorcycle. He was the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the autotechnical department. I found my special squadron in Nevinnomyssk.

And then in Georgievsk an order came to go to Ordzhonikidze with a special squadron. It was the end of August. The chief of the border units read out Stalin's order that the Reserve of General Command would be formed out of all the retreating border units and units of the internal troops. But then events developed rapidly.”

“All this is described in detail by Alexander Mosintsev.

I think he would not mind if we refer to his authorship: “Ivan Nikiforovich's auto-battalion was included in the RGC. Immediately an order was received to prepare fifteen trucks for sending a newly formed mountain squad to Tyrnyauz.

In Nalchik, they had to be completed with warm uniforms and ammunition. In Tyrnyauz the detachment dismounted and went to the mountains. And the cars were supposed to return to Ordzhonikidze. However, Medyanik did not wait till their return. Only a month later in November, the drivers said that eight cars had been taken by some military unit that had come down from the mountains.

By this time, the Medyanik auto battalion had already been transferred to Kizlyar.

And the drivers had a difficult journey to Kizlyar. They and the guide Boris Tsogoev, who knew the roads of Ossetia and Kabarda, had to get to Kizlyar without food and weapons. They ate whatever they could find. It was a good thing they managed to get. The auto battalion delivered fighters of the Reserve of General Command to the front, took out the wounded and killed to the rear. Day and night the wheels were turning next to Malgobek, Elkhotovo, Ordzhonikidze, where fierce fighting took place.

At the beginning of November 1942, the snow had not yet fallen in Ordzhonikidze, it often drizzled like in autumn. The roads turned into slush under soldiers' boots and equipment.

Medyanik had just come to the apartment that he had rented near the headquarters of the RGC as the adjutant of the commander called, “Are you sleeping? Urgent call from the general.”

It was half past eleven which meant it was something very important. Cursing while walking through the puddles, Ivan Nikiforovich returned to headquarters.

In addition to him, in the office of Maslennikov there silently sat the chief of staff, an unfamiliar colonel and a civilian – an unshaven man in a suit smeared with mud.

Ivan Nikiforovich reported on his arrival.

“Sit down,” the general nodded. “Here, listen to what comrade will tell.”

The civilian did not keep himself waiting. Somewhere near Malgobek his retreating medical battalion got stuck in a ravine. Gasoline and food ran out and there were fifty wounded soldiers in nine cars. Two, according to the stranger, have already died and, perhaps, some more while he was somehow trying to reach the city. In addition, in order to cut off the road to the medical battalion, Germans threw out the paratroopers. There is no one to defend just three paramedics and he, a refugee, joined the battalion.

“People need urgently to be rescued, battalion commander,” the commander ordered. “Take trucks, combatants, gas, and go now.”

Ivan Nikiforovich did not know that this trip would almost be the last in his life. As well as he did not know and could not know, he would be on the verge of life and death. He did not know that he, Medyanik, a strong and healthy man, could remain an invalid for life. He knew only one thing there was a task. People were in trouble. He could help them. He had to help them. And not only because it was an order. And also because it was his everlasting, personal order of Conscience…

Fortunately, the cars of the first company had just returned from the trip. They loaded barrels of gasoline, a dry ration and, having taken the signalmen of Lieutenant Bizyukov with the guide, moved to Malgobek in three cars – a cross-country vehicle, a bus, and a truck.

It was already dawning when having traveled about seventy kilometers, a gun fire burst from behind the turning. They had to back up.

Bizyukov had six people at his disposal, Ivan Nikiforovich had four. Medyanik set the task for the lieutenant to eliminate the landing force. Having taken submachine guns and machine guns, the combatants went by the forest in the direction of the enemy. They agreed that, having completed the task, they would give a signal rocket meaning that the way was clear.

Waiting time always drag on slowly. Half an hour later shots thundered behind the turning and for about fifteen minutes there was a fierce firefight. Then everything calmed down and the raw November sky was lit by a rocket. It was possible to move on. Combatants were lucky as Bizyukov had not lost a single person. But when they descended into the ill- fated ravine, where the medical battalion had stuck, they were horrified.

Aside from the mud-stained cars there were four corpses. The wounded could hardly move their tongues, they had had neither food nor water for a few days. The paramedics somehow fed them and the drivers quickly refueled tanks with gasoline. It was necessary to get out of the ravine in a hurry. German motorcyclists could appear at any moment.

It became light when we took the road to Beslan. On the right there was a cliff, to the left there was a hillside of leafless forest. And there came down three Messerschmidts and hit the column with machine guns.

Immediately the car with medicines was flamed, the second one was hit too, the driver and the nurse were killed. Meanwhile, the planes turned for the second approach.

This time the wheels flew from the bus in different directions. Two soldiers were killed immediately; two others were seriously wounded.

The driver was pressed by a trunk that fell on the cabin. To release the hand, we had to saw a tree with a hacksaw.

Ivan Nikiforovich was not lucky either. He was lying in blood with unnaturally twisted legs. Without giving signs of life…”