About the time of onset, the duration of summer. Fast, long, late, short, late, early, northern, southern. But summer flies by quickly. Golden autumn has arrived. Pushkin, Evgeny Onegin. So what now? And where is all this? And how long was the dream? Alas, like the northern summer, He howled as a fleeting guest! Tyutchev, Oh, how murderously we love. . .
About a fruitful, favorable summer. Gracious, rich, green, abundant, fruitful (obsolete), lush, fruitful, generous. Today has turned out to be a rich, generous, fruitful summer in everything. Gorbatov, Unconquered. Again she, the native side With her commanded, blessed summer, And again the soul is full of poetry. . . Nekrasov, The beginning of the poem. I always hear the orioles' sad voice And the lush summer welcomes the damage. Akhmatova, I always hear the orioles’ sad voice. . .
4 "Rare epithets. Pale, lush, blue, autumn, open, melted, rye, Russian, fresh, Light, young. It's been here for no more than four weeks. Cold, pale summer. Marshak, Ice Island. The blue summer was passing, the blue summer was passing. Isakovsky, In Memory of I. Their hot breath warms / and smells like wine in a cork / autumn late summer, / negated by rain. Aseev, Cheryaobrivtsy. In all the glory of an open summer, How much sun and how much light, Clear smiles, kisses, tears I had the opportunity to see on this day. Dudin, In all the glory of open summer. . . Into the port, / burning, / like molten summer, / turned / and entered / comrade “Theodore / Negte.” Mayakovsky, To Comrade Jetta, the steamship and the man. How are you doing, honey? How do you like it, how do you breathe? Our rye summer has passed, / and autumn sways with rain. G. Morozov, How are you doing, dear. . . Rain, and a storm, and somewhere a ray of sunlight flashed. . . Russian, wild summer, Months of heat and clouds! Bryusov, Summer Thunderstorm. Fresh June summer, a favorite time from childhood. Tvardovsky, Cruel memory. A bright summer passed, a damp and bitter autumn passed, but Balashov did not return. Paustovsky, Lacemaker Nastya. Everything, everything counts in the heart, Everything has become a memorable mark. It stood young, in bloom, Summer had barely parted with spring. Tvardovsky, June 22, 1941.
More on the topic SUMMER:
- The story about “standing on the Ugra” in the Second Sofia - Lviv Chronicle.
- Essay 1. Perception of Slavic settlement in Eastern Europe and interethnic contradictions in the Tale of Bygone Years: on the issue of ethnic identity and features of folklore and book traditions in Ancient Rus'
On the highway they always talk about grenades, and Stepan thought more than once that if every Russian heart that hated Hitler threw one grenade at the enemy - only one - there would be no wet spot left from the German army. But naked hatred does not throw grenades, he also knew that. Courage throws grenades.
Stepan was now lying by the fire, looking into the fire, and in front of him, all these months of struggle and suffering passed, noisily.
7
The Road to Calvary? No, it would be wrong to say that. There was, there was torment. And there were doubts, cold, prickly. And sometimes despair would grab you by the throat. Everything was! But in moments of delight, extraordinary, complete happiness, when suddenly somewhere on the road, in the darkness, you meet an unfamiliar but dear person, and he opens up to you, trusting, all the wealth of his soul, the unconquered, beautiful Russian soul, and asks : “What should I do, comrade? Teach me what to do?” - and you will put the weapon into his yearning hands. No, not walking through torment. The old father said it well: “the search for unruined souls.” Yes, searching...
When in July he and his wife stood on the road and the last convoys passed by them, shrouded in dust, to the east, he suddenly felt for a minute - but this minute was long - how the earth was slowly and inevitably creeping away from under his feet...
- Valya! - he said without looking at his wife. - It's not too late for you! A?..
She laughed quietly.
- Why are all of you husbands like this? By God, worse than my mother. Mother would bless...
And he felt the earth, on which it was so easy and familiar to live, creeping away, creeping away from under his feet.
- You should have left, Valya, huh? And everything will be done without you.
“But I don’t want to be without me,” she said, frowning. - Now there are no non-partisans...
He put his arm around his wife's shoulders and stroked her graying hair. The last convoys passed to the east and disappeared in the dust...
That same evening, Stepan and Valya Yatsenko went underground, it was like moving to another world. It was much more difficult for Stepan than for Valya.
He did not immediately realize what had happened. Just yesterday he, Stepan Yatsenko, walked densely, confidently, powerfully on the ground - today he must sneak around secretly. On your own land!
This land... He knew it all, for hundreds of miles around, its wrinkles, its folds and scars, its wealth visible to everyone and illnesses and needs known only to him... He built cities on it, cut new mines, he planned , where and what to give birth to the fields, and stood over them tender, like a husband, and caring, like a builder. And for this she invested him with power over herself and over the people living on her, and called him master.
He was a restless and strict master. He liked to get involved in everything himself. He forgave neither himself nor people. He often stopped his car on the road at night, got out of it and shouted: “You’re plowing wrong! You’re building the bridge wrong! You’re driving wrong! Do this and that. In front of me! So that I can see.” And people did not ask by what right this stranger ordered them overweight man. A current of power emanated from his large, powerful body. There was authority in his voice, thick and strong. There was power in his eyes, tenacious, sharp, hot. And people obediently obeyed her.
And now Stepan needs to bend his big body. You have to become invisible. Learn to speak in a whisper. Be silent, even if your soul screams and cries. Put out your eyes, hide your rebellious soul in a submissive body.
Only Stepan knows how much work and torment it cost him. Yes Valya knows. Never for long years family life, they were not as close as they are now. Valya saw everything, understood everything.
- Where do we start, Valya? - he asked on the very first day of their underground life. He asked casually, carelessly, as if not her, but himself out loud, and she heard and understood: Stepan was confused, he didn’t know... he was suffering...
Yes, I'm confused...
Previously, he always knew where to start, how to put into motion the large, bulky machine of his apparatus. Day and night the engine of the dusty, mud-splattered Blue Express trembled and snorted at the entrance. The young ladies at the telephone exchange were trembling. Hundreds of people were on hand, waiting for orders.
And now Stepan was alone. He and Valya. A small, thin woman. Yes, somewhere out there, in the darkness of the night, a dozen more like him are sitting, huddled in the cracks, waiting: a man will come who will tell him how to start a business. They don't know who this person is. They only know: he must come.
This man is Stepan.
Against him is a strong and merciless enemy. He, not Stepan, has power. He, not Stepan, has the land. He, not Stepan, has an army.
“That’s it, Valya,” he said hesitantly, “perhaps we’ll do it this way... You stay here... as the center... And I’ll go to the people.”
- Well! - she said, looking at him carefully. - Go. This is right.
They sat until the morning, side by side, as if it was their first night. But they didn't talk about love. They generally spoke little, but each knew what he was thinking about, what the other was silent about, and what he was trying not to think about. Of the words spoken that night, few survived in Stepan’s memory - and there were none, significant words! - but I will forever remember Valya’s hand, warm and calm; how this hand lay on his shoulder and calmed him, and encouraged him, and blessed him: go.
In the morning he went, and she stayed here, on the farm, with her old people. Saying goodbye, he told her:
- People will come to you here... So you accept them... talk...
“Okay,” she said.
He told her all this ten times during the night.
He stomped around on the threshold.
- Well, goodbye, mistress.
- Go!
He walked away without looking back. But, even without looking back, he knew: with his hand raised, his wife was standing on the threshold. He walked and thought about this hand.
He didn’t have to ask for directions - he walked along his own land. Never left her. He was with her at feasts and at times of suffering. Here he is with her in the days of her grief. He was no longer her master, but he remained her faithful son.
And the earth answered him with warm and quiet affection. Like a sigh, the morning fog rose above it and melted, and then the whole steppe opened up before Stepan without end and without edge. And she rang, and sang, and fawned at his feet. And he walked through the silver feather grass and greedily inhaled its smells - thick, viscous, hot. Bitter wormwood mixed with honeyed clover, cemetery thyme with delicate mint, the smell of greasy, black damp earth with the sultry breath of the steppe wind. And on the horizon were the distant sharp cones of gley mountains, and from there came the smell of smoldering coal. All childhood is in it, in this smell, all life is in it - for a person born on the smoky land of Donetsk. She is good even in grief, her native land! In grief you love her more carefully.
- Halt! Halt!
Stepan stopped.
Two Germans approached him.
-Where is the ischel?
“I’m coming from the trenches... I was digging trenches...” he answered.
- Papir?
He held out the papers. He had good, reliable information. He wasn't afraid of patrols. The Germans began to twirl the pieces of paper. Stepan waited silently: “Here they are, the Germans!”
- Boots! - the German suddenly said.
Stepan didn't understand.
- Hey! Throw it! - the soldier shouted impatiently.
Stepan took off his boots. The German, the larger one, tried them on. They were a little too big for him, but he happily said: “Gut!” - and patted his boots with his hand.
“That’s how they got into our land, like into my boots,” impudently! “Stepan thought bitterly and clenched his fist. “Grab this one by the throat and strangle him. At least one of them! At least this one!”
But then he remembered Valya’s hand and seemed to feel her warm, calm fingers on his shoulder. He hunched over and walked away. The Germans looked after him suspiciously. He still needs to learn to walk.
By the end of the third day, he finally arrived at the Sverdlov mine - the first point of his route. He walked around the village - they knew him here. In the square, a huge, gloomy shadow of a gallows suddenly fell on him. He involuntarily screamed and looked up. There were corpses hanging on the gallows, and among them the man to whom he had come: Vasya Pchelintsev, a curly-haired Komsomol leader.
“Let’s sing, comrades,” he used to say at meetings, when everyone was nodding off from fatigue, and the heap of things was not drying up. After all, as they say: “A song helps to build and sit together.” Well? - and, not paying attention to the disapproving glances of his respectable comrades, the first began to sing.
Here he hangs, curly-haired Vasya Pchelintsev, crouched, blue, not looking like himself...
- How did he get caught? - Stepan asked old man Pchelintsev, whom he found that same evening.
“They gave it away...” the old man answered dully.
- Who gave it away?
- I guess, Filikov.
- How, Filikov? - Stepan almost shouted.
- There is no one else. Filikov now serves them.
- The Germans? Filikov?
It seemed to Stepan that the world had rocked... Filikov! Pre-Mine Committee! He also has a goatee with a spatula. When Vasya would begin to sing, Filikov would be the first to join in with his good-natured, rattling bass voice. Here Pchelintsev is hanging, and Filikov is serving the Nazis...
This was the first gallows that Stepan saw, and the first betrayal he heard about. Then there were a lot of them. All along the way, his comrades swung on the gallows, looking at him with glassy eyes...
Remember, Stepan, remember,” the gallows creaked. - Take revenge!
“I’ll remember,” he answered in his soul. - I’ll remember both faces and names.
They told him about traitors, about those who renounced the party and the people, betrayed their comrades, went to serve the fascists... He frowned and asked again: “What’s your last name?” - and repeated the name to himself. - I'll remember!
- Do you remember the typist in our executive committee? Klava Pryakhin? - He strained his memory, wrinkled his forehead. I remembered something quiet, unanswered... Indeed, when he came to this executive committee, there was some girl... He heard her knocking on her underwood. He had never heard her voice.
“When they hanged her,” they told him, “she shouted: “Don’t kill, you black bastards, our truth. The people are immortal!”
- Klava Pryakhina? - Stepan whispered in surprise. And he can’t even remember her.
- And Nikita Bogatyrev...
- What, what Nikita? - he asked worriedly. He knew Nikita. Huge, wearing a gray duster, a robe, and boots that always smelled of tar, he used to make noise in Stepan’s office: “I’m not afraid of you, secretary, I’m not afraid of anyone! And as I cut the truth, so I will cut it.” Stepan intended to make Nikita commander partisan detachment.
“When Nikita was dragged to the Gestapo,” said the stooped Ustin Mikhalych, head of the district committee, wiping his glasses, “he crawled on the floor, kissed the officer’s boots, cried...
- Nikita?!
This means you didn’t know people well, Stepan Yatsenko. But he lived with them, ate, drank, worked... And he knew their habits, their characters, their whims, and who liked tobacco... But he didn’t know the main thing about them - their souls. Or maybe they didn’t know the main thing about themselves? Klava considered herself a timid quiet person, and Nikita Bogatyrev considered herself a fearless fighter. He was not afraid of our power - there is nothing to be afraid of! - and trembled before the enemy. But Klava was afraid of the chairman’s gaze - but she wasn’t afraid of the enemy, she spat in his face...
- Great to the people verification is underway! - Ustin Mikhalych shook his head. - Great fire cleansing.
- What about Tsyplyakov? - asked Stepan.
- I don’t know about Tsyplyakov! - Ustin Mikhalych said carefully. - Tsyplyakov lives in a special way.
- Doesn’t he come to see you?
- He doesn’t go to anyone... He sits locked up...
That same evening Stepan went to Tsyplyakov and knocked on his shutters and doors for a long time.
- Who? Who? - Tsyplyakov asked through the door in fear.
- I am it. I! Open it!
- Who am I? I don't know anyone.
- Yes, it’s me, Stepan.
- Which Stepan? I don’t know any Stepan! Go away!
- Yes, open it! - Stepan wheezed furiously and heard the locks clanking in fear and falling.
- You? It's you! - Tsyplyakov backed away when he saw him, and the candle in his hands trembled...
Stepan slowly walked into the room.
- Why are you greeting me unkindly? - he asked, smiling bitterly. - Are you not happy with your guest?
- Why are you?.. Why did you come? - Tsyplyakov groaned, clutching his head.
“I’ve come for your soul, Matvey,” Stepan said sternly. - For your soul. Do you still have a soul?
“There’s nothing, there’s nothing!..” Tsyplyakov shouted hysterically, and, collapsing on the sofa, began to cry.
Stepan winced in disgust.
- Why are you crying, Matvey? I'll leave.
- Yes, yes... Go away, I beg you... - Tsyplyakov rushed about. - Everything is lost, you see for yourself. Kornakov was hanged... Bondarenko was tortured... And I told Kornakov, I said: strength breaks straw. Why are you hiding? Go, go to the Gestapo! Show up. Forgive. And I’ll tell you, Stepan,” he muttered, “as a friend... Because I love you... Whoever comes to them of his own free will and registers, they don’t touch him... I became one too... Party card buried it, and got... registered... And bury it, I ask you... immediately... Save yourself, Stepan!
- Wait, wait! - Stepan disgustedly pushed him away. - Why did you bury your membership card? Once you have renounced, tear it up, tear it up, burn it...
Tsyplyakov lowered his head.
- A-ah! - Stepan laughed evilly. - Look! Yes, you don’t believe us or the Germans. You don’t believe that they will stand on our land! So who do you believe, Cain?
- Who to believe? Who to believe? - Tsyplyakov squealed. - Our army is retreating. Where is she? For Don? The Germans are hanging. And the people are silent. Well, they’ll hang you, they’ll hang us all, but what’s the benefit? But I want to live! - he screamed and grabbed Stepan’s shoulder, breathing hotly into his face. “After all, I didn’t betray anyone, I didn’t change anyone...” he whispered pleadingly, looking for Stepan’s eyes. - And I won’t serve them... I just want, understand me, to survive! Survive, wait out.
- Sneaky! - Stepan hit him in the chest with his fist. Tsyplyakov fell onto the sofa. - Why wait? Ahh! Wait for our people to return! And then you will open your party card, clean off the dirt from it and go out instead of us, the hanged, to meet the Red Army? So you're lying, you scoundrel! We’ll come back from the gallows and tell the people about you... - He left, slamming the door behind him, and that same night he was already far from the village. Somewhere ahead, a soaped rope had already been laid out for him, and a gallows had already been put together for him. Well! He did not shy away from the gallows.
But Tsyplyakov’s whisper kept whining and whining in my ears: “They are hanging us to no avail; but what to believe in?”
He walked along the roads and country roads of tormented Ukraine and saw: the Germans had harnessed the peasants to a yoke and were plowing on them. And the people are silent, only moving their necks tightly. Thousands of ragged, exhausted prisoners are driven along the road - the dead fall, and the living wander, obediently wander over the corpses of their comrades further, to hard labor. The Polonyan women cry in the lattice cars, they cry so much that the soul breaks, but they go. The people are silent. And they swing on the gallows the best people... Maybe to no avail?
He was now walking along the Don steppes... This was the northernmost corner of his area. Here Ukraine met Russia, the border was not visible either in the steppe feather grasses, equally silver on both sides, or in the people...
But before turning west, along the ring of the region, Stepan, grinning, decided to visit another familiar person. Here, away from the main roads, in a quiet wooded gully, the apiary of grandfather Panas was hidden, and Stepan, when visiting these parts, always turned here to eat fragrant honey, lie on the fragrant hay, hear the silence and smells of the forest and relax both soul and body from worries.
And now Stepan needed a break - from the eternal fear of pursuit, from the long journey on foot. Straighten your back. Lie under high sky. Think about your doubts and worries. Or maybe don’t think about them, just eat the golden honey in the apiary.
- Is there still an apiary? - he doubted, already approaching the beam.
But there was an apiary. And there was fragrant hay, lying in a heap. And, as always, the scent of the forest smelled sweet here, lime color, mint and for some reason pickled pears, like in childhood - or did it seem like it to Stepan? And a thin, transparent silence trembled all around, only the bees hummed amicably and busily. And, as always, sensing a guest, the dog Serko ran forward, followed by thin, white, little grandfather Panas in a linen shirt with blue patches on his shoulder and shoulder blades.
- A! Good health! - he shouted in his thin voice, like the hum of a bee. - You're welcome! You're welcome! We haven't been here for a long time! You offend!
And he placed in front of the guest a plate of honey in a comb and a sieve of wild berries.
“There’s still your bottle left,” he hastily added. - A whole bottle of chimpansky. So don't doubt it - it's intact.
- A-ah! - Stepan smiled sadly. - Well, give me a bottle!
The old man brought glasses and a bottle, wiping the dust off it with his sleeve along the way.
- Well, come back a good life ours and all the soldiers go home healthy! said the grandfather, carefully taking a full glass from Stepan’s hands. Closing his eyes, he drank, licked the glass and coughed. - Oh, delicious!
The two of them drank the entire bottle, and grandfather Panas told Stepan that today had been a rich, generous summer, fruitful in everything - bees and berries, and the Germans had not yet visited the apiary here. God protects, but they don’t know the road.
And Stepan was thinking about his own things.
“Tell you what, grandfather,” he said suddenly, “I’ll write a paper here, put it in this bottle and bury it.”
“Well, well...” without understanding anything, he agreed.
- And when our people return, you give them this bottle.
- Yeah! Good good...
“Yes, we need to write,” thought Stepan, taking a pencil and notebook from his pocket. “Let at least the news reach our people about how we... died here. Otherwise, not a trace will remain. The Tsyplyakovs will cover up our trace.”
And he began to write. He tried to write restrainedly and dryly, so that they would not notice a trace of doubt in his lines, would not mistake bitterness for panic, would not shake their heads mockingly at his anxieties. Everything will seem different here when they return. And he didn’t doubt for a minute that they would return. “Maybe they won’t find our bones in the ditches, but will return!” And he wrote to them sternly and restrainedly, like a warrior to a warrior, about how the best people died in dungeons and on the gallows, spitting in the enemy’s face, how cowards crawled before the Germans, how traitors betrayed them, went underground, and how the people remained silent. He hated it, but was silent. And every line of his letter was a testament. “And don’t forget, comrades,” he wrote, “I ask you, don’t forget to erect a monument to Komsomol member Vasily Pchelintsev, and the old miner Onisim Bespaly, and the quiet girl Klavdia Pryakhina, and my friend, secretary of the city party committee Alexei Tikhonovich Shulzhenko, they died as heroes. And I also demand from you that in the joy of victory and in the bustle of construction work, you do not forget to punish the traitors Mikhail Filikov, Nikita Bogatyrev and all those about whom I wrote above. And if Matvey Tsyplyakov comes to you with a party card - “Don’t trust his party card, it’s stained with dirt and our blood.”
It was necessary to add, thought Stepan, about those who, without sparing themselves, gave shelter to him, the underground worker, and fed him, and sighed over him when he fell asleep short and light sleeper, as well as about those who locked the doors in front of him, drove him away from their threshold, and threatened to let the dogs loose. But you can't write everything.
He thought for a moment and added: “As for me, I continue to fulfill the task entrusted to me.” He suddenly wanted to add a few more words, hot as an oath - that he was not afraid of the gallows or death, that he believed in our victory and was glad to give his life for it... But then he thought that this was not necessary. Everyone already knows this about him.
He signed, folded the letter into a tube and put it in a bottle.
“Well,” he said, grinning, “a message to eternity.” Give me the shovel, grandpa.
They buried the bottle under the third hive, near the young sticky one.
- Remember the place, old man?
- What about it? All the places here are memorable to me...
In the morning at dawn, Stepan said goodbye to the beekeeper.
“Your honey is good, grandfather,” he said and walked towards his lonely death, towards his gallows.
That night he decided to stay in the village, in Olkhovatka, with his distant relative Uncle Savka. Savka, a nimble, disheveled, lively little man, was always proud of his noble relative. And now, when Stepan showed up to him at dusk, Uncle Savka was delighted, began to fuss and began to drag everything from the oven onto the table himself, as if Stepan from the city was still an honored guest for him.
But before they even had time to sit down at the table, the door opened without knocking and a tall, elderly man with a graying beard and sharp and wise eyes entered the hut.
- Hello! - he said, looking straight at Stepan.
Stepan stood up.
- Who is this? - he asked Savka quietly.
“Headman...” he whispered.
- Hello, Comrade Yatsenko! - the headman said, grinning and walked up to the table. Stepan turned pale. - You walk around the village boldly. I saw it from the window and recognized it. Well, hello again, Comrade Yatsenko. - And the headman hid a mocking smile in his mustache.
“That’s it!” thought Stepan. “Here is the gallows!”
But he still calmly, without moving, continued to stand at the table.
The elder sat down heavily on the bench under the icons and, placing his large, gnarled hands with black fingers on the table, looked at Stepan.
“Sit,” he said, grinning. - Why stand? There is no truth in the legs.
Stepan thought for a moment and sat down.
“Yes,” said the headman. -And you didn’t recognize me?
Stepan looked at him. “I saw it somewhere, of course,” flashed through my memory. “I must have dispossessed it... I don’t remember.”
- Where is it! - the headman laughed. - There are many of us men, and you are one. Like ears of corn in the rye... And you even had conversations with me - although in private, he reminded, - you didn’t have to alone. You encouraged me to join the collective farm. For six years everyone has been campaigning for me. But I didn’t go for six years. I disagree, I think, and that’s all. That’s how I’ve been called Ignat the Dissent ever since.
Savka chuckled obsequiously. Stepan now remembered this guy. Flint.
“I disagree,” the headman continued. - This is true. And in the seventh year I myself came to the collective farm. Why did you come? Ha?
“Well, he was agitating, that means...” Stepan shrugged.
“No,” Ignat shook his head. - It is unthinkable to agitate me. I was convinced, that’s why I came. I was convinced myself. And so he threw it, and so he put it, it turns out that it’s more profitable to go to the collective farm. And I agreed and came.
Stepan did not understand where the headman was leading his story, and impatiently fidgeted around the bench. “If they lead the village, I’ll run away and break out. I won’t let you tie your hands.”
“Now the German is throwing us leaflets,” continued the headman, “promising to give us the land for eternal and individual use.” “What do you think,” he squinted, “will he?”
“He won’t…” answered Stepan.
- Will not give? Hm... - Ignat chewed his mustache. - And I think so: it won’t! Will deceive. He will give it to his landowners. Well, maybe he’ll give it to someone, huh? For the blaisir? Well, diligent men... Again, the elders... Yes, yes?
“Well, he’ll give it to someone like you,” Stepan answered angrily. - For diligence.
- Will he? Yeah! - Ignat picked up, pretending that he didn’t understand Stepan’s tone. And I figure this: it will give to someone like me. But I won't take it! - he suddenly shouted triumphantly and slammed his palm on the table. - I won’t take it! Ha?
Stepan looked at him dumbfounded.
- I won't take it. Can you understand this? Eh,” he suddenly waved his hand, “where do you understand?” You, comrade, are a city man. And I'm a man. I have grown into this earth with roots, claws, and soul. My dryness is this land. And my whole life is in it. And my fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. I can't live without land! But, suddenly calming down, he finished, “I don’t need individual land.” It's not good for me. Doesn't fit. Trouble. And the masthead is not the same. My master's soul now has no life without the collective farm.
“Wait,” Stepan muttered, not understanding anything. - No, you wait! What are you standing for?
“I stand for the collective farm,” the headman answered firmly.
- Well, then, for the Soviets? For our power?
Ignat suddenly squinted slyly, looked back at Savka, winked at Stepan and said, grinning through his mustache:
- Well, since there is no other power on earth that agrees to collective farms, besides ours, the Soviet one, there is no other power for me.
Stepan smiled and sighed with relief.
“How are you,” Ignat asked quietly, leaning towards him, “are you walking on your own?” Are you saving yourself? Or an authorized one?
“Authorized,” Stepan answered, smiling.
“I don’t need your papers,” Ignat waved his hand. - I know you. Well, since you are an authorized representative of our government, I can tell you, and you tell it: our collective farm, tell the authorities, lives! How can I say this? Lives underground. We also have a chairman. Former. Order bearer. Disguised by us. And there is an accountant who keeps books. I can show you the books. And all the collective farm property was hidden. Just ask a relative. Right, Savko?
“So, so true,” Uncle Savka confirmed, joyfully surprised. Cleverly done. State.
- But the Germans didn’t take a single grain from our village! - Ignat shouted. - What they robbed themselves, that’s it. But we didn’t give them a single grain. But as? My back knows about that,” he thought, lowering his head. He drummed his black fingers on the table. A grin crept across his lips, covered by a gray mustache. - Headman. German elder, I am in my declining years... Shame! There are animals and world-eaters all around the elders. Fists. And I tell people: “Respect! Respect my old age! I have children in the Red Army.” The men did not agree with me and begged me.
“Everyone asked in peace,” Savka sighed.
“Not peacefully,” Ignat corrected him sternly, “they asked me to join the collective farm.” They say that you, Ignat, have a rebellious soul that does not agree with untruth. Stand by for everyone. And here I stand. The Germans shout to me: where is the bread, elder? And I say: there is no bread. Why is the rye falling off, elder? There is nothing to clean with! Why are the stacks standing there rotting in the rain, elder? There is nothing to thresh with! We'll give you cars, headman. I think there are not enough people, even kill them! Well, they beat me! They beat the elder to death, but there is still no bread.
- They can’t conquer his soul, that’s what! - Savka said heartfeltly and tearfully to Stepan.
- What a soul! - Ignat grinned. “They can’t conquer my back either.” “My back is unruly,” he said, straightening up. - It’s okay, he’ll survive.
- Thank you, Ignat! - Stepan said excitedly, rising from the bench and holding out his hand. - And forgive me, for God’s sake, forgive me.
- What is there to forgive? - Ignat was surprised.
- I thought badly about you... And not only about you... Well, in general - forgive me, but in what way - I myself know.
“Well, God will forgive,” Ignat smiled and affectionately hugged Stepan like a son.
There is nothing, there is nothing!.. - Tsyplyakov shouted hysterically, and, collapsing on the sofa, began to cry.
Stepan winced in disgust.
Why are you crying, Matvey? I'll leave.
Yes, yes... Go away, I beg you... - Tsyplyakov rushed about. - Everything is lost, you see for yourself. Kornakov was hanged... Bondarenko was tortured... And I told Kornakov, I said: strength breaks straw. Why are you hiding? Go, go to the Gestapo! Show up. Forgive. And I’ll tell you, Stepan,” he muttered, “as a friend... Because I love you... Whoever comes to them of his own free will and registers, they don’t touch him... I became one too... Party card buried it, and got... registered... And bury it, I ask you... immediately... Save yourself, Stepan!
Wait, wait! - Stepan disgustedly pushed him away. - Why did you bury your membership card? Once you have renounced, tear it up, tear it up, burn it...
Tsyplyakov lowered his head.
Ahh! - Stepan laughed evilly. - Look! Yes, you don’t believe us or the Germans. You don’t believe that they will stand on our land! So who do you believe, Cain?
And who to believe? Who to believe? - Tsyplyakov squealed. - Our army is retreating. Where is she? For Don? The Germans are hanging. And the people are silent. Well, they’ll hang you, they’ll hang us all, but what’s the benefit? But I want to live! - he screamed and grabbed Stepan’s shoulder, breathing hotly into his face. “After all, I didn’t betray anyone, I didn’t change anyone...” he whispered pleadingly, looking for Stepan’s eyes. - And I won’t serve them... I just want, understand me, to survive! Survive, wait out.
Sneaky! - Stepan hit him in the chest with his fist. Tsyplyakov fell onto the sofa. - Why wait? Ahh! Wait for our people to return! And then you will open your party card, clean off the dirt from it and go out instead of us, the hanged, to meet the Red Army? So you're lying, you scoundrel! We’ll come back from the gallows and tell the people about you... - He left, slamming the door behind him, and that same night he was already far from the village. Somewhere ahead, a soaped rope had already been laid out for him, and a gallows had already been put together for him. Well! He did not shy away from the gallows.
But Tsyplyakov’s whisper kept whining and whining in my ears: “They are hanging us to no avail; but what to believe in?”
He walked along the roads and country roads of tormented Ukraine and saw: the Germans had harnessed the peasants to a yoke and were plowing on them. And the people are silent, only moving their necks tightly. Thousands of ragged, exhausted prisoners are driven along the road - the dead fall, and the living wander, obediently wander over the corpses of their comrades further, to hard labor. The Polonyan women cry in the lattice cars, they cry so much that the soul breaks, but they go. The people are silent. And the best people swing on the gallows... Maybe to no avail?
He was now walking along the Don steppes... This was the northernmost corner of his area. Here Ukraine met Russia, the border was not visible either in the steppe feather grasses, equally silver on both sides, or in the people...
But before turning west, along the ring of the region, Stepan, grinning, decided to visit another familiar person. Here, away from the main roads, in a quiet wooded gully, the apiary of grandfather Panas was hidden, and Stepan, when visiting these parts, always turned here to eat fragrant honey, lie on the fragrant hay, hear the silence and smells of the forest and relax both soul and body from worries.
And now Stepan needed a break - from the eternal fear of pursuit, from the long journey on foot. Straighten your back. Lie under the high sky. Think about your doubts and worries. Or maybe don’t think about them, just eat the golden honey in the apiary.
Is there still an apiary? - he doubted, already approaching the beam.
But there was an apiary. And there was fragrant hay, lying in a heap. And, as always, it smelled sweet here with the aching smells of the forest, linden blossom, mint and for some reason pickled pears, like in childhood - or did it seem like that to Stepan? And a thin, transparent silence trembled all around, only the bees hummed amicably and busily. And, as always, sensing a guest, the dog Serko ran forward, followed by thin, white, little grandfather Panas in a linen shirt with blue patches on his shoulder and shoulder blades.
A! Good health! - he shouted in his thin voice, like the hum of a bee. - You're welcome! You're welcome! We haven't been here for a long time! You offend!
And he placed in front of the guest a plate of honey in a comb and a sieve of wild berries.
There’s still your bottle left here,” he added hastily. - A whole bottle of chimpansky. So don't doubt it - it's intact.
Ahh! - Stepan smiled sadly. - Well, give me a bottle!
The old man brought glasses and a bottle, wiping the dust off it with his sleeve along the way.
Well, may our good life return and all the soldiers go home healthy! said the grandfather, carefully taking a full glass from Stepan’s hands. Closing his eyes, he drank, licked the glass and coughed. - Oh, delicious!
The two of them drank the entire bottle, and grandfather Panas told Stepan that today had been a rich, generous summer, fruitful in everything - bees and berries, and the Germans had not yet visited the apiary here. God protects, but they don’t know the road.
And Stepan was thinking about his own things.
That’s it, grandfather,” he said suddenly, “I’ll write a paper here, put it in this bottle and bury it.”
So, so... - without understanding anything, he agreed.
And when our people return, you give them this bottle.
Yeah! Good good...
“Yes, we need to write,” thought Stepan, taking a pencil and notebook from his pocket. “Let at least the news reach our people about how we... died here. Otherwise, not a trace will remain. The Tsyplyakovs will cover up our trace.”
And he began to write. He tried to write restrainedly and dryly, so that they would not notice a trace of doubt in his lines, would not mistake bitterness for panic, would not shake their heads mockingly at his anxieties. Everything will seem different here when they return. And he didn’t doubt for a minute that they would return. “Maybe they won’t find our bones in the ditches, but will return!” And he wrote to them sternly and restrainedly, like a warrior to a warrior, about how the best people died in dungeons and on the gallows, spitting in the enemy’s face, how cowards crawled before the Germans, how traitors betrayed them, went underground, and how the people remained silent. He hated it, but was silent. And every line of his letter was a testament. “And don’t forget, comrades,” he wrote, “I ask you, don’t forget to erect a monument to Komsomol member Vasily Pchelintsev, and the old miner Onisim Bespaly, and the quiet girl Klavdia Pryakhina, and my friend, secretary of the city party committee Alexei Tikhonovich Shulzhenko, they died as heroes. And I also demand from you that in the joy of victory and in the bustle of construction work, you do not forget to punish the traitors Mikhail Filikov, Nikita Bogatyrev and all those about whom I wrote above. And if Matvey Tsyplyakov comes to you with a party card - “Don’t trust his party card, it’s stained with dirt and our blood.”
It was necessary to add, Stepan thought, about those who, without sparing themselves, gave shelter to him, the underground worker, and fed him, and sighed over him when he fell asleep in a short and sensitive sleep, as well as about those who locked him in front of him. doors, drove him away from his threshold, threatened to let the dogs loose. But you can't write everything.
He thought for a moment and added: “As for me, I continue to fulfill the task entrusted to me.” He suddenly wanted to add a few more words, hot as an oath - that he was not afraid of the gallows or death, that he believed in our victory and was glad to give his life for it... But then he thought that this was not necessary. Everyone already knows this about him.
He signed, folded the letter into a tube and put it in a bottle.
Well,” he said, grinning, “a message to eternity.” Give me the shovel, grandpa.
They buried the bottle under the third hive, near the young sticky one.
Do you remember the place, old man?
But what about it? All the places here are memorable to me...
In the morning at dawn, Stepan said goodbye to the beekeeper.
“Your honey is good, grandfather,” he said and walked towards his lonely death, towards his gallows.
That night he decided to stay in the village, in Olkhovatka, with his distant relative Uncle Savka. Savka, a nimble, disheveled, lively little man, was always proud of his noble relative. And now, when Stepan showed up to him at dusk, Uncle Savka was delighted, began to fuss and began to drag everything from the oven onto the table himself, as if Stepan from the city was still an honored guest for him.
18.02.1906 - 01.11.1977
Hero Soviet Union
| Monuments | |
Babajanyan Amazasp Khachaturovich - commander of the 20th Guards Mechanized Brigade (1st Tank Army, 1st Ukrainian Front), guard colonel.
Born on February 5 (18), 1906 in the village of Chardakhly, Elizavetpol district, Elizavetpol province (now the village of Chanlibel, Shamkir region, Azerbaijan). Armenian. In 1921 he graduated from the 4th grade of school. A laborer, in 1923-1924 he was a laborer on the construction of highways in the Shamkhor region (now Shamkir region).
In the army since September 1925. Until 1926, he studied at the Armenian United Military School (Yerevan, Armenia), and in 1929 he graduated from the Transcaucasian Military Infantry School (Tbilisi, Georgia). Served as a platoon commander rifle regiment, platoon commander, party bureau secretary and company commander of a separate local rifle battalion (in the Transcaucasian Military District).
In 1930, he participated in the liquidation of armed gangs in Transcaucasia as a platoon commander of the 7th Caucasian Rifle Regiment. Was injured.
Since 1934, he served as commander of a machine gun company, commander of a machine gun battalion and assistant chief of staff of a machine gun regiment (in the Transcaucasian Military District; Baku city, Azerbaijan). In 1937-1938 - head of the operations department of the headquarters of the air defense point in the city of Baku.
In August-October 1938 - chief of staff of an anti-aircraft machine-gun regiment (in the Transcaucasian Military District; Baku city), in 1938-1940 - assistant commander of an anti-aircraft machine-gun regiment for a combat unit (in the Leningrad Military District).
Participant in the Soviet-Finnish War: in November 1939 - March 1940 - assistant commander of the 2nd anti-aircraft machine gun regiment for combat units. On February 18, 1940 he was wounded.
From December 1940, he served as deputy commander of rifle regiments (in the North Caucasus Military District) and assistant chief of the operations department of the 19th Army headquarters (in the Kiev Special Military District).
Participant of the Great Patriotic War: in July-August 1941 - assistant head of the operational department of the 19th Army headquarters, in August 1941 - April 1942 - commander of the 395th (from September 1941 - 1st Guards) rifle regiment. He fought on the Western (July-August 1941), Bryansk (August-November 1941), Southwestern (November 1941 - March 1942) and Southern (March-April 1942) fronts. He took part in the Battle of Smolensk, the Elninsk and Oryol-Bryansk operations, defensive battles in the Voronezh direction and offensive battles in the Taganrog direction.
In September 1942, he graduated from an accelerated course at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze, which was evacuated in the city of Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
In September 1942 - August 1944 - commander of the 3rd (from October 1943 - 20th Guards) mechanized brigade. He fought on the Kalinin (October 1942 - February 1943), North-Western (February-March 1943), Voronezh (April-September 1943) and 1st Ukrainian (November 1943 - August 1944) fronts. Participated in the Rzhev-Sychevsk and Demyansk operations, Battle of Kursk, Belgorod-Kharkov, Kyiv defensive, Zhitomir-Berdichev, Proskurov-Chernivtsi and Lvov-Sandomierz operations. On August 19, 1944, he was seriously wounded in the throat and sent to the hospital.
He particularly distinguished himself during the Proskurov-Chernovtsy operation. Small advance groups under his command with swift attacks liberated the cities of what is now the Ternopil region - Terebovlya (March 22, 1944), Kopychyntsi (March 23, 1944), Chortkiv (March 23, 1944) and Zalishchyky (March 24, 1944). After capturing the city of Zalishchiki, under enemy fire, he personally scouted a ford across the Dniester and was the first to cross in his tank to the right bank of the river, where the brigade captured a bridgehead.
For skillful command of the brigade and courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 26, 1944, Guard Colonel Babajanyan Hamazasp Khachaturovich awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and medal " Golden Star».
In September 1944 - May 1945 - commander of the 11th Guards Tank Corps. He fought on the 1st (November 1944 - March 1945 and March-May 1945) and 2nd (March 1945) Belarusian fronts. Participated in the Warsaw-Poznan, East Pomeranian and Berlin operations.
After the war, until June 1945, he continued to command the 11th Guards Tank Corps. In June 1945 - January 1947 - commander of the 11th Guards Tank Division (in the Group Soviet troops in Germany).
In December 1948 he graduated from the Higher Military Academy ( Military Academy General Staff). From March 1949 - chief of staff of the army, and in September 1950 - May 1956 - commander of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Army (in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany). In May 1956 - January 1958 - commander of the 8th mechanized (from June 1957 - tank) army (in the Carpathian Military District).
From January 1958 - 1st Deputy Commander of the Carpathian Military District (headquarters in the city of Lviv), in June 1959 - September 1967 - Commander of the Odessa Military District. In September 1967 - May 1969 - head of the Military Academy of Armored Forces.
From May 1969 - Chief of Tank Forces Soviet army.
Member of the Central Committee Communist Party Ukraine in 1960-1971. Deputy of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR of the 6th-7th convocations (in 1962-1970) and of the RSFSR of the 8th-9th convocations (since 1971).
Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces (1975). Awarded 4 Orders of Lenin (04/26/1944; 11/15/1950; 02/17/1966; 09/15/1976), the Order October revolution(05/4/1972), 4 orders of the Red Banner (02/17/1942; 06/13/1943; 11/6/1945; 12/30/1956), orders of Suvorov 1st (05/29/1945) and 2nd (04/6/1945) degrees, Kutuzov 1st degree (12/18/1956), Patriotic War 1st degree (01/3/1944), 2 Orders of the Red Star (06/27/1943; 11/3/1944), medals; Polish orders "Renaissance of Poland" 4th degree (10.1973), "Virtuti Military" 4th degree (12/19/1968), "Cross of Grunwald" 3rd degree, Bulgarian order "September 9, 1944" 1st degree with swords (09/14/1974), the Mongolian Order of the Red Banner of Battle, and other foreign awards.
Honorary citizen of the cities of Yelnya (1970, Smolensk region), Zalishchyky (Ternopil region, Ukraine) and Gdynia (1970, Poland; deprived of 09/22/2004).
In Moscow and Odessa, memorial plaques were installed on the houses where he worked. A square in Moscow, streets in the cities of Odessa, Zhmerynka and Kazatin (Vinnitsa region, Ukraine), the village of Svobody (within the city of Pyatigorsk) are named after him Stavropol Territory), as well as a secondary school in the city of Emchiadzin (Armenia).
Note: In May 1945, for successful actions during the storming of Berlin, he was nominated for the second Gold Star medal, but received the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree.
Essays:
Roads of victory. M., 1972;
Roads of victory. 2nd edition. M., 1975;
Roads of victory. 3rd edition. M., 1981;
Roads of Victory (in Armenian). Yerevan, 1988;
Tank raids. 1941-1945. M., 2009;
Childhood and adolescence. Yerevan, 2012.Military ranks:
Major (12/11/1939)
Lieutenant Colonel (1941)
Colonel (05/22/1943)
Major General of Tank Forces (07/11/1945)
Lieutenant General of Tank Forces (3.08.1953)
Colonel General (12/28/1956)
Marshal of Armored Forces (28.10.1967)
Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces (04/29/1975)
Babajanyan Amazasp Khachaturovich, Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces (04/29/1975). Hero of the Soviet Union (04/26/1944), born February 5 (18), 1906, Chardakhly village, Elisavetpol province; died November 1, 1977, Moscow.
Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces Babajanyan Amazasp Khachaturovich
In the Red Army since 1925. Graduated from the military infantry school. He served as a platoon, company, battalion commander, and served as assistant chief of staff of a regiment. From October 1937 to August 1938 - head of the 1st department of the headquarters of the air defense point of the Transcaucasian Military District in Baku, then chief of staff of the regiment. He was transferred to the Leningrad Military District as deputy commander of the 2nd machine gun regiment (10.1938–12.1940), a participant in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–1940. He held the position of chief of staff of a rifle regiment in the North Caucasus Military District. Then he was appointed to the operational department of the headquarters of the 19th Army.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was the commander of the 395th Infantry Regiment as part of the 127th (from September 18 - 2nd Guards) Infantry Division.
“Comrade Babajanyan has commanded the 395th Guards Rifle Regiment since August 1941, during which time the regiment under the command of Major Babajanyan showed exceptional success in defeating and destroying the fascist German troops. 395th Guards rifle regiment Under the command of Major Babajanyan, he went through a glorious battle path from Yelnya to the present day, leading divisions into battle in decisive sectors and at the same time inflicting serious losses on the enemy in people, weapons and transport. According to incomplete data, the 395th Guards Rifle Regiment captured dozens of captured enemy soldiers and officers, 114 vehicles, 3 artillery batteries, 23 light machine guns, many mortars, heavy machine guns, rifles, hundreds of thousands of cartridges and shells, carts loaded with ammunition and food. In addition, more than 6,000 enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed, a separate motorized machine-gun battalion, about 30 tanks and more than a dozen guns were destroyed different systems, dozens of machine guns and mortars, up to hundreds of vehicles, a large amount of ammunition, and so on. A lot released settlements».
In 1942, after completing accelerated courses at the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze, appointed commander of the 3rd mechanized brigade. He was seriously wounded in August 1943.
From the award sheet for the Order of the Red Banner:
“The 3rd Mechanized Brigade, in successful battles from November 25, 1942 to December 6, 1942 and in heavy defensive battles from December 31, 1942 to January 4, 1943 on the Kalinin Front, showed high examples of combat training and coherence, the ability to maneuver on the battlefield and destroy enemy strongholds. Advancing in the most difficult areas, the brigade broke through 3 prepared enemy defensive lines, captured several strong points and advanced 18 km in 5 days of offensive operations with heavy fighting. During the period from November 25, 1942 to January 3, 1943, the brigade destroyed or captured from the enemy: 18 tanks, 34 guns, 3 self-propelled guns, 22 mortars, 7 aircraft, 3 ammunition depots, 51 machine guns, enemy manpower - 3,400 soldiers and officers. The commander of the 3rd mechanized brigade of the guard, Lieutenant Colonel Comrade Babajanyan, being always on the front line, repeatedly led battalions into the attack, inspiring the soldiers and commanders by personal example, while showing high courage and skill in controlling the battle of the units.”
After recovery, he commanded the 20th Guards Mechanized Brigade
From the award list for the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree:
“During the period of offensive operations of the corps from December 24, 1943 to January 1, 1944 in the Kazatinsky direction of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the 20th Guards Red Banner Mechanized Brigade under their command of the Guard Colonel Babajanyan, thanks to skillful actions and bold maneuvers, as a result of a sudden decisive attack, exceptionally well combining artillery fire with tanks and infantry actions and, with few losses, defeated an enemy many times superior to the strength of the brigade. During this operation, the following were destroyed: enemy soldiers - 3000 officers, rifles - 455, machine guns - 70, guns - 6, machine guns - 15, mortars - 12, tanks - 7, armored vehicles - 12, vehicles - 123. Rifles - 1100 were captured, machine guns - 320, machine guns - 48, mortars - 4, cannons - 44, anti-aircraft guns - 4, armored vehicles - 15, vehicles - 75, ammunition depots - 2, fuel depot - 1, fodder and food depots - 3. Taken 300 enemy soldiers and officers were captured."
From the award for the title of “Hero of the Soviet Union”:
“During the offensive battles of the brigade from March 21 to April 1, 1944 in the Stanislavsky directions of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Comrade Babajanyan showed courage and heroism in the fight against the German invaders. Commanding the brigade with his daring, decisive and swift maneuvers, he bypassed the enemy, cut off his escape route, smashed the enemy and his rear. Comrade Babajanyan singled out small groups, leading them, occupied city after city. In total, during the period of fighting, he liberated more than 60 settlements, including the large settlements of Grobovets, Koruvka, Sorotsko, Trembovlya, Yablonov, Kopychintsy, the city of Chertkov, Yagelnitsa, Tluste Miasto, Torske, Dzvinyach, Zhezhava, Zaleschiki and a number of other settlements. The brigade destroyed: soldiers and officers - 1704, rifles - 1200, machine guns - 200, mortars - 8, machine guns - 44. Guns of various calibers - 10, self-propelled guns - 2, tanks - 3, vehicles - 203, carts with various loads - 250 , horses - 250. During this period, captured tanks - 9, vehicles - 485, self-propelled guns - 1, guns of various calibers - 24, machine guns - 35, mortars - 3, machine guns - 145, rifles - 380, steam locomotives - 4, railway cars - 350, ammunition warehouses - 2, food warehouses - 4. Comrade Babadzhanyan captured the city of Zalishchiki with a swift attack and, under enemy fire, personally, having found a ford, crossed the Dniester River to tanks and infantry on the other side of the Dniester. He himself crossed first for the purpose of reconnaissance of the ford and reconnaissance of the right bank of the Dniester.”
Later he was appointed commander of the 11th Guards Tank Corps.
From the award list for the Order of Suvorov, II degree:
“The 11th Guards Tank Corps of the Guard, Colonel Babajanyan, in an offensive operation in the Lodzen-Poznan direction from January 15 to February 3, 1945, rapidly advancing and overcoming enemy resistance on pre-prepared lines, breaking through enemy defenses and reaching the rear and retreating units, struck him heavy losses in manpower and equipment: 57 tanks were destroyed and captured, guns of various calibers - 245, self-propelled guns - 85, aircraft - 125, up to 17,200 enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed and captured. The corps fought over 400 km at an average pace of 30 km, and on some days up to 70 km per day, crossing the rivers: Pilica, Warta and Obra, was the first to approach the Oder River and captured a bridgehead on the western bank of the Oder River /south of Küstrin/, 8 km wide, 6 km deep. In the offensive, the 11th Guards Tank Corps captured the cities of Rawa Mazowiecka, Lowicz, Lowczyca, Ozerkow, Zilenzig, Gniezin, Birnbaum and many other settlements in Poland and the Brandenburg Province, and part of the forces from the north contributed to the encirclement of the city of Poznan. Comrade Babajanyan, while leading units and formations, showed perseverance, courage, bravery and military skill.”
From the award list for the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree:
“During the operation of the 1st Guards Tank Army across the Oder River to Berlin and in the battles for the capture of the capital of Germany, the city of Berlin, the 11th Guards tank corps under the command of the Guard Colonel Babajanyan persistently and on time carried out all the orders of the front and army command. In cooperation with the infantry of the 8th Guards Army, the corps failed a heavily fortified line on the distant approaches to Berlin on the Seelow-Friedersdorf line and repelled numerous counterattacks of enemy tanks and infantry and by April 29, 1945 reached the center of Berlin. During the period from April 16 to April 29, 1945, the corps destroyed and captured enemy manpower and equipment: enemy soldiers and officers - 8450, tanks and self-propelled guns - 103, guns of various calibers - 262, mortars - 62 and many other military equipment and combat equipment. technology."
After the war, he continued to command the corps (from July 10, 1945 - the 11th Guards Tank Division). After graduating from the Military Academy of the General Staff, he became chief of staff (1948-1950) and commander of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Army (1950-1956), then the 8th Mechanized Army (1956-1958). From January 1958 - 1st Deputy Commander of the Troops and member of the Military Council of the Carpathian Military District, from June 1959 of the year - commander Odessa Military District. Since September 1967 - Head of the Military Academy of Armored Forces named after. R.Ya. Malinovsky, since May 1969 - chief of tank forces and member of the Military Council Ground Forces. Awarded 4 Orders of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, 4 Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov 1st and 2nd class, Kutuzov 1st class, Patriotic War 1st class, 2 Orders of the Red Star, foreign orders.
