The Life Line
What does childhood smell like? A loaf of freshly baked bread, fragrant needles of a New Year tree, tender mother's hands, and also fresh green grass, in which it is so pleasant to lie on the banks of a cold river on a summer day. Happy, carefree time!
And I wake up every morning and admire the peaceful, cloudless sky!
But it wasn't always like that… The war! This terrible word brings pain, destruction, fear, despair, tears and grief to the families. The Great Patriotic War brought the pain of loss, famine, and devastation to every family in our Great Country! And, of course, my family wasn't able to keep away during this terrible period, which completely turned our world upside down.
I remember my great-grandmother Galya well. I remember her gentle hands, kind, sky-blue eyes with a shadow of constant sadness, her soft, gentle voice. But the story
about the path of life, about the horrors of war I heard from my grandmother Alla, her daughter. Grandma Galya (I called her that) was born on March 5, 1934 in Leningrad, in the family of the Civil War hero Mikhail Grigoryevich Fuchsov, who joined the ranks of the Communist Party back in 1918. In the Civil War, he fought as part of the Budyonny cavalry corps, an order bearer.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, despite his exemption from active duty, he fought at the front with the rank of captain, and served as the head of the technical
unit at military airfields. At the end of the war he was in Prague with the rank of colonel.
Then, until retirement, he traveled around the country according to the party's decree and headed the construction of metallurgical plants. Bronislava Iosifovna Fucsova,
Galya's grandmother's mother, was very strict, but at the same time caring and very educated. And, of course, she nurtured all this in her daughters. I remember well how Grandma Galya, at her advanced age, read the of A. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" by heart.
Galya's grandmother had an older sister, Evgenia. As a child, her grandmother was afraid of her, because Zhenechka (everyone called her that) was six years older, very
strict and responsible, a member of the Timur team, which she was very proud of, and grandma said that Zhenechka was a big boaster. Their family was very friendly and
strong, they treated each other with respect. My grandmother Galya lived very nice at that time. In a large apartment, which was located on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street, in the government house in the very center of Leningrad! But it was not for long, the war began. Grandpa Misha refused the exemption from active duty and went to defend his Motherland, and he had such faith in an early victory that there was no question of evacuating the family, although there was an opportunity. In 1941, none of the large
family had time to evacuate from Leningrad, a terrible famine began, grandma Bronya worked at the factory for eighteen hours, made shells, and her older sister Zhenechka
was also stuck behind the machine since the age of fourteen. And little Galya was alone for most of the time, and despite the fact that at that time she was not even seven years old, she stood in line for hours for bread, carrying ice water from the Neva River on a sled. Every day the hunger increased, the great-grandmother said that they tore the wallpaper from the walls and scraped off the paste in order to somehow
survive and not starve to death. She also said that all the animals in the area gradually disappeared, birds did not fly over the city, there were no cats or dogs. People were
dying in the streets. It was scary at first, but then they got used to it. It sounds terrible, I can't even imagine how a little girl could have survived all this so bravely. She had to
grow up early to survive, but she still remained a child and dreamed of a chocolate bar and a doll, sang and danced. The bombardment was getting stronger every day, it was
very dangerous to walk the streets, but there was no choice. And every day, despite the danger, they went to the factory, because they understood that the fate of the city
depended on them, since they were hostages of the ring formed by the enemy. Almost all of great-grandmother Galya's relatives died, they were buried in common graves
at the Piskarevskoye cemetery, and now, when visiting the Memorial, members of our family lay flowers on the graves with the inscription of the year of death.
In your honor, my dear city
Without hiding my tears, I whisper a prayer.
You came out of the fire like a phoenix,
In a siege defeating the enemy.
How many tears do I have to cry,
To comfort your sorrow
About those who went into the fire
And about those who survived.
How much do you have to suffer with your soul
About your broken dreams…
On your gray-haired graves don't they bloom
Every spring?
Piskarevskaya silence.
The metronome is counting it down —
That war is resting right here,
Not have broken the town.
Marina Rudaleva In December 1943, my great-grandmother, her mother and older sister were evacuated along Lake Ladoga in military semi-trucks. Grandma Galya remembers this moment
poorly, as she was unconscious, she had a gastric torsion due to constant hunger, she was saved by a surgeon in their car who operated her in a military tent hospital, which was on the shore of Lake Ladoga, under fire. Then, for more than two months, they all rode together in freight cars to Tashkent, but it was no longer scary after the horror they had to go through. The main thing was that they were together, alive and happy about it.
In 1945, my great-grandmother's and the family returned to Leningrad. They participated in the reconstruction of the city. Then grandma Galya fulfilled her dream—she entered the ballet studio at the Gorky Palace of Culture, under the guidance of the famous choreographer Yu. Grigorovich, participated in its first performances of "The Young Stork", "Slavic Dances". Then she performed at the Mariinsky Theater in the corps de ballet, but for health reasons she had to leave the ballet. Later, she enrolled in the Leningrad Agricultural Institute, the Department of Veterinary Medicine. After
graduating, she worked all her life (from an ordinary laboratory assistant to the chief veterinarian) at the Nevsky Experimental Factory. Great-grandmother had the title of
"Honored Veteran of Labor", later she was a political pensioner of the USSR.
In general, great-grandmother Galya did not like to remember that terrible period of their lives, and we do not know in detail what happened during the siege. We tried not to touch upon a painful topic for them when they were still with us. But their heroic feat, their strength of spirit and their desire for life will always remain in our hearts!
In difficult times, our entire people, a multinational people, shoulder to shoulder, creating an impenetrable wall for the enemy, despite all the hardships, difficulties, and death, went to defend their country. And it's always been that way. If you study the history of Russia, Western countries have looked at it from time immemorial as a tasty morsel and constantly tested us for strength... and then regretted it.
And I believe that even now, when the clouds of war are hanging over my beloved Motherland — Russia — again, we are going to withstand it!