Main events of 1969. Military conflict between the USSR and China in the area of the island. Damansky
Dad died this year. Even in the morning, when I left for school, he waved goodbye to me. The latter, as it turned out. But I didn’t answer - I was late for class. Then I regretted for a long time that I did not wave back to him. I regret it even now.
In the middle of the lesson I was called from school. Some woman. She said that I urgently needed to go home. I walked like a somnambulist, not understanding why, but with a presentiment of evil.
When I came home, my mother said from the doorway:
Dad is dead.
I swayed and was thrown against the wall. I don't remember the rest well. I only remember well that my father’s friends hugged me at the wake and said heartfeltly that now I was their son. Only Uncle Misha said anything.
I never saw any of my father's friends. Except Uncle Misha. He continued to come to us both when I was in school and when I was in technical school. He and my friends already accompanied me to the army. He also came when I had already returned from the army. He stopped visiting us when he became quite old and his legs gave out.
Upon reaching the age of 14, I received a letter: to appear at the Komsomol district committee. I showed up. They asked me a couple of questions and handed me a Komsomol badge pinned to a red memo book. So I entered the district committee building as a pioneer and came out as a Komsomol member. Later, I once again went to the district committee with photographs to receive a Komsomol card.
Space achievements
And the country continued to explore space...
January - launch of the interplanetary automatic station “Venera-6” and spaceships Soyuz-4 with cosmonaut Shatalov on board and Soyuz-5 with three cosmonauts on board. A day later, the ships docked, which was the first such event in the world. Moreover, two cosmonauts from Soyuz-5 transferred to the Soyuz-4 spacecraft. The transition of cosmonauts Khrunov and Eliseev from one ship to another was shown on TV.
Also in January 1969, a scientific (and actually reconnaissance) artificial satellite Earth "Cosmos-264", and in October three manned spacecraft are already flying into space: "Soyuz-6", "Soyuz-7" and "Soyuz-8".
We perceive spaceship flights as commonplace. And we no longer remember the names of the pilot-cosmonauts who were in space.
Our flights are aimed at the Moon and Venus. The Americans are targeting the Moon and Mars.
Strange assassination attempt
In the last ten days of January, rumors spread across the country that Brezhnev had been shot. Voice of America, Deutsche Welle and Radio Liberty are constantly reporting new details. But in fact, no one knows anything for sure, and they don’t really trust “enemy” radio stations: nothing like this can happen in our country!
On January 24, TASS reported: “ On January 22, during a ceremonial meeting of cosmonaut pilots, a provocative act was committed-several shots were fired at the car in which the cosmonauts were traveling. Beregovoy, Nikolaeva-Tereshkova, Nikolaev, Leonov. As a result, the driver of the car and the motorcyclist accompanying the motorcade were injured. None of the astronauts were injured. The shooter was detained at the crime scene. An investigation is underway."
“Crazy” - this is the assessment they gave soviet people Ilyin. And they were not far from the truth.
A certain Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin, junior lieutenant Soviet army, dressed in a police uniform, borrowed from his uncle, a policeman, he independently stood up in the cordon at the Borovitsky Gate, without arousing suspicion: a policeman and a policeman. When the government motorcade left the gate in the middle of the day, Ilyin suddenly began to fire with both hands from the Makarovs, stolen from his unit, at the second car, in which, as the killer assumed, Brezhnev was riding. Before he was tied up, he managed to release almost two full clips. Ilyin did not know which car Brezhnev was driving in, so, having let the first car with guards pass, he began to shoot at the second and third. He wounded one of the drivers, a motorcyclist officer accompanying the motorcade, and riddled the second car in which the cosmonauts, and not Brezhnev, were traveling.
Ilyin was taken and brought to Lubyanka. Andropov himself was involved in it. It turned out that 21-year-old Viktor Ilyin was mentally ill. It seems that he wanted to repeat the “feat” of Lee Harvey Oswald, who mortally wounded American President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963, and thereby go down in history.
The investigation lasted three months. It was found out that Ilyin was born into a family of alcoholics, lived for some time in an orphanage and was adopted by childless spouses. He was unsociable, gloomy, and had no friends. He hatched the plan to assassinate Leonid Ilyich for about a year and a half, which he himself admitted to. A commission of medical luminaries from the Serbsky Institute declared him mentally ill and, without trial, was placed in a special hospital in Kazan, where he spent 18 years, and where he belonged.
When Gorbachev came to power, Ilyin was transferred to a “normal” mental hospital in Leningrad, after which he was discharged in 1990, given the second group of disability, a salary for 20 years, a pension and an apartment. Almost like a hero intelligence officer who lived abroad for a long time and carried out a government assignment. Well, except that they didn’t present the order... Such bad times have come.
Damansky Island
But the events with China were covered in the press in sufficient detail, and every second person knew about them soviet man, not counting every first one.
Since the beginning of the 60s, Chinese peasants began to come to Damansky Island in the Primorsky Territory, which has a couple of brick buildings and water meadows (and that’s all), and defiantly mow the grass and graze livestock, declaring that they are on their territory. Border guards expelled them, but such border violations became more frequent from year to year and reached more than 10 violations per day in 1962.
Then the attacks on border patrols began. Such provocations became more frequent, and in January 1969 several hundred people crossed the border at once. The use of weapons was prohibited, so the border guards drove the violators over the border line with their fists and machine gun butts.
On March 2, 1969, a military clash took place between Soviet border guards and an armed detachment of Chinese about a company size. The Chinese attacked the secular outpost and were the first to open fire. A total of 31 border guards were killed in the clash.
On March 15, after an artillery shelling of the border outpost, about 3 companies of Chinese infantry crossed the border. About 5 more companies prepared to go behind the border guards. After 2 hours of battle, having used up all the ammunition, the Soviet border guards left the island. And when, towards evening, the Chinese began to celebrate the victory and consider Damansky Island theirs, a massive ten-minute artillery attack was launched against them using Grad multiple launch rocket launchers, which wiped out the Chinese units along with their material base. After which the island was again occupied by border troops and units of the Soviet Army that arrived for reinforcements. The Chinese didn’t give a damn about us anymore...
Miscellaneous...
The World Hockey Championship brought unexpected results. And although the USSR national team became the champion for the 7th time, it lost to the Czechs twice. Either the Czechs were taking revenge for the fact that Soviet tanks drove through their capital a year ago, or our hockey players were given instructions to lose to the Czechs. One way or another, if the Swedes had scored at least one goal against the Czechoslovakian team in the last round, not we, but the Swedish team would have become the world champion.
In August, the party and government gave birth to a document: Resolution " On the construction of a complex of automobile factories in Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic." The factory complex was supposed to produce exclusively heavy-duty vehicles of European quality. In the winter of 1969, the auto giant began construction on the Kama River. However, the first KAMAZ will roll off the assembly line only in 1976.
The Beatles will release their latest studio album at the end of September. Abbey Road" with great songs, which by no means mean that the group has exhausted itself. The author of these lines is of the opinion that the bits were quarreled by their wives,- a frequent phenomenon and, unfortunately, quite understandable. The last song on the album that all the Beatles worked on was a song called "The End"...
Since the fall of 1969, women Soviet Union embraces the craze for a “panacea for all ills”called "mummy". They buy it for any money and use it to treat anything that hurts. No one knows what kind of medicine this is or what it consists of, but they believe in its miraculous power. And only a few knowledgeable people know that mumiyo- a resin containing minerals, acids, plant matter and animal excrement.
Movies of 1969
This year a wonderful fairy tale film “Barbara the Beauty, Long Braid” was released, where Tsar Eremey was played by Mikhail Pugovkin, and the underwater king Miracle Yudo was played by Georgy Millyar. Varvara the beauty was played by Tatyana Klyueva, who had previously starred in the films “They’re calling, open the door” and “Scuba gear at the bottom.”
A film that looks like it was shot yesterday - “Shine, Shine, My Star.” Tragicomedy, farce, history, grotesque - everything is intertwined in this film with magnificent actors Oleg Tabakov, Oleg Efremov, Elena Proklova, Evgeny Leonov...
“Village Detective” with theater and film luminary Mikhail Zharov. This actor, beloved by several generations of viewers, revealed a completely different side...
A wonderful film adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” has been released, starring Georgy Taratorkin and Innokenty Smoktunovsky. The whole class took us to see this film. We had a “G” class, not an easy one, the boys (and some of the girls) were crazy, but after this film everyone came out quiet and thoughtful. True, it didn't last long...
As if a continuation of “Carnival Night” was the comedy “Old Acquaintance”, again with Ilyinsky in the role of Seraphim Ogurtsov and Tamara Nosova in the role of his secretary. There were Sergei Filippov and Felix Yavorsky, who played in “Carnival Night,” and somehow quickly aged Nikolai Rybnikov, who played the thoroughly positive “Sergei Sergeevich.” And as often happens with sequels, although the film purported to be a comedy, it didn’t succeed very well.
A serious film that raised many problems with the title “By the Lake” made a splash and made me think. It was filmed by Sergei Gerasimov. The film stars Oleg Zhakov, Natalya Belokhvostikova, Vasily Shukshin, Mikhail Nozhkin, Valentina Telichkina, Nikolai Eremenko, Vadim Spiridonov. “By the Lake” became the best film of the year, which was well deserved.
The Soviet leadership failed to take advantage of Khrushchev's removal to normalize relations with China. On the contrary, under Brezhnev they worsened even more. The blame for this falls on both sides - from the second half of 1966, the Chinese leadership, led by Mao Zedong, organized a number of provocations on transport and the Soviet-Chinese border. Claiming that this border was forcibly established by the Russian tsarist government, it laid claim to several thousand square kilometers of Soviet territory. The situation was especially acute on the river border along the Amur and Ussuri, where over a hundred years after the signing of the border treaty, the river fairway changed, some islands disappeared, others moved closer to the opposite bank.
Bloody events took place in March 1969 on Damansky Island on the river. Ussuri, where the Chinese fired on the Soviet border guard, killing several people. Large Chinese forces landed on the island, well prepared for combat. Attempts to restore the situation with the help of Soviet motorized rifle units were unsuccessful. Then the Soviet command used the Grad multiple launch rocket system. The Chinese were virtually wiped out on this small island (about 1700 m long and 500 m wide). Their losses numbered in the thousands. On this active fighting have actually stopped.
But from May to September 1969, Soviet border guards opened fire on intruders in the Damansky area more than 300 times. In the battles for the island from March 2 to March 16, 1969, 58 were killed Soviet soldiers, 94 were seriously injured. For their heroism, four servicemen received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The Battle of Damansky was the first serious clash between the USSR Armed Forces and regular units of another major power since World War II. Moscow, despite its local victory, decided not to aggravate the conflict and give Damansky Island to the People's Republic of China. The Chinese side subsequently filled up the channel separating the island from their shores, and since then it has become part of China.
On September 11, 1969, on the Soviet initiative, a meeting of the heads of government of the USSR (A.N. Kosygin) and the PRC (Zhou Enlai) took place, after which protracted negotiations on border issues began in Beijing. After 40 meetings in June 1972, they were interrupted. The Chinese government chose to improve relations with the United States, Western European countries and Japan. In 1982-85. Soviet-Chinese political consultations were held alternately in Moscow and Beijing at the level of government representatives with the rank of deputy foreign ministers. There were no results for a long time. Soviet-Chinese relations were settled only by the end of the 80s.
SAILORS LIVE!
Our special correspondents V. Ignatenko and L. Kuznetsov report from the area of Damansky Island
Here, on the front line, as soon as the smoke of the last battle cleared, we were told about the exceptional courage of the Far Eastern border guard sailors. It was not on distant ocean meridians, nor on cruises on supercruisers and submarines that the sailors distinguished themselves these days. In the mortal battle with Maoist provocateurs on March 2 and 15, guys in pea coats stood shoulder to shoulder with the officers and soldiers of the outposts.
It is not difficult to recognize them among the military people of the border region: only the sailors have black sheepskin coats, and their hats and caps with anchors are pulled down somehow in a special way, seemingly casually, but within the framework of the regulations.
Fortunately, the sailors came out of the fire without losses. Shells and lead bursts lay nearby and lay over their heads. But, alive and unharmed, the guys rose to their height, shook off the hot, steaming earth and rushed into a counterattack... We saw these young Komsomol guys, in whose veins flows the blood of their fathers, the defenders of the legendary Malaya Zemlya.
We want to tell you about one sailor in particular. Long before dawn, on March 15, when there were all the signs of preparing a new provocation at Damansky, captain Vladimir Matrosov took up an observation post on a spit a few meters from the gently sloping shore of the island. He could see the provocateurs fussing about on the Chinese shore in the pre-dawn twilight. From time to time, the annoying sounds of engines could be heard: it must have been the guns being brought to the firing lines. Then silence again, viscous, cold.
A few hours later, the first burst hit from the Chinese side, then the second, the first shells exploded... The Maoists rushed in chains towards Damansky. Our fire weapons began to speak, and the vanguard of the Soviet border guards moved to the island.
I am "Break"! I am "Break"! How do you hear? The enemy is in the southern part of the island,” Sailors shouted into the radiotelephone. It was the turn of his combat mission. - How did you understand?
I am "Burav". You are understood!
A minute later our fire became more accurate, the Chinese wavered.
I am "Cliff"! I am "Break"! The enemy moved to the northeast. - Sailors did not have time to finish: a mine struck nearby. He fell into the snow. It's gone! And the phone is intact.
I am "Cliff"! I am "Cliff"! - Volodya continued. - How did you understand me?
And the earth shook again. Again elastic wave pushed the sailor. And again I just had to shake the earth off myself.
Then Sailors got used to it. True, he had an unpleasant feeling that someone invisible from the other shore was watching him, as if he knew how much now depended on his, Volodina’s, adjustment of the fire. But again the call signs of “Obryv” were flying on the air...
He saw our border guards fighting on the island. And if suddenly one of our people stumbled and fell, he knew: it was Mao Zedong’s lead that threw the soldier to the ground. This was already the second battle in Matrosov’s life...
Captain Sailors kept in touch with the command post for several hours. And all this time he was the epicenter of a barrage of fire.
Vladimir, one might say, is a border guard from the cradle. His father, Stepan Mikhailovich, only recently retired with the rank of colonel of the border troops, and the younger Sailors, as long as he can remember, always lived on the edge native land, at outposts. From childhood, he knew the anxieties of the front line, and this region planted good seeds of masculinity and goodness in his soul, and over time, having become stronger, these seeds began to grow. When the time came for Vladimir to choose his fate, there was no doubt: he chose his father’s path. He studied and became an officer. He is now 31 years old. He's a communist. He received border training before being assigned to this area in the Kuril Islands. Probably, not one of the eleven sailors who took part in the battle on Damansky is now dreaming of receiving Matrosov’s party recommendation. After all, Vladimir became a communist at their age, and they went through their first baptism of fire together: a communist and Komsomol members.
In the division, senior officers told us: “Did you notice how similar our Sailors are…” And we, without listening to the end, agreed: “Yes, he is very similar to that legendary Alexander Matrosov.” Everything seems to happen on purpose. It seems that the journalistic move is naked to the limit. But no, what’s more important is not this amazing external similarity. The kinship of their characters - heroic, truly Russian - is seen a hundred times more clearly. More important is the identity of their high spirit, the fieryness of their hearts in difficult times.
Historians of the Great Patriotic War they find new evidence of many exploits of privates, sergeants, and officers who repeated Matrosov’s feat. They died gloriously, and they became immortal, for the Russian warrior has this “sailor” vein, this spirit of victory even at the cost of his life.
Sailors Vladimir is alive!
May he live happily into old age. Let there be peace and harmony in his home, where his daughters are growing up: second-grader Sveta and five-year-old Katya. May they always have a dad...
N-division of maritime border guards
Red Banner Pacific
border district, March 20
YURI VASILIEVICH BABANSKY
Babansky Yuri Vasilievich - commander of the Nizhne-Mikhailovskaya border outpost of the Ussuri Order of the Red Banner of Labor border detachment of the Pacific Border District, junior sergeant. Born on December 20, 1948 in the village of Krasny Yar, Kemerovo region. After finishing an eight-year school, he graduated from a vocational school, worked in production, and then was drafted into the border troops. Served on the Soviet-Chinese border in the Pacific Border District.
The commander of the Nizhne-Mikhailovskaya border outpost (Damansky Island) of the Ussuri Order of the Red Banner of Labor border detachment, junior sergeant Babansky Yu.V. showed heroism and courage during the border conflict of March 2 - 15, 1969. Then, for the first time in the history of the border troops after June 22, 1941, the detachment’s border guards took on battles with units of the regular army of a neighboring state. On that day, March 2, 1969, Chinese provocateurs, who invaded Soviet territory, from an ambush shot a group of border guards who came out to meet them, led by the head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant I.I. Strelnikov.
Junior Sergeant Yuri Babansky took command of the group of border guards remaining at the outpost and boldly led them into the attack. The Maoists unleashed heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars and artillery fire on the brave handful. Throughout the entire battle, Junior Sergeant Babansky skillfully led his subordinates, shot accurately, and provided assistance to the wounded. When the enemy was driven out of Soviet territory, Babansky went on reconnaissance missions to the island more than 10 times. It was Yuri Babansky with the search group who found the executed group of I.I. Strelnikov, and at gunpoint from the enemy’s machine guns he organized their evacuation; it was he and his group, on the night of March 15-16, who discovered the body of the heroically deceased head of the border detachment, Colonel D.V. Leonov and carried him off the island...
By Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR dated March 21, 1969 to junior sergeant Yu.V. Babansky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (medal " Golden Star"No. 10717).
After graduating from the military-political school, Babansky Yu.V. continued to serve in the border troops of the KGB of the USSR in various officer positions, including during the fighting in Afghanistan. In the 90s, he was deputy chief of troops of the Western Border District, was a member of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, and was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of Ukraine.
Currently, Lieutenant General of the Reserve Yu.V. Babansky is a military pensioner, engaged in social activities. He is the chairman of the all-Russian organizing committee for the “Argun Outpost” action and at the same time is the chairman of the public organization “Union of Heroes”, Honorary Citizen of the Kemerovo Region. Lives in Moscow.
THE COUNTRY DID NOT KNOW YET
...They loved fire training at the outpost. We often went out shooting. And time in recent months there was less and less space for studying. The Red Guards gave no rest.
Since childhood, Yuri Babansky was taught to consider the Chinese as brothers. But when he first saw the angry, hooting crowd, waving clubs and weapons, shouting anti-Soviet slogans, he could not understand what was happening. It took him a while to learn to understand that faith in the sacred bonds of brotherhood had been trampled upon by the Maoists, that people deceived by Mao’s clique were capable of committing any crime. The Chinese staged demonstrations with slogans of the “great helmsman.” Then they attacked the Soviet border guards with their fists. “This is how they were fooled,” thought Babansky. “But the fathers of our guys fought for the liberation of China and died for the People’s China.” There was a strict order: do not give in to provocations. Machine guns on your back. And only the courage and restraint of the Soviet border guards prevented the incidents from turning into a bloody conflict.
The Maoists acted more and more boldly. Almost every morning they went out onto the ice of Ussuri and behaved cheekily. provocative.
On March 2, 1969, border guards, as usual, had to expel the rampaging Maoists who crossed the border. As always, the head of the outpost, Ivan Ivanovich Strelnikov, came out to meet them. Silence. You can only hear the snow creaking under your felt boots. These were last minutes silence. Babansky ran up the hill and looked around. From the cover group, only Kuznetsov and Kozus ran after him. “I broke away from the guys.” Ahead, a little to the right, stood the first group of border guards - the one that followed Strelnikov. The head of the outpost protested to the Chinese, demanding to leave Soviet territory.
And suddenly two shots ripped through the dry, frosty silence of the island. Behind them are frequent bursts of machine gun fire. Babansky didn’t believe it. I didn't want to believe it. But the snow was already scorched by bullets, and he saw how the border guards from Strelnikov’s group fell one after another. Babansky pulled out a machine gun from behind his back and a magazine closed in:
Get down! Fire! - he commanded and in short bursts began to mow down those who had just shot his comrades point-blank. Bullets whistled nearby, and he shot and shot. In the excitement of the battle, I didn’t notice how I had used up all the cartridges.
Kuznetsov,” he called the border guard, “give me the store!”
They'll give you a ride. There's enough for everyone. Be on the left, and I'll go to the tree.
He dropped to his knee, raised his machine gun and fired aimed fire from behind a tree. Cool, calculating. Eat! One, two, three...
There is an invisible connection between the shooter and the target, as if you are sending a bullet not from a machine gun, but from your own heart and it hits the enemy. He got so carried away that Sergeant Kozushu had to shout several times:
Yurka! Who is it in camouflage suits, ours or the Chinese?
Kozus was firing to Babansky’s right; a large group of Maoists, who had taken refuge on the island since the evening, was moving towards him. They walked straight ahead. The distance was getting shorter every minute. Kozus fired several bursts and just had time to think that there weren’t enough cartridges when he heard Babansky’s command: “Save your cartridges!” and turned the lever to single fire.
Kozus! Be careful not to get passed on the right!
Like Babansky, he did not remain in place, changed positions and fired aimed fire. The cartridges were running out.
Kuznetsov! And Kuznetsov! - he called and looked towards where the border guard had just fired. Kuznetsov sat bent over with his head in his hands. The face is bloodless, the lower lip is slightly bitten. Lifeless eyes. A spasm squeezed her throat, but there was no time to grieve. I took the remaining cartridges from Kuznetsov. And then right in front of him, about thirty meters away, he saw a Chinese machine gun. Babansky fired and killed the machine gunner. Now we need to help Kozushu. Babansky acted quickly and accurately. He shot through the channel and fired at the enemy advancing from the right. The Chinese machine gun has a soldier again. Yuri fired again. He was glad that the machine gun never fired a single burst.
Kozus! Cover up! - Babansky commanded hoarsely and crawled towards his group, lying down in the lowland. He crawled along a pitted island, blackened by fire and iron. Mines howled, whistled, explosions roared. It flashed in my head: “How are the guys? Are they alive? How much longer can they hold out? The main thing is ammunition...” The guys lay in the lowlands, pinned down by fire. Babansky did not have time to feel fear - there was only rage in him. I wanted to shoot, to destroy the killers. He commanded the border guards:
Razmakhnin, to the tree! Observe! Bikuzin! Fire towards the parapet!
The border guards lay down in a semicircle, six meters from each other. The cartridges were divided equally. Five or six per brother. Shells and mines exploded. It seemed as if you took off from the ground - and you were gone. One bullet whistled past Babansky's ear. “Sniper,” flashed through my head. “We need to be careful.” But Kozus, who was covering him, had already removed the Chinese shooter. Suddenly the fire died down. In preparation for a new attack, the Chinese regrouped. Babansky decided to take advantage of this:
One at a time, a distance of eight to ten meters, dashing to the leading signs! Yezhov - to the armored personnel carrier! Let him support!
Babansky did not yet know that the river bed was under fire. I didn’t know whether Eremin, who he sent to the outlet (“Let them send cartridges!”) managed to inform the outpost of the commander’s order. The Maoists pressed on. Five Soviet border guards led by junior sergeant Yuri Babansky against an enemy battalion. The border guards took a more advantageous position - at the leading signs. The Chinese are no more than a hundred meters away. They opened heavy fire. This fire was supported by a mortar battery from the shore. For the first time for twenty-year-old boys, armed combat became a reality: life next to death, humanity next to treachery. You are against the enemy. And you must defend justice, you must defend your native land.
Guys, help is coming! Bubenin should come up. We must stand, because our land!
And Bubenin came to their aid. Using his armored personnel carrier, he invaded the rear of the Chinese, caused panic in their ranks and essentially decided the outcome of the battle. Babansky did not see the armored personnel carrier, he only heard the roar of its engines on the river, right opposite them, and understood why the enemy faltered and retreated back.
Run after me! - Yuri commanded and led the fighters to the northern part of the island, where the Bubeninites who arrived in time were fighting. “Five machine guns is also strength!” Babansky fell, froze, then crawled. Bullets whistled from all sides. The body tensed. Even if there was some kind of pothole, crater - no, the snow-covered meadow spread out like a tablecloth. Apparently, Yuri Babansky was not destined to die; apparently, he was “born in a vest.” And this time the shells and mines spared him. He reached the bushes and looked around: the guys were crawling behind him. I saw: help was coming from the Soviet shore in a deployed chain. Babansky sighed with relief. I wanted to smoke. It took some time for someone to find two cigarettes. He smoked them one after another. The tension of the battle had not yet subsided. He still lived with the excitement of the fight: he picked up the wounded, looked for the dead, and carried them out of the battlefield. It seemed to him that he was numb, unable to feel. But tears came to my eyes when I saw the face of Kolya Dergach, a fellow countryman and friend, disfigured by the Chinese. Late in the evening, completely tired, he turned on the radio at the outpost. There was music on the air. It seemed unthinkable, impossible, unnatural. And then suddenly the meaning of the border service was revealed in a new way: for the sake of children sleeping peacefully, for the sake of this music to sound, for the sake of life, happiness, justice, guys in green caps stand at the border. They stand to death. The country did not yet know what happened at Damansky...
We were the first...On January 16, 1969, the first docking of two manned spacecraft, Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5, took place.
In January 1969, for the first time in the world, the Soviet Union operated in low-Earth orbit. space station. Four Soviet cosmonauts lived and worked in it - Vladimir Shatalov, Boris Volynov, Alexey Eliseev and Evgeny Khrunov.
First, the Soyuz-4 spacecraft, piloted by V. Shatalov, launched from the cosmodrome. And a day later, three cosmonauts at once set off on a joint flight along the stellar paths on the Soyuz-5 ship - the ship commander B. Volynov, flight engineer, candidate technical sciences A. Eliseev and research engineer E. Khrunov.
The antennas of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 ships were looking for each other. Before the docking began, Shatalov saw Soyuz-5 through the window of his ship. A few seconds after turning on the radio search system, the ships found themselves connected by a “radio rope”. The orientation engines turned them exactly "face to face".
On January 16 at 08:20 UTC, the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft docked. This was the world's first docking of two manned spacecraft. During the docking, the active spacecraft was Soyuz-4, the docking station of which was equipped with a pin, the docking station of Soyuz-5 was equipped with a receiving cone. The Soyuz design did not have a sealed transition compartment. After the docking, the TASS agency announced that for the first time an experimental space station with four cosmonauts on board had been created in orbit.
Cosmonauts Khrunov and Eliseev used the Yastreb spacesuits, the ship's commander Boris Volynov helped them put on the spacesuits, checked the life support and communications systems of the spacesuits. Then Volynov returned to the descent vehicle and closed the hatch between the orbital compartment and the descent vehicle of the Soyuz-5 spacecraft. The Soyuz ships of the 7K-OK model did not have a transition hatch in the docking station. During the transition, the orbital compartments of the ships were used as airlocks. After depressurization of the orbital compartment, the first open space Evgeniy Khrunov came out. At this time, the docked ships were above South America and had no radio contact with the flight control center in the USSR. Eliseev’s exit took place already over the territory of the USSR, when radio contact with the Earth was maintained. Eliseev closed the Soyuz-5 hatch behind him. Khrunov and Eliseev moved into the orbital compartment of Soyuz-4, which was then filled with air; Soyuz-4 commander Vladimir Shatalov helped Khrunov and Eliseev remove their spacesuits. Khrunov and Eliseev gave Shatalov letters, telegrams and newspapers that were published after Shatalov’s launch into space. The Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft were docked for 4 hours and 35 minutes.
Khrunov and Eliseev returned to Earth on Soyuz-4 along with its commander Shatalov. About a day later, Soyuz-5, piloted by B. Volynov, also landed. This transition was an element of preparation for the proposed flight to the Moon.
1960-1969
The time has come to once again remember the prophetic words of Alexei Bogolyubov: “How strange the fate of people is, and how they do not know what will happen next to their thoughts and actions”...
The grains thrown by Radishchev's grandson sprouted excellently, fruits appeared, and behind them new shoots. It turned out to be unimportant that the Saratov Art School had existed for several decades within other walls. In the second half of the 20th century, a kind of return to the museum began for those who studied within the walls of Bogolyubovka, who forever retained in their souls and hearts the memories of steps along the openwork back staircase...
Artists connected in one way or another with our city have always maintained a sense of community. The circle of friendships, sympathies, and sense of community that formed in youth lasted for many years and united everyone whose life path at least briefly passed through Saratov.
It is curious that the artists themselves began to look for a wording to designate this phenomenon. When, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Radishchev Museum, an exhibition of Moscow artists who lived or studied in Saratov was held, in the introductory article, Viktor Perelman, a graduate of the Bogolyubov School, wrote about the Saratov residents: “There is something common that is inherent in most of them - this is a kind of lyricism of perception, a subtle sense of colorism, an acute social sense of the reality around them.” Everyone recognized the importance of the impressions received in the museum for their creativity; their own exhibition within its walls was both a kind of test and a tribute of gratitude to the city, the school, and the teachers.
In 1956, after the exhibition in Leningrad, the Radishchev Museum hosted an exhibition of paintings and graphics by Alexander Savinov, a native of the Saratov merchant family, then an academician and famous teacher who died during the Leningrad blockade. Afterwards, his wonderful landscapes were acquired for the collection: Volga twilight, blooming gardens, corners of the old city. “Childhood impressions from the Volga, from the people among whom my father lived, left a unique imprint on all his work,” recalled the artist’s son
In 1962, Emilius Arbitman, deputy director of the museum scientific work, wrote a small book “Saratov Artist Vasily Konovalov”, in which he paid tribute to the memory of the artist, who “experienced neither lifetime nor posthumous recognition, and his name only added to the long list of Russian artists with tragic fate" The author especially emphasized the extraordinary teaching talent of Konovalov, a man “with a lofty, restless soul,” from whom almost all significant artists from Saratov received their first professional lessons.
Two posthumous exhibitions of two excellent painters and teachers of the school, Ivan Shcheglov and Georgy Melnikov, took place. Yulia Razumovsky, the daughter of the first rector of the university and a student of Bogolyubovka, showed her works.
In 1963, the 25th anniversary of the Saratov branch of the Union of Artists was celebrated. And, although the date referred entirely to Soviet history, the exhibition was intended to be a retrospective. The exhibition included a large “historical” part, composed of works belonging to the Radishchev Museum. The paintings of Pavel Kuznetsov and Alexander Savinov and the sculptures of Alexander Matveev marked the “Bogolyubov” stage of Saratov’s artistic life, which marked the time of the first professional lessons of these masters, later known throughout Russia. The works of Fyodor Belousov, Vladimir Kashkin, Alexey Sapozhnikov, Ivan Shcheglov, Valentin Yustitsky reminded us of what was happening in our city in the 1920s and 1930s
In 1967, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, also “ours”, originally from apple-based Khvalynsk, came to the museum as a capital guest. The exhibition organized by the Russian Museum and Tretyakov Gallery, consisted of the artist’s most famous works and aroused great audience interest.
In 1968, after the death of ninety-year-old Pavel Kuznetsov in February, a small exhibition of his paintings from the funds was organized, and already in the early 1970s the museum and hometown received a huge gift from the heirs of Pavel Kuznetsov and his wife, artist Elena Bebutova. From the Moscow workshop, the works were distributed to dozens of museums; more than 300 paintings by Pavel Varfolomeevich himself and 75 works by Bebutova came to Saratov.
In addition to the names of the foreground, interest also appeared in those artists whose work seemed practically forgotten against the backdrop of the victorious march of socialist realism and the apotheosis of thematic painting. In 1971, an exhibition was held by Evgeniy Egorov, a student of Pyotr Utkin who died early, a subtle, lyrical landscape painter who fully paid tribute to the delights of the Volga nature, and a keen, observant draftsman. Thanks to Egorov’s works, the visits to Saratov of his wife, the artist Muse Egorova - Troitskaya, and her vivid memories, the Saratov 1920s with their heated debates, the harsh Proletkult, the workshop of the “independents” and other glorious undertakings began to take on living flesh.
An exhibition of exquisite black and white graphics by Mikhail Polyakov took place. A stream of memories poured out from the pages of Vladimir Milashevsky’s book “Yesterday, the Day Before Yesterday”: “Saratov is not exactly the province that our classics depict in literature... Saratov had its own “brilliance,” as horse experts say - connoisseurs about horses of special qualities. Saratov was a city with some uniqueness. Ancient land the right bank of the Volga... What blue distances stretching into infinity! What cruel winds, frosts and unbearable heat!.. Unbending people with ancient Sarmatian blood... The painting of this region deserves to have its own unique face!”
The most striking impression was the large exhibition of paintings by Viktor Borisov-Musatov from 1974. For the first time in many decades of half-oblivion and half-recognition, the significance of the master’s work for Russian art became clear. Saratov residents looked with different eyes at the inconspicuous outbuilding on Volskaya Street, where captivatingly sad “paint-tunes” were laid out on the canvas. We also remembered the house of the Kuznetsov family, which stood on the slope of the Glebuchevo ravine.
A new generation of museum employees gradually began to discover a unique and diverse phenomenon - the Saratov art school.
Elena Savelyeva
1960
January - regional art exhibition
June - photography exhibition
July - exhibition B.P. Bobrova
August - exhibition of amateur artists
November-exhibition of contemporary decorative and applied arts
1961
February -
exhibition N.N. Zhukova (Moscow)
exhibition of Chinese decorative and applied art from the Hermitage.
July - exhibition by V.S. Klimashina
November - traveling exhibition " Soviet Russia»
1962
March -
exhibition of craftsmen from the "Embroidery" factory
exhibition Yu.P. Reinera (Moscow)
July - photography exhibition
September - Kukryniksy exhibition (Moscow)
1963
January - Rockwell Kent exhibition
June - exhibition based on the All-Union art exhibition of 1961
October - exhibition by V.I. Ivanov and P.P. Ossovsky (Moscow)
December - exhibition of new arrivals
1964
June - regional art exhibition
July - traveling exhibition of Soviet artists
1965
February - regional exhibition of amateur artists
May - exhibition "Agitokon" and military posters
August - mobile based on exhibits from the exhibition "Big Volga"
1966
March - DPI exhibition based on exhibits from the exhibition “Soviet Russia”
April – regional art exhibition for the XXIII Congress of the CPSU
June - exhibition by V.A. Favorsky and D.A. Dubinsky (Moscow)
August – exhibition of B.M. Vitomsky (Sverdlovsk) and S.V. Gerasimova (Moscow)
1967
January - exhibition based on exhibits from the exhibition “Soviet Russia”
During the year - regional art for the 50th anniversary October revolution
1968
January - Johannes Bauer exhibition
March - exhibition based on exhibits from the All-Union Exhibition of Decorative and Applied Arts
May - exhibition based on exhibits from the 3rd All-Union Printmaking Exhibition
August - exhibition of 15 watercolorists “On the Yenisei”
October - exhibition F.S. Bogorodsky (Moscow)
November - exhibition children's drawing
1969
January - exhibition of the painting “Mothers” by I.M. Novoseltsev
May - exhibition of Ukrainian graphics
August - exhibition of Valoyas Semerdzis (Greece)
September - exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of V.I. Lenin from the collections of the Russian Museum
November - traveling exhibition of Soviet artists
If you start compiling a ranking of years - which of them became the most significant in the history of mankind - then it will certainly turn out to be 1969. Because never before has a person stepped on the surface of a space object other than the Earth. To be of the same age as such an epoch-making event is a great honor, and just a pleasure. While Aldrin and Armstrong joyfully jumped on the surface of the Moon with much less gravity than the earth, the whole world lived in ordinary everyday life - worked, got tired, rested, was happy about little things, was upset over trifles, swore, lied, fought, negotiated, released the first Adidas sneakers. and Levante tights. And during the end of the world, humanity is unlikely to stop going about its normal business.
Soviet people entered the era of Brezhnev's stagnation and demonstrates real miracles, managing to fulfill and exceed the plan at work and at the same time running around the shops in search of “where they threw something away.” In almost every city apartment and village house you can hear the Beatles and Vysotsky from tape recorders, despite the complete absence of their records for sale. The intelligentsia around a tourist campfire, the working class at a beer stall, tell political jokes and put forward bold plans without any fear. Everyone knows about the power of the KGB, but also that the Committee no longer has the real Stalinist ferocity.
Despite the wars raging in the world (in which our “specialists” are also participating), despite the shortage of goods, despite the hooligans taking off their fawn hats in dark gateways, despite the low salaries, life in our country feels somehow calm, with confidence in the future day.
True, in the youth press, either in an alarming essay or in Komsomol polemics, the word “boredom” pops up. The anguish has disappeared somewhere, the publication of funny and sincere poems has disappeared. People with artistic taste appeared in the censorship. There is still room in life for exploits, but the desire to do them is gradually disappearing. Young people talk about money, wear bell-bottoms and miniskirts and think about sex.
The country is ruled by a sixty-two-year-old Secretary General Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev is still quite a young and energetic man. He is still very modest, feeling that he has a long reign ahead and everything will be done in time. His portraits are only in the offices of chiefs and at festive demonstrations. On television and in the press he is remembered only in official messages.
—A man ends up in the next world. And he meets Pushkin there. We met, talked about poetry... Suddenly Pushkin - once! - he somersaulted, and, as if nothing... A man ends up in the next world. And he meets Pushkin there. We met, talked about poetry... Suddenly Pushkin - once! - he turned somersault and, as if nothing had happened, continued the conversation. The man is surprised: - Alexander Sergeich, why are you tumbling? - Yes, I'm already used to it. This is when a joke is told about one of the dead on earth, and it turns around here.
—- Aah, I see. What are those two propellers? There was a forest near one village. Adults did not allow children to go there to pick mushrooms and berries. They said that in this forest there are half-humans, half-wolves who feed on the blood of children. But the boy and girl did not listen to the adults and went into the forest. No one noticed that the children were missing because they had no parents, and the grandmother who raised them completely forgot about them.
| 20 years have passed. The missing boy and girl returned to the village. They had their own children. They were no different from ordinary children, but they had tubes under their nails. With these nails they dug into the skin of other children and sucked blood with tubes. 0 |