Ekaterina Demina hero of the Soviet Union interesting facts. Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina

Born on December 22, 1925 in Leningrad. Father, Mikhailov Illarion Mikhailovich (d. 1927), was the commander of the Red Army. Mother, Mikhailova Natalya, worked as a doctor, died of typhoid fever. The husband, Demin V.P., is a front-line signalman, after the war he worked as a designer. Son, Yuri (born 1953), graduated from Moscow State University, candidate of chemical sciences, works in the Russian Academy of Sciences. Granddaughters - Galina and Ekaterina.

Having lost her parents at an early age, Katya was raised in an orphanage. Before the war, she completed nine classes and nursing courses. On June 22, 1941, on the way to Brest, where she was traveling by train to visit her pilot brother, she came under bombing. Instead of Brest, she reached Smolensk on foot, came to the military registration and enlistment office and, adding two more years to her 15-year age, achieved enrollment in the Red Army and was sent to the front.

In the battles near Gzhatsk she was seriously wounded in the leg. She was treated in hospitals in the Urals and Baku. After recovery, from January 1942 she served on the military hospital ship "Red Moscow", which transported the wounded from Stalingrad to Krasnovodsk. There she was awarded the rank of chief petty officer and awarded the "Excellence in the Navy" badge for her exemplary service.

After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Katya, at her persistent request, was enrolled as a medical instructor in the 369th separate battalion of the Marine Corps, formed in February 1943 from volunteers in Baku. He was part of the Azov and then the Danube military flotillas.

With this battalion, which later received the honorary name "Kerch Red Banner", Katya Mikhailova fought through the waters and shores of the Caucasus and Crimea, the Azov and Black Seas, the Dniester and the Danube, with a liberation mission - across the lands of Romania and Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Together with the soldiers of the battalion, with a machine gun in her hands, she landed on the enemy shore, boldly entered into battle, repelled fascist counterattacks, carried the wounded from the battlefield, and provided them with first aid. She herself was wounded three times. More than once I had to make many kilometers of forced marches, dig in, and sleep in chilly weather on damp ground.

For courage and heroism during the war, Ekaterina Mikhailova was awarded many orders and medals. She received her first award - the medal "For Courage" for participating in the landing during the capture of Temryuk. First Order of the Patriotic War, II degree - for participation in the battle for Kerch with landing in a storm and breaking out of encirclement with battles and for carrying out the wounded. The first and second Orders of the Red Banner - for crossing the Dniester estuary in August 1944 and for participating in the battles for the Ilok fortress on the border of Hungary and Yugoslavia in December 1944.

There is a special story about the last two exploits. While crossing the four-kilometer Dniester estuary, the paratroopers, under hurricane fire from the Nazis, were forced to climb a steep and rocky bank literally over each other’s shoulders. The wounded fell into the water and hung on barbed wire, which was laid in seven rows under water. Katya took them off the wire, dragged them on a raincoat through ravines under fire to the shore, and stopped the bleeding. She herself was wounded in the arm, but remained in service. And in critical situations, she protected the wounded from the advancing Germans with a machine gun in her hands.

Best of the day

In the operation to capture the Ilok fortress, where the waters of the Danube, Sava and Tissa merge, the paratroopers attacked the fortress from the water, with the task of distracting the enemy from the main attack of our troops from land. Having landed from armored boats on a flooded island under the fortress, the paratroopers rushed to the walls of the citadel. The approaches to it were mined. Many sailors were blown up by mines. But neither the destructive fire of the Nazis from the fortress walls, nor attempts to encircle the landing force on boats stopped the paratroopers, and they stubbornly moved forward. And the wounded, firing back and fighting off with grenades, retreated to the shore to hide behind half-submerged trees.

During these decisive hours, while in icy water, Katya Mikhailova struck the enemy with her machine gun and provided assistance to the wounded. Being herself with a bandaged hand, she pulled away and tied the exhausted wounded to trees sticking out of the water so that they would not drown. The losses were heavy, only 13 fighters from the detachment remained alive. But the task was completed by the paratroopers, the Ilok fortress was taken by our troops.

And Chief Petty Officer Katya Mikhailova, wounded and weakened from blood loss and pneumonia, was transferred to a boat and transported to the hospital in almost hopeless condition.

After recovery, Katya returned to duty. As part of her native 369th Marine Battalion, she fought for the Imperial Bridge in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Here she celebrated the Victory on May 9, 1945.

In November 1945, Chief Petty Officer Ekaterina Mikhailova was demobilized and returned to Leningrad. In 1950 she graduated from the 2nd Leningrad Medical Institute. For 36 years she worked as a doctor, head of a special laboratory at the Minatom plant in Elektrostal, then in Moscow. She retired in 1985.

Over the years, new awards have been added to the above mentioned ones: Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medals “For the liberation of Belgrade”, “For the capture of Budapest”, “For the capture of Vienna”, “For the defense of the Caucasus”, “For victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945 "and many, many others.

In 1990, when the country celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Victory, by Decree of the President of the USSR, for heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, Ekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova (Demina - after her husband’s last name) was awarded the highest award of the Motherland - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star medals. The well-deserved reward finally found the hero. After all, Katyusha, as she was affectionately called by the naval paratroopers, was twice nominated by the command for the title of Hero back in 1944. Yes, apparently they failed to properly substantiate this idea.

Today Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina, although on a well-deserved rest, is still in “combat formation” - all in work and worries. Veteran affairs, meetings with fellow soldiers, speeches to young people, her favorite travels, especially to places of past battles and battles, and finally, caring for her grandchildren do not leave her, as they say, time for idle pastime. And now, already in old age, she remains the same for her fellow soldiers and loved ones - a young, sincere and charming Katyusha, always ready to respond to the pain of others, to come to the aid of people wounded and traumatized by this life.

Lives in Moscow.

about Demina Ekaterina
frog 10.05.2010 12:14:07

I watched a film about Katyusha on ORT on May 10... how can we raise children, especially daughters, so that they are as simple, amazingly honest, not cunning, and chaste as she is. You realize your cowardice and baseness. We are all alive because righteous people like Katyusha are alive. “The city stands with the prayers of three righteous people.” low bow, gratitude and God grant Your servant Catherine many, long and prosperous years

Katyusha... Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina (Mikhailova)
08.05.2012 05:29:03

I found a photo in my family archives from 1944 - there is a girl in a naval jacket and three brave officers... my uncle, who did not return from the war - next to Katya... I read everything that is on the internet about her, about the combat path of a separate Marine battalion... I remembered everything that I heard in the family from adults in early childhood... that my aunt corresponded with the nurse in whose arms at the time of the battle near Ilok while bandaging from a stray bullet Junior Lieutenant Pavel Eliseev died... The reality and severity of those events have not been smoothed over by time. I am happy that I can now congratulate Ekaterina Illarionovna on Great Victory Day, convey a low bow to her from my family, from my son Pavel, and wish her health for many more years to come. And ask forgiveness for human grievances...
Thank you for the Great Victory! The poems came together for you by themselves...

With a low bow and gratitude - Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina (Mikhailova)
08.05.2012 05:54:29

Come on, let's not be sad, sister... Everything is the same as many years ago,
The clear lark is ringing under the sky, And even the clouds promise sunshine...
And the waves of the Black Sea are becoming quieter, the days of alarming battles continue...
Now your brothers won’t hear “Katyusha” that you sing almost without words...
Come on, let's not be sad, sister... Smile like you did many years ago,
And sing your “Katyusha” loudly and loudly!.. and remember - Pavel Eliseev would be glad
Sing with you and spin in a waltz, And celebrate the May fireworks!...
...The icy Danube water is forever your memory and sadness... And yet -
Let's not be sad, sister... Look how many years ago -
Spring victorious lightning thunders with fireworks for YOUR exploits!!!.........

With a deep bow to Ekaterina Illarionovna
16.05.2012 05:30:56

For many years now, together with my classmates, we have been going to Red Square on May 9th to pay tribute to our dear veterans... This year we got together again, bought flowers and went to the city center. It is an incomparable feeling to say such a simple word “Thank you!”, to shake the hand of a person, thanks to whose courage and bravery we are now alive.
That day we met many people who fought for our Motherland, but one grandmother left an indelible impression! It was she, Ekaterina Illarionovna, Katyusha, as the sailors affectionately call her... Even now it’s hard to call this persistent, brave, little woman, a war hero, a war hero who carried her comrades on her shoulders, charging everyone around with energy, a grandmother!
Dear Ekaterina Illarionovna, dear Katyusha, we want to express our gratitude to you for your exploits, for your dedication, for your courage! Thank you for the short half hour of time that we were lucky enough to spend next to you. The memory of meeting you will remain with me forever.

Long life to you, the same inexhaustible energy and health to you and your loved ones!
With a deep bow...

Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina (Mikhailova) Born on December 22, 1925 in Leningrad. Having lost her parents in early childhood, she was raised in an orphanage. She graduated from 9 classes of secondary school and nursing courses of the Russian Red Cross Society. In 1941, from the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, adding another 2 years to 15, she joined the Red Army and went to the front. In the battles near Gzhatsk she was seriously wounded in the leg. She was treated in hospitals in the Urals and Baku. After recovery, from January 1942 she served on the military hospital ship "Red Moscow", which transported the wounded from Stalingrad to Krasnovodsk. There she was awarded the rank of chief petty officer and awarded the "Excellence in the Navy" badge for her exemplary service. After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Katya, at her persistent request, was enrolled as a medical instructor in the 369th separate battalion of the Marine Corps, formed in February 1943 from volunteers in Baku. He was part of the Azov and then the Danube military flotillas. With this battalion, which later received the honorary name "Kerch Red Banner", Katya Mikhailova fought through the waters and shores of the Caucasus and Crimea, the Azov and Black Seas, the Dniester and the Danube, with a liberation mission - across the lands of Romania and Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Austria. Together with the soldiers of the battalion, with a machine gun in her hands, she landed on the enemy shore, boldly entered into battle, repelled fascist counterattacks, carried the wounded from the battlefield, and provided them with first aid. She herself was wounded three times. More than once I had to make many kilometers of forced marches, dig in, and sleep in chilly weather on damp ground. For courage and heroism during the war, Ekaterina Mikhailova was awarded many orders and medals. She received her first award - the medal "For Courage" for participating in the landing during the capture of Temryuk. First Order of the Patriotic War, II degree - for participation in the battle for Kerch with landing in a storm and breaking out of encirclement with battles and for carrying out the wounded. Order of the Red Banner - for crossing the Dniester estuary in August 1944 and for participating in the battles for the Ilok fortress on the border of Hungary and Yugoslavia in December 1944. There is a special story about the last two exploits. While crossing the four-kilometer Dniester estuary, the paratroopers, under hurricane fire from the Nazis, were forced to climb a steep and rocky bank literally over each other’s shoulders. The wounded fell into the water and hung on barbed wire, which was laid in seven rows under water. Katya took them off the wire, dragged them on a raincoat through ravines under fire to the shore, and stopped the bleeding. She herself was wounded in the arm, but remained in service. And in critical situations, she protected the wounded from the advancing Germans with a machine gun in her hands. In the operation to capture the Ilok fortress, where the waters of the Danube, Sava and Tissa merge, the paratroopers attacked the fortress from the water, with the task of distracting the enemy from the main attack of our troops from land. Having landed from armored boats on a flooded island under the fortress, the paratroopers rushed to the walls of the citadel. The approaches to it were mined. Many sailors were blown up by mines. But neither the destructive fire of the Nazis from the fortress walls, nor attempts to encircle the landing force on boats stopped the paratroopers, and they stubbornly moved forward. And the wounded, firing back and fighting off with grenades, retreated to the shore to hide behind half-submerged trees. During these decisive hours, while in icy water, Katya Mikhailova struck the enemy with her machine gun and provided assistance to the wounded. Being herself with a bandaged hand, she pulled away and tied the exhausted wounded to trees sticking out of the water so that they would not drown. The losses were heavy, only 13 fighters from the detachment remained alive. But the task was completed by the paratroopers, the Ilok fortress was taken by our troops. And Chief Petty Officer Katya Mikhailova, wounded and weakened from blood loss and pneumonia, was transferred to a boat and transported to the hospital in almost hopeless condition. After recovery, Katya returned to duty. As part of her native 369th Marine Battalion, she fought for the Imperial Bridge in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Here she celebrated the Victory on May 9, 1945. In November 1945, Chief Petty Officer Ekaterina Mikhailova was demobilized and returned to Leningrad. In 1950 she graduated from the 2nd Leningrad Medical Institute. For 36 years she worked as a doctor, head of a special laboratory at the Minatom plant in Elektrostal, then in Moscow. She retired in 1985. Over the years, new awards have been added to the above-mentioned awards: Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medals: “For the liberation of Belgrade”, “For the capture of Budapest”, “For the capture of Vienna”, “For the defense of the Caucasus”, “For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War” war 1941 - 1945" and many, many others. In 1990, when the country celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Victory, by Decree of the President of the USSR, for heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, Ekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova (Demina - after her husband’s last name) was awarded the highest award of the Motherland - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star medals. The well-deserved reward finally found the hero. After all, Katyusha, as she was affectionately called by the naval paratroopers, was twice nominated by the command for the title of Hero back in 1944. Yes, apparently they failed to properly substantiate this idea. Biographical information about E.I. Demina (Mikhailova) was taken from the website www.warheroes.ru On the eve of the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Victory - April 15 of this year. – in gymnasium No. 1519 of the North-Western Administrative District of Moscow, a joyful event took place - the ceremony of presenting duplicate awards to the Hero of the Soviet Union Ekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova (Demina), in replacement of the lost ones.

Hero of the USSR - Ekaterina Demina. The girl is a combat sailor, paratrooper, hero of the flotilla, favorite of the sailors! She went through the fire and water of frantic battles on the Azov and Black Sea coasts, on the shallows of the Dniester estuary, on the banks of the Danube. The case is very rare, especially since there has always been a traditional prejudice against women in the navy.

Childhood

She was only 14 when the war began. Of the relatives, only his brother is alive. Katya was going to visit him on vacation. In the middle of the night, the Nazis attacked a train in which there were many women with infants. Most of them died. She firmly decided to go to the front. Having reached Smolensk on foot after the bombing, I immediately went to the military registration and enlistment office.

Since childhood, Katya dreamed of the sea, of serving on ships.

During the war years

Together with the soldiers of the battalion, she entered into battle, repelled enemy counterattacks, carried the wounded from the battlefield, and provided them with first aid. She was seriously wounded near Gzhatsk.

Katyusha was prepared for amputation of her legs, but she flatly refused

She was sent for rehabilitation to Baku. There she began to ask to go to the front again. “We’ll send you to Stalingrad, on the military ambulance ship Red Moscow,” said the military commissar. This is how Katya ended up in the navy.

Hero - Marine

At Stalingrad we took away the wounded - burnt out tank crews and pilots. Sometimes they looked like mummies made of bandages, only their eyes and mouth were visible. We spoon-fed them...

during one duty she cared for 900 wounded

Katya was transferred to the 369th Marine Battalion, with which she fought through the waters and shores of the Caucasus and Crimea, the Azov and Black Seas, the Dniester and the Danube, and on the ground - Romania and Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Austria.
When crossing the Dniester estuary, she was one of the first to reach the shore as part of the landing force.

Provided assistance to 17 seriously wounded sailors, suppressed machine gun fire, threw grenades at the bunker, and destroyed over 10 Nazis

In the operation to capture the port of Prahovo, being wounded, she continued to provide medical assistance to the soldiers and, protecting their lives, fired at enemy positions. Weakened from blood loss and pneumonia, Katya was transported to the hospital.
Back in 1944, Katyusha was twice nominated by the command for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But she was awarded the award only in May 1990.

Awarded:

- Medal “For Courage” (October 31, 1943),
- two Orders of the Red Banner (27.09.1944, 8.03.1945),
- Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree (02/15/1944),
- Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (03/11/1985),
- Medal “For the Liberation of Belgrade”,
- medal “For the capture of Budapest”,
- medal “For the capture of Vienna”,
- medal “For the Defense of the Caucasus”,
- Florence Nightingale Medal (from the Red Cross, awarded to nurses for exceptional dedication and courage in providing care to the wounded and sick, both in war and in peacetime). In total, in almost 100 years, only 48 women of the USSR (Russia) were awarded

Little known facts

• Ekaterina Demina (before she married Mikhailov) was an orphan, raised in an orphanage
• Katya went to war at the age of 14, giving herself two years of age.
• Having once complained to Stalin himself that she was not accepted as a sailor, she received permission from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to serve on a warship.
• In 2008, Ekaterina Demina was robbed by scammers (unknown women stole 80 thousand rubles and the hero’s military awards from the apartment)

  In our time

  
  Ekaterina Demina at the Victory Parade in Moscow

  Lives in Moscow. He is a member of the Russian Committee of War Veterans, the All-Russian Council of War and Labor Veterans.
  In 1964, director Viktor Lisakovich made a documentary film “Katyusha” about her, based on a script by Sergei Smirnov, which was awarded the “Golden Dove of Peace” prize at the Leipzig International Film Festival.
  In 2008, a documentary film “Big and Small Katyusha” was shot, restoring the events of 1964, when the first documentary about Demina was shot (the film’s authors were Tkachev and Firsova).
  After the death of Evdokia Borisovna Pasko (December 30, 1919 - January 27, 2017), she is the world's last female Hero of the Soviet Union - a participant in the Great Patriotic War.

  In literature

  One of the chapters of Smirnov Sergei Sergeevich’s amazing book “Stories about Unknown Heroes” (Katyusha)

Born on December 22, 1925 in Leningrad. Father, Mikhailov Illarion Mikhailovich (d. 1927), was the commander of the Red Army. Mother, Mikhailova Natalya, worked as a doctor, died of typhoid fever. The husband, Demin V.P., is a front-line signalman, after the war he worked as a designer. Son, Yuri (born 1953), graduated from Moscow State University, candidate of chemical sciences, works in the Russian Academy of Sciences. Granddaughters - Galina and Ekaterina.

Having lost her parents at an early age, Katya was raised in an orphanage. Before the war, she completed nine classes and nursing courses. On June 22, 1941, on the way to Brest, where she was traveling by train to visit her pilot brother, she came under bombing. Instead of Brest, she reached Smolensk on foot, came to the military registration and enlistment office and, adding two more years to her 15-year age, achieved enrollment in the Red Army and was sent to the front.

In the battles near Gzhatsk she was seriously wounded in the leg. She was treated in hospitals in the Urals and Baku. After recovery, from January 1942 she served on the military hospital ship "Red Moscow", which transported the wounded from Stalingrad to Krasnovodsk. There she was awarded the rank of chief petty officer and awarded the "Excellence in the Navy" badge for her exemplary service.

After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Katya, at her persistent request, was enrolled as a medical instructor in the 369th separate battalion of the Marine Corps, formed in February 1943 from volunteers in Baku. He was part of the Azov and then the Danube military flotillas.

With this battalion, which later received the honorary name "Kerch Red Banner", Katya Mikhailova fought through the waters and shores of the Caucasus and Crimea, the Azov and Black Seas, the Dniester and the Danube, with a liberation mission - across the lands of Romania and Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Together with the soldiers of the battalion, with a machine gun in her hands, she landed on the enemy shore, boldly entered into battle, repelled fascist counterattacks, carried the wounded from the battlefield, and provided them with first aid. She herself was wounded three times. More than once I had to make many kilometers of forced marches, dig in, and sleep in chilly weather on damp ground.

For courage and heroism during the war, Ekaterina Mikhailova was awarded many orders and medals. She received her first award - the medal "For Courage" for participating in the landing during the capture of Temryuk. First Order of the Patriotic War, II degree - for participation in the battle for Kerch with landing in a storm and breaking out of encirclement with battles and for carrying out the wounded. The first and second Orders of the Red Banner - for crossing the Dniester estuary in August 1944 and for participating in the battles for the Ilok fortress on the border of Hungary and Yugoslavia in December 1944.

There is a special story about the last two exploits. While crossing the four-kilometer Dniester estuary, the paratroopers, under hurricane fire from the Nazis, were forced to climb a steep and rocky bank literally over each other’s shoulders. The wounded fell into the water and hung on barbed wire, which was laid in seven rows under water. Katya took them off the wire, dragged them on a raincoat through ravines under fire to the shore, and stopped the bleeding. She herself was wounded in the arm, but remained in service. And in critical situations, she protected the wounded from the advancing Germans with a machine gun in her hands.

In the operation to capture the Ilok fortress, where the waters of the Danube, Sava and Tissa merge, the paratroopers attacked the fortress from the water, with the task of distracting the enemy from the main attack of our troops from land. Having landed from armored boats on a flooded island under the fortress, the paratroopers rushed to the walls of the citadel. The approaches to it were mined. Many sailors were blown up by mines. But neither the destructive fire of the Nazis from the fortress walls, nor attempts to encircle the landing force on boats stopped the paratroopers, and they stubbornly moved forward. And the wounded, firing back and fighting off with grenades, retreated to the shore to hide behind half-submerged trees.

During these decisive hours, while in icy water, Katya Mikhailova struck the enemy with her machine gun and provided assistance to the wounded. Being herself with a bandaged hand, she pulled away and tied the exhausted wounded to trees sticking out of the water so that they would not drown. The losses were heavy, only 13 fighters from the detachment remained alive. But the task was completed by the paratroopers, the Ilok fortress was taken by our troops.

And Chief Petty Officer Katya Mikhailova, wounded and weakened from blood loss and pneumonia, was transferred to a boat and transported to the hospital in almost hopeless condition.

After recovery, Katya returned to duty. As part of her native 369th Marine Battalion, she fought for the Imperial Bridge in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Here she celebrated the Victory on May 9, 1945.

In November 1945, Chief Petty Officer Ekaterina Mikhailova was demobilized and returned to Leningrad. In 1950 she graduated from the 2nd Leningrad Medical Institute. For 36 years she worked as a doctor, head of a special laboratory at the Minatom plant in Elektrostal, then in Moscow. She retired in 1985.

Over the years, new awards have been added to the above mentioned ones: Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medals “For the liberation of Belgrade”, “For the capture of Budapest”, “For the capture of Vienna”, “For the defense of the Caucasus”, “For victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945 "and many, many others.

In 1990, when the country celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Victory, by Decree of the President of the USSR, for heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, Ekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova (Demina - after her husband's last name) was awarded the highest award of the Motherland - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star medals. The well-deserved reward finally found the hero. After all, Katyusha, as she was affectionately called by the naval paratroopers, was twice nominated by the command for the title of Hero back in 1944. Yes, apparently they failed to properly substantiate this idea.

Today Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina, although on a well-deserved rest, is still in “combat formation” - all in work and worries. Veteran affairs, meetings with fellow soldiers, speeches to young people, her favorite travels, especially to places of past battles and battles, and finally, caring for her grandchildren do not leave her, as they say, time for idle pastime. And now, already in old age, she remains the same for her fellow soldiers and loved ones - a young, sincere and charming Katyusha, always ready to respond to the pain of others, to come to the aid of people wounded and traumatized by this life.

War does not have a feminine face, but when the enemy attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, even young girls stood up to defend their Motherland. One of them, Ekaterina Illarionovna Demina (Mikhailova), went to the front as a 15-year-old teenager. She enlisted in the Marine Corps, where she distinguished herself and became a Hero of the Soviet Union.

“The Germans found out that among the sailors there was only one girl: there was a village nearby and there was only a well with fresh water, I went there, began to draw water, and then a shot was fired and a German came out, I began to explain to him that water was needed, the wounded and all that, he has something in his own way, in short, the language barrier, I point at myself and say “Katyusha”, the German melted, pulled out a harmonica, began to play “apple trees and pears were blooming...” and dance, and I slowly She went to ours with buckets, he did not shoot, then the orderlies went for water and the Germans, saying “Katyusha, Katyusha...”, helped them get water. And when the fighting subsided, they shouted from the trenches:

Russian sailor! Rus Ivan! Show me Katyusha! Shoot - no.

And they really didn’t shoot, but waved their arms and played “Katyusha came ashore” on the harmonica.