Simple Russian feat

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In Moscow, at the Partizanskaya metro station, there is a monument - an elderly bearded man in a fur coat and felt boots peering into the distance. Muscovites and guests of the capital passing by rarely bother to read the inscription on the pedestal. And after reading, they are unlikely to understand something - well, a hero, a partisan. But they could have picked someone more effective for the monument.

But the person to whom the monument was erected did not like the effects. In general, he spoke little, preferring deeds to words.

On July 21, 1858, in the village of Kurakino, Pskov province, a boy was born into the family of a serf peasant, who was named Matvey. Unlike many generations of his ancestors, the boy was a serf for less than three years - in February 1861, Emperor Alexander II abolished serfdom.

But in the life of the peasants of the Pskov province, little has changed - personal freedom did not eliminate the need to work hard day after day, year after year.

Growing up Matvey lived the same way as his grandfather and father - when the time came, he got married and had children. The first wife Natalya died in her youth, and the peasant brought a new mistress Efrosinya into the house.

In total, Matvey had eight children - two from his first marriage and six from the second.

Tsars changed, revolutionary passions thundered, and Matthew's life flowed by routine.

He was strong and healthy - the youngest daughter Lydia was born in 1918, when his father turned 60 years old.

The established Soviet power began to collect peasants into collective farms, but Matvey refused, remaining a peasant-individual farmer. Even when everyone who lived nearby joined the collective farm, Matvey did not want to change, remaining the last individual farmer in the entire area.

He was 74 years old when the authorities corrected his first official documents in his life, which read "Matvey Kuzmich Kuzmin." Until that time, everyone called him simply Kuzmich, and when he was over seventy years old, they called him grandfather Kuzmich.

Grandfather Kuzmich was an unsociable and unfriendly person, for which they called him "biryuk" and "counter-stick" behind his back.

For a stubborn unwillingness to go to a collective farm in the 30s, Kuzmich could have suffered, but the trouble passed by. Apparently, the harsh comrades from the NKVD decided that making an "enemy of the people" out of an 80-year-old peasant was too much.

In addition, grandfather Kuzmich preferred fishing and hunting to cultivating the land, in which there was a great master.

When the Great Patriotic War began, Matvey Kuzmin was almost 83 years old. When the enemy began to rapidly approach the village where he lived, many neighbors rushed to evacuate. The peasant preferred to stay with his family.

Already in August 1941, the village where grandfather Kuzmich lived was occupied by the Nazis. The new authorities, having learned about the miraculously preserved individual peasant, summoned him and offered him to become the village headman.

Matvey Kuzmin thanked the Germans for their trust, but refused - something serious, and he became deaf and blind. The Nazis considered the old man's speeches quite loyal and, as a sign of special confidence, left him his main working tool - a hunting rifle.

At the beginning of 1942, after the end of the Toropetsko-Kholmsk operation, not far from the native village of Kuzmin, units of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army took up defensive positions.

In February, a battalion of the German 1st Mountain Rifle Division arrived in the village of Kurakino. Mountain rangers from Bavaria were transferred to the area to participate in a planned counterattack, the purpose of which was to push back the Soviet troops.

The detachment based in Kurakino was tasked with secretly reaching the rear of the Soviet troops in the village of Pershino and defeating them with a sudden blow.

To carry out this operation, a local guide was needed, and the Germans again remembered Matvey Kuzmin.

On February 13, 1942, he was summoned by the commander of the German battalion, who announced that the old man should lead the Nazi detachment to Pershino. For this work, Kuzmich was promised money, flour, kerosene, as well as a luxurious German hunting rifle.

The old hunter examined the gun, appreciating the "fee" at its true worth, and replied that he agreed to become a guide. He asked to show the place where exactly the Germans need to be taken out on the map. When the battalion commander showed him the necessary area, Kuzmich noticed that there would be no difficulties, since he had hunted in these places many times.

The rumor that Matvey Kuzmin would lead the Nazis to the Soviet rear instantly flew around the village. While he was walking home, fellow villagers looked at his back with hatred. Someone even risked shouting something after him, but as soon as the grandfather turned around, the daredevil retreated - it was expensive to contact Kuzmich before, and now, when he was in favor with the Nazis, and even more so.

On the night of February 14, a German detachment led by Matvey Kuzmin left the village of Kurakino. They walked all night along paths known only to the old hunter. Finally, at dawn, Kuzmich led the Germans out to the village.

But before they had time to take a breath and turn into battle formations, heavy fire was suddenly opened on them from all sides …

Neither the Germans nor the inhabitants of Kurakino noticed that immediately after the conversation between grandfather Kuzmich and the German commander, one of his sons, Vasily, slipped out of the village towards the forest …

Vasily went to the location of the 31st separate cadet rifle brigade, reporting that he had urgent and important information for the commander. He was taken to the brigade commander, Colonel Gorbunov, to whom he told what his father ordered to convey - the Germans want to go to the rear of our troops near the village of Pershino, but he will lead them to the village of Malkino, where he must wait for an ambush.

To gain time for its preparation, Matvey Kuzmin drove the Germans along roundabout roads all night, bringing them under the fire of Soviet fighters at dawn.

The commander of the mountain rangers realized that the old man had outwitted him, and in a rage fired several bullets at his grandfather. The old hunter sank into the snow, stained with his blood …

The German detachment was completely defeated, the operation of the Nazis was thwarted, several dozen jaegers were destroyed, and some were taken prisoner. Among those killed was the commander of the detachment, who shot the guide, who repeated the feat of Ivan Susanin.

The country learned about the feat of the 83-year-old peasant almost immediately. The first to tell about him was the war correspondent and writer Boris Polevoy, who later immortalized the feat of the pilot Alexei Maresyev.

Initially, the hero was buried in his native village of Kurakino, but in 1954 it was decided to reburial the remains in the brotherly cemetery of the city of Velikiye Luki.

Another fact is surprising: the feat of Matvey Kuzmin was officially recognized almost immediately, essays, stories and poems were written about him, but for more than twenty years the feat was not awarded state awards.

Perhaps it was the fact that grandfather Kuzmich was actually nothing - not a soldier, not a partisan, but just an unsociable old hunter who showed great fortitude and clarity of mind.

But justice was done. By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 8, 1965, for courage and heroism shown in the fight against the Nazi invaders, Kuzmin Matvey Kuzmich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin.

83-year-old Matvey Kuzmin became the oldest holder of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the entire period of its existence.

If you are at the Partizanskaya station, stop at the monument with the inscription “Hero of the Soviet Union Matvey Kuzmich Kuzmin”, bow to him. Indeed, without people like him, our Motherland would not exist today.