Konstantin Nedorubov: a super-Cossack who went through three wars

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

Cossack Konstantin Nedorubov was a complete knight of St. George, received a personal saber from Budyonny, became a Hero of the Soviet Union even before the 1945 Victory Parade. He wore his Golden Star of the Hero along with the "royal" crosses.

Khutor Rubizhny

Konstantin Iosifovich Nedorubov was born on May 21, 1889. The place of his birth is the hamlet of Rubezhny, the village of Berezovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district of the region of the Don army (today it is the Danilovsky district of the Volgograd region).

The village of Berezovskaya was indicative. It had a population of 2524 people, it included 426 households. There was a magistrate, a parish school, medical centers, and two factories: a tannery and a brick one. There was even a telegraph office and a savings bank.

Konstantin Nedorubov received his primary education at a parish school, studied literacy, numeracy, and listened to the lessons of the Law of God. For the rest, he received a traditional Cossack education: from childhood he went on horseback and knew how to handle weapons. This science was useful to him in life more than school lessons.

Full bow

Konstantin Nedorubov was drafted into service in January 1911, got into the 6th hundred of the 15th cavalry regiment of the 1st Don Cossack division. His regiment was stationed in Tomashov in the Lublin province. By the beginning of the First World War, Nedorubov was a junior sergeant and commanded a half-platoon of regimental scouts.

The 25-year-old Cossack earned his first George a month after the start of the war - Nedorubov, along with his Don scouts, burst into the location of the German battery, took prisoners and six guns.

The second George "touched the chest" of the Cossack in February 1915. Making a solo reconnaissance not far from Przemysl, the sergeant came across a small farm, where he found the Austrians sleeping. Nedorubov decided not to delay, waiting for reinforcements, threw a grenade into the courtyard and began to imitate a desperate battle with his voice and shots. From the German language, he is nothing but "Hyundai hoh!" I didn't know, but that was enough for the Austrians. Sleepy, they began to leave their houses with their hands up. So Nedorubov brought them along the winter road to the location of the regiment. The prisoners turned out to be 52 soldiers and one lieutenant.

The third George was given to the Cossack Nedorubov "for unparalleled courage and courage" during the Brusilov breakthrough.

Then Nedorubov was mistakenly handed another Georgy 3rd degree, but after that, in the corresponding order for the 3rd Cavalry Corps, his surname and the entry "St. George's Cross of the 3rd degree No. 40288" are crossed out, and "No. 7799 2 degree "and reference:" Cm. order for building number 73, 1916 ".

Finally, Konstantin Nedorubov became a full Knight of St. George when, together with his Cossack scouts, he seized the headquarters of the German division, obtained important documents and captured the German infantry general - its commander.

In addition to the St. George crosses, Konstantin Nedorubov was also awarded two St. George medals for courage during the First World War. He ended this war with the rank of auxiliary corpsman.

White and red commander

The Cossack Nedorubov did not have to live long without war, but until the summer of 1918 he did not join either the Whites or the Reds in the Civil War. On June 1, he nevertheless entered, along with other Cossacks of the village, into the 18th Cossack regiment of Ataman Pyotr Krasnov.

However, the war “for whites” did not last long for Nedorubov. Already on July 12, he was taken prisoner, but was not shot.

On the contrary, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and became a squadron commander in the cavalry division of Mikhail Blinov, where other Cossacks fought side by side with him, who went over to the side of the Reds.

Blinovskaya cavalry division showed itself in the most difficult sectors of the front. For the famous defense of Tsaritsyn, Budyonny personally presented Nedorubov with a personal saber. For the battles with Wrangel, the Cossack was awarded red revolutionary trousers, although he was presented to the Order of the Red Banner, but did not receive it because of his too heroic biography in the tsarist army. Received Nedorubov in the Civil and wounded, machine-gun, in the Crimea. The Cossack carried a bullet stuck in a lung until the end of his life.

Prisoner of Dmitlag

After the Civil War, Konstantin Nedorubov held positions "on the ground", in April 1932 he became the foreman of the collective farm in the Bobrov farm.

He did not have a quiet life even here. In the fall of 1933, he was convicted under Article 109 "for the loss of grain in the field." Nedorubov and his assistant Vasily Sutchev got under the distribution. They were "to a heap" accused not only of stealing grain, but also of spoiling agricultural implements, and sentenced to 10 years in labor camps.

In Dmitrovlag, at the construction site of the Moscow-Volga canal, Nedorubov and Sutchev worked as best they could, but they could do it well, they could not do otherwise. The construction site was handed over ahead of schedule on July 15, 1937. Nikolay Yezhov took over the work personally. The leaders received amnesty.

After the camp, Konstantin Nedorubov worked as the head of the equestrian post station, before the war itself - the manager of the machine testing station.

I know how to fight them

When the Great Patriotic War began, Nedorubov was 52 years old, he was not subject to the draft because of his age. But the Cossack hero could not stay at home.

When the consolidated Don Cavalry Cossack division began to form in the Stalingrad region, the NKVD dismissed Nedorubov's candidacy - they remembered both the merits in the tsarist army and the criminal record.

Then the Cossack went to the First Secretary of the Berezovsky District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Ivan Shlyapkin, and said: “I'm not asking for a cow, but I want to shed blood for my homeland! Young people die in thousands, because they are inexperienced! I won four St. George's crosses in the war with the Germans, I know how to fight them."

Ivan Shlyapkin insisted that Nedorubov be taken into the militia. Under personal responsibility. At the time, it was a very bold step.

Conspirated

In mid-July, the Cossack regiment, in which Nedorubov's hundred fought, for four days repelled the attempts of the Germans to force the Kagalnik River in the Peshkovo area. After that, the Cossacks drove the enemy out of the farms of Zadonsky and Aleksandrovka, destroying one and a half hundred Germans.

Nedorubov especially distinguished himself in the famous Kushchevskaya attack. His award list states: "Once surrounded by the village of Kushchevskaya, fire from machine guns and hand grenades, together with his son, destroyed up to 70 fascist soldiers and officers."

For the battles in the area of the village of Kushchevskaya on October 26, 1943, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Konstantin Iosifovich Nedorubov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In this battle, Nikolai, the son of Konstantin Nedorubov, received 13 wounds during a mortar attack and lay covered with earth for three days. The Cossacks Matryona Tushkanova and Serafima Sapelnyak carried Nikolai to the hut at night, washed and bandaged the wounds and left. That his son was still alive, Konstantin Nedorubov learned much later, but now he fought with redoubled courage for his son.

Hero

At the end of August 1942, Nedorubov's hundred destroyed 20 vehicles of the rear column with military equipment and about 300 fascists. On September 5, in the battle for height 374, 2 near the village of Kurinsky, Apsheronsky district, Krasnodar Territory, the Cossack Nedorubov single-handedly approached the mortar battery, threw grenades at it and destroyed the entire mortar crew from the PPSh. He himself was wounded, but did not leave the regiment's location.

On October 16, near the village of Martuki, a hundred of Nedorubov repelled four attacks of the SS in a day and almost all of them died on the battlefield. Lieutenant Nedorubov received 8 bullet wounds and ended up in a Sochi hospital, then in Tbilisi, where the commission ruled that the Cossack was unfit for further service for health reasons.

Then, returning to his native village, he learned about the awarding of the Hero's Star and that his son Nikolai was alive.

Of course, he did not stay at home. He returned to the front and in May 1943 took command of the squadron of the 41st Guards Regiment of the 11th Guards Cavalry Division of the 5th Guards Don Cossack Corps.

He fought in Ukraine and Moldova, Romania and Hungary. In December 1944, in the Carpathians, already in the rank of guard captain, Konstantin Iosifovich Nedorubov was again wounded. This time he was finally discharged.

On his 80th birthday, the authorities gave the old Cossack a house, he was the first to have a TV in the village, but the role of Konstantin Nedorubov, "treated kindly with honors" with a heavy poker, wielding it like a lance.

The Cossack died in December 1978, half a year before his 90th birthday. He left - except for Nicholas - a son, George and a daughter, Maria.