Eternal memory and glory to those who defended the Motherland during the Great Patriotic War: those who fought for the people's freedom on the front lines and forged Victory in the rear. In our "Immortal Memory" column, dedicated to the Year of Military and Labor Valor in the Republic of Tatarstan, students from the Volga Region University College will recount the heroic deeds of their ancestors, who did everything possible to ensure we had peaceful skies above our heads, and will also recall important events and dates for our Motherland.
Freshman Olga Andrianova, a college student, recreated the life of her great-grandmother, Nina Vasilyevna Korotkova, who worked in the rear during the Great Patriotic War, based on stories told by her mother and grandmother.
Dedicated to my great-grandmother, Nina Vasilyevna Korotkova
A summer day. The sun shone outside, its bright rays illuminating the room of a simple village house in the village of Nizhne-Troitskoye. An eighteen-year-old girl named Nina lived there with her parents.
The whole family was busy: the father was repairing a shed in the yard, the mother and daughter were baking a pie for dinner, humming cheerfully, but suddenly their song was interrupted by the hissing of a radio sitting on the windowsill: "Citizens of the Soviet Union! Today, June 22nd, at four o'clock in the morning, without any claims against the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacking our borders in many places..."
"Mommy, how can this be?" Nina asked, raising her fear-filled eyes to her mother. "What will happen to us now?"
"Don't be afraid, my girl. We're with you, we'll protect you," Nina's mother replied, hugging her daughter with trembling arms.
"No, I won't let you go to war. How will I cope without you?"
"Daughter," Nina's father said, entering the house, "it's our duty, as your parents. A messenger just brought me a summons; I'm leaving for the front tomorrow."
Nina froze. Her mother, standing by the stove, slowly turned around—her face white, her lips pressed tightly together.
"Dad..." Nina whispered, rising from the table. "But how..."
Her father placed the gray envelope on the table and ran his hand through his hair.
"It has to be this way, daughter. There's no other way."
Dawn was already breaking through the window – leaden and merciless. News had spread throughout the village overnight: mobilization would begin at the military registration and enlistment office in the morning. People prepared silently – packing their things, writing notes, hugging each other on the threshold.
Early in the morning, barely had the sun touched the treetops, when the courtyard filled with people. A heavy silence hung in the air, broken only by whispers and muffled sobs. Everyone was heading to the military registration and enlistment office – mobilization had been underway there since dawn.
Men were crowded around the building: young and gray-haired, wearing military tunics and simple shirts. Soldiers stood by the door, checking documents, nodding curtly – and one by one, the men disappeared behind the heavy door. No one else emerged.
"Daddy's coming..." Nina whispered, clutching her mother's sleeve.
Her father, a still-strong man with wrinkles around his eyes, turned at the threshold of the military registration and enlistment office, caught his daughter's eye, nodded, and disappeared inside.
Nina clenched her fists.
"Daddy, I'll go with you!" she suddenly cried, lunging forward. "I'm young, I have so much strength! I'll be a nurse, a signalman, anything! I'll defend the Motherland! I'll take Lyubka, my friend, with me—we'll always be together, she'll support me!"
Her mother grabbed her by the shoulders, her eyes full of tears:
"My dearest, where are you going? You still have a long life to live!"
"I wouldn't waste my life for the Motherland," Nina said firmly.
She kissed her mother, hugged her father, who had just stepped out for a moment's rest, tightly, and ran to her friend.
Lyuba seemed to know Nina would come to her, so she waited at the intersection—pale, but her eyes held the same unwavering determination as Nina's. Lyuba had also seen her father off an hour earlier.
"So, shall we go?" she asked as soon as Nina approached.
"Let's go," Nina nodded. "Together."
They linked arms and quickened their pace.
At the military registration and enlistment office, they were stopped just outside the door:
"Girls, where are you going?" the duty officer asked sternly.
"We want to go to the front!" Nina blurted out. "Take us!"
"To the front?" He chuckled, but then grew serious. "How old are you?"
"I'm sixteen, she's seventeen," Lyuba replied.
The duty officer shook his head:
"Not allowed."
"But we can be nurses!" Nina insisted. "We're strong, resilient, and we'll learn quickly!"
"You'll learn at the factory," he snapped. "They're at the front there now, too. They need electricians."
"But…" Lyuba began.
"No buts." Here's the form, fill it out.
The girls exchanged glances. Nina picked up a pen and wrote her name, date, and address. Lyuba followed suit.
"Here," she handed over the sheet.
The duty officer glanced at it:
"Tomorrow at eight o'clock at the factory. You'll be electricians."
They went outside. The sun was already high in the sky, but their hearts were cold.
"So, not to the front..." Lyuba said quietly.
"But we'll still defend the Motherland," Nina replied firmly. "Just differently."
Nina walked over and hugged her friend:
"The main thing is we're alive. The main thing is we're together."
Lyuba nodded and squeezed her friend's hand.
"Together," she repeated.
And in that simple word resounded an oath—an oath of loyalty, friendship, and readiness to face the coming challenges shoulder to shoulder.
The girls were assigned to a factory in the village of Tuymazy. They began working as electricians, monitoring the plant's electrical panels, recording voltage surges, and troubleshooting minor problems. The work was unfamiliar: their hands quickly became scratched from handling components, their fingers numb from the cold, and their eyes tired from the flickering instruments. But the girls persevered—exchanging glances, encouraging each other, and sometimes even joking.
The first weeks were a continuous ordeal: they had to memorize diagrams, learn to distinguish signals, and not confuse readings. Gradually, their movements became more confident, and their hands more dexterous.
But one day after their shift, the foreman called Nina over:
"They're calling you to HR. Urgently."
Nina looked at Lyuba with alarm.
"Why?"
"I don't know. Go."
Half an hour later, Nina returned, pale, her lips pressed tightly together.
"What happened?" Lyuba asked, alarmed.
"I'm being transferred. To the cloth factory in Nizhne-Troitskoye."
"What?! And we?.."
"They said assignment. Not negotiable."
Lyuba silently squeezed her hand.
"Then we'll write letters. And meet on weekends."
"We will," Nina nodded. "I promise."
Nina couldn't sleep all night. Lyuba's face kept flashing before her eyes—so confused when she heard the news.
"How can this be?" Nina thought. "We've always been together... And now—different places, different shifts..."
In the morning, she rose before dawn. Her heart was clenched with anxiety, but she was determined: she had to pull herself together and not show weakness. She quickly gathered her few simple belongings—a change of socks, a bar of soap, a loaf of bread for the journey. She put on her padded jacket, tightened her headscarf, took a deep breath, and set out.
The sleigh ride to the village of Nizhne-Troitskoye took over an hour in winter. The horses trudged slowly along the snow-covered road, their hooves sending up sparkling snow dust. Nina looked out over the frozen fields and tried to imagine what awaited her at her new job.
The sleigh stopped right at the gates of the cloth factory. A long brick building with tall chimneys loomed before her. Wasting no time, she stepped decisively onto the factory grounds.
Nina's first day of work greeted her with the hum of machines, the acrid smell of dye houses, and the piercing cold of the workshops. There was no heat in the building—all resources were devoted to production. In the semi-darkness, girls in padded jackets and headscarves hunched over tables, cutting, sewing, and mending.
"Here's your place," the senior mistress nodded, pointing to the table by the window. "You'll be dyeing wool and repairing uniforms. Can you handle it?"
"I can," Nina replied quietly but firmly.
She set to work. She carefully applied patches, double-stitched seams, and checked every button. If the fabric could be salvaged, it was. If dyeing was necessary, she achieved an even, deep color so the coat wouldn't stand out against the snow or fade in the sun. Nina mended every item—whether a scorched quilted jacket or torn trousers—as if it were for her father. Thoughts of him never left her:
"He's there, on the front lines. And I'm here. But my work is also a battle."
The war years were a test of endurance. Life was reduced to a monotonous rhythm: rising in the dark, twelve-hour shifts, small rations, and fitful sleep. The cold penetrated to the bones, and her hands, despite the mittens, became red and rough. Hunger was a constant reminder: her stomach clenched, and her head occasionally swam with weakness. But the slogan "Everything for the front, everything for victory!" resounded here not like a poster on the wall—it was her breath, her pulse, the meaning of every day.
Nina missed her father terribly, thinking of him more and more often, hoping with all her heart that she would soon embrace him again. But one day, everything changed. Returning home, the girl found her mother in tears.
"Mommy, what's wrong? What happened?"
Without a word, the mother handed her daughter the sealed envelope. Nina took it. Her hands began to shake—barely at first, then more and more. Her gaze fell on the stern letters: "Notification of the Death of a Serviceman."
The world froze for a moment.
"No..." she whispered, but her voice was drowned out by the lump in her throat.
Her legs gave way. She collapsed into a chair, clutching the ill-fated envelope. One thought pounded in her head:
"No, no, no! It can't be that Dad's dead. It's not true."
Choking back tears, Nina clung tightly to her mother, trying to somehow control herself, but the pain of loss seemed unbearable. She wanted to scream, but couldn't make a sound. They sat like that for a long time. Only when night had thickly enveloped the room did they, tear-stained and exhausted, go to bed.
The night passed in a haze. Dreams brought no relief—only fragments of memories, her father's laughter, his strong arms lifting her high, high, the scent of the warm wool of his greatcoat. Nina woke with the first rays of the sun—not with relief, but with a heaviness that settled on her chest, strangling her breathing. Emptiness. A cold, bottomless void where the warmth of her father's love had once dwelt.
She sat up in bed. A strange face was reflected in the mirror: red eyes, trembling lips, but with a new firmness.
"Now is not the time to give up," she thought, and the words rang in her head, clear as a command. "The war is not over yet. I need to find the strength to live on."
Yesterday, she had wanted to serve at the front. She had dreamed of holding a rifle, going into battle, defending the Motherland alongside her father. But now she understood:
"This is my place. This is my calling. This is my front, and I will never leave it. I will be here to the end. For myself, for my father, for the Motherland!"
She stood up, straightened her shoulders, and put on her work coat. In her pocket, she felt the envelope—the one with the seal. She clutched it in her hand for a moment, then put it away.
It was time to go to the shop floor. To the machines. Back to work. Back to the front.
My great-grandmother is like a tuning fork for my life: I compare my actions to her decisions in difficult situations.
From the memoirs of my grandmother, Zoya Nikolaevna Krivileva
