29.04.2014  World War II veteran Vasiliy Mikheev met with volunteers at the NovSU Polytechnic School

Yesterday on 28 April, a meeting of NovSU students, future engineering workers, and Vasiliy Mikheev, the World War II veteran, honorable KGB colonel in retirement and “Public Recognition” forum laureate. The initiators were the volunteer group “Patriot.”

The “Patriot” appeared at the NovSU Polytechnic School in 2006. During recent years, volunteers have been writing down recollections of veterans (front-line soldiers, blockade participants, guerrilla warriors, people in childhood living in the wartime, participants of labor front). They have also been collecting unique matters from the Novgorodians’ private and family archives: letters from the front, photos, various records of the wartime.

Six books about the wartime were published relying on these matters: “Eternal Glory”, “We Remember, We are Proud of”, “For the Sake of Fallen and Alive”, “One Common Victory” and “We Need That Memory”. Three books are also prepared for publication: “Let the Alive Remember”, “Memory Gives Us No Rest” and “Everyone Has His Own War”.

Each of these books contains matters, written by the volunteers in association with Vasiliy Mikheev or relying on his recollections.

This time the veteran narrated new stories: about his participation in struggle against Bandera’s gangs in the Western Ukraine, how he at his investigative work with co-workers reconstructed death circumstances of Anna Kostina, Zoya Kruglova, Tatiana Markova, young Soviet scouts in the Novgorod region. In memorial of these girls, streets are agnominated by their names now. Vasiliy Mikheev  added new details to a Volot crypto organization failure, handed over his old records of these no easy matters to the volunteers.

Vasiliy  Mikheev instructed his young audience with following words: “Don’t permit yourselves to be lazy-bones, do more physical exercises, go in for sports, associate with people of different occupations and generations. The main strengths of a real man are patriotism and devotion to duty”.

The meeting was organized and held by volunteer students of the Mechanical-Energetic Department - Eugene Ukhanev, Vyacheslav Zdravomislov, and Anton Borisov.

English