“My Great Countrymen”: Fyodor Zharchinsky and Ivan Soltys

The Obnovlenie (Renewal) party conducted excursions for young people as part of the My Great Countrymen project in Kamenka district of Pridnestrovie. Activists of the Renewal party and representatives of the “Young Patriot of Pridnestrovie” movement together with deputy of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic Ilona Tyuryaeva laid flowers at the monuments to Fyodor Zharchinsky and Ivan Soltys – Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the Great Patriotic War. This is reported by the website of the Obnovlenie party.

The initiator of the educational project “My Great Countrymen”, deputy of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic Ilona Tyuryaeva, reminded young people that the project is designed to popularize knowledge about outstanding people who glorified our region.

The 110th birthday of Fyodor Ivanovich Zharchinsky was celebrated in July, whose birthplace was the village of Rashkov, Kamenka district. Fyodor Zharchinsky was a talented teacher and director of a local school. He went through the entire war and died heroically.

Fyodor Zharchinsky and a group of scouts stumbled upon a fascist prisoner of war camp in the area of the German city of Troyenbritzen on April 21, 1945. Soviet soldiers entered into a battle with the guards and the camp commandant. The goal was achieved: 4.5 thousand prisoners were released. Zharchinsky was mortally wounded in this battle. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously on June 27, 1945.

Zharchinsky was buried in Troenbrietzen. A street and a school were named in his honor in Rashkov; a portrait sculpture of the hero was erected in the center of the village in 2011. The Fyodor Zharchinsky Museum has been operating in the village for more than 40 years. The head of the museum Olga Slivka showed the children documents, photographs, and household items telling about the life and feat of the Hero of the Soviet Union, who died at the age of 32.

They cherish the memory of other natives of the village who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War in Rashkovo. There are 372 names engraved on the slabs of the rural memorial. Many of them are repeated: there were families who received several letters of condolence during the war years, some lost all their men.

There was only one front-line veteran left in the village. Ivan Sichinsky is 101. He began his combat career in 1944. He walks to the obelisk in the center of the village and lays flowers every year on May 9.

“Children of Great Patriotic War Veterans Speak” mass event is held in Rashkov on Victory Day to preserve the memory of the war.

Ivan Soltys was born in the village of Kuzmin, Kamenka district. September 5 marked the 100th anniversary of his birth, the date was celebrated at the republican level.

The Museum in Memory of Ivan Soltys was created in his father's house during the lifetime of his parents - collective farmers Sidor Artemovich and Fevronia Grigorievna. a peasant one-room hut with a canopy and a thatched roof was completed in the 1950s and became twice as large for this purpose.

There are few exhibits here telling about the life of the heroic villager, and there is only one original photograph; there are no other originals. The head of the Soltys house-museum Olga Rakul said that all existing images of the hero are the fantasies of artists, photo reproductions, photomontages made from a photograph where Ivan is 13.

The only son in the family, Ivan Soltys received primary education and worked on a collective farm. he was part of the anti-fascist underground resistance during the period of fascist occupation. He joined the Red Army with his cousins Maxim and Emelyan after the Nazis were expelled from their native land in the spring of 1944. He took part in the liberation of right-bank Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, and fought his way to Poland.

The 548th Infantry Regiment, where Soltys served, received an order to cross the Bober River and capture the village of Luisenthal on February 11, 1945. The Red Army soldier died heroically during the operation – he closed the embrasure of the enemy pillbox, giving the unit the opportunity to complete its combat mission and advance further. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union for repeating the feat of Alexander Matrosov was awarded to Ivan Soltys posthumously on April 10, 1945.

The young people were told that Soltys was buried near the Polish city of Boleslawiec. The exact burial place of Ivan Soltys was established quite recently thanks to the work of search engines, the assistance of the representative office of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in Poland, and the authorities of the city of Boleslawiec. A memorial plate with the name and surname of the hero was installed at the mass grave, according to the website of the Renewal Republican Party.

After the excursions, the youth answered quiz questions about the heroes of the Kamenka land, the movement of resistance to fascism in this territory. The children noted that the events allowed them to expand their knowledge about the history of the region.

Photos provided by the press service of the Renewal Republican Party