Evening in memory of Lemar Korzilov

Scout-saboteur and one of the most famous photo chroniclers of Pridnestrovie. The Renewal party, together with the Future of Pridnestrovie Foundation, organized a portrait evening dedicated to the memory of Lemar Pavlovich Korzilov. A veteran of the Great Patriotic War, who did not like to talk about the war, loved life in all its manifestations. He photographed important events, but most of all he loved to take pictures of people. He saw beauty and something special in everyone.

Lemar Pavlovich was born in Irkutsk, but spent his youth in Moscow. Lemar Korzilov was 17 in the spring of 1941. The young man was working at one of the largest automobile factories in the Soviet capital that time. June 22 was his shift. When Lemar Pavlovich returned home in the evening, his father was no longer there; he had gone to the front. The young man himself immediately wanted to sign up as a volunteer, but he was not accepted. He had to cheat twice in order to be among the conscripts. First, together with a friend, steal registration cards from the factory, and then at the military registration and enlistment office, add a year to himself. There he was asked unexpected questions: whether he was afraid of the forest, whether he knew how to ski, or shoot. The young man honestly answered “yes” to all questions. It turned out among other things that he was a gymnast of the first adult category. So Korzilov ended up in military unit No. 9903 and became a GRU intelligence officer. He was engaged in reconnaissance deep behind Nazi lines.

All of Korzilov’s work, and even his name, were classified as “secret” even many years after the end of the Great Patriotic War. His own daughter learned only half a century later that her dad’s name was not Mikhail at all, but Lemar.

Lemar Pavlovich Korzilov did not like to remember the years spent in intelligence. He always called not war, but hard work what he had to do from September 1941 to the victorious May 1945, the job that left him with two wounds and two concussions. Lemar Pavlovich after the Great Patriotic War served in the army for another 30 years. Korzilov was transferred to the 59th Guards Motorized Rifle Division in Tiraspol after serving in the GDR. Lemar Pavlovich after the reserve returned to his favorite activity – photography.

He didn’t like being called a veteran; he was a war worker. He didn’t like to talk about the war in general. He preferred a peaceful life and peaceful photography.

His photographs of a variety of people, known to him personally and just passers-by, are a huge photo archive, a real photo chronicle. There are truly rare ones among the thousands of his photographs. As a photojournalist, Lemar Korzilov worked in the newspapers “The Dnestrovskaya Pravda”, “The Dnestrovsky Meridian”, “The Business”, “The Fatherland’s Soldier”, “The Pridnestrovie”.

Photo by the press service of the Renewal RPP