“The war was a very difficult test”

Human rights activist, mathematician-programmer, close colleague of A.D. Sakharov Alexander Pavlovich Lavut and his wife Sima Borisovna Mostinskaya , graduates of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, talk about how the Great Patriotic War began and ended for them (this publication is an electronic supplement to the interview about A.D. Sakharov, TrV-81 dated June 21, 2011 G.) :

– How did you find out about the war?

A.P. Lavut: I was 12 years old. We then lived in a dacha, which we rented for the summer. It was one of the dacha villages in Pushkino or near Pushkino along the Yaroslavl road. We had just left for the dacha, I was there with my mother, and my father was in the hospital, being prepared for surgery. Typical day. I think I was riding a bicycle through the streets of the village. I heard about the war, it seems, on the street. There was a loudspeaker there, but I didn’t really realize what had happened... I remember that we immediately got ready and came to Moscow, home. Quite quickly I realized that all this was very serious and sad. At the beginning, I, like many teenagers my age, thought that it was good that there was a war, that we would quickly defeat the Nazis. But even if I had such thoughts, it was for a very short time.

I remember what surprised me then: Molotov’s speech was broadcast on the radio on the very first day, and Stalin’s speech, as everyone knows, was very late, in my opinion, only on July 3, 1941. The operation was performed on my father, who was then in the Institute of Nutrition (this was due to gastric problems) they did not do it, he was discharged from the clinic. We began to prepare to evacuate quite soon. Many were evacuated already in October 1941, when there was panic in Moscow, but we left much earlier, partly due to my father’s illness.

– How did you celebrate Victory Day?

We then lived on Solyanka. At about 3 in the morning, maybe 4, the whole city was already buzzing, we already knew, of course. I then studied English with a private teacher. Despite the anticipation of the holiday, I went to the lesson, but somehow it didn’t last long, then I went to the center and ended up on Manezhnaya Square. It was completely filled with a crowd; when there was a military man in the crowd, regardless of his rank, people grabbed him and began to shake him. At that time the American embassy was facing Manezhnaya, but it was later transferred to another location. And at that time it was located in a building next to the National Hotel, the second building from Gorky Street. Nice building, quite beautiful. And there was a long balcony, with representatives of the embassy standing on it. Someone seemed to be in military uniform. The crowd shouted "Hurray" and they said the same thing from time to time. “Long live Stalin! ...President Truman! ...Winstone Churchill!” First, out of politeness, about Stalin. And the response “Hurray!” In general, there was a very joyful atmosphere. I remember I also went to Red Square, but first I went to Manezhnaya, I remember that well.

– And this was exactly on Manezhnaya, and not on Red Square? Was it closed?

Open. There were even trams running around Red Square for some time, not to mention cars. I know this well, because from my Solyanka I went to university later, walking was the fastest way, I walked very quickly. I crossed Red Square diagonally, then Manezhnaya Square diagonally, and then it was somehow banned.

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Sima Borisovna Mostinskaya recalls:

– How did you find out about the war?

S.B. Mostinskaya: I was 12 years old. I finished 5th grade, and the war began. I came home, told what I heard on the street, and my brother said: “Someone is chatting there, and you are listening.” We lived outside the city, in Losinka, which is now part of Moscow. We had such a small apartment, departmental, from the department where dad worked. Not far from the houses there was such a hill and very good sandy soil, and they immediately began to dig a trench there. This trench was not dug very deep, probably 1 m. 50 cm, and the top was covered with boards. This was our bomb shelter. At first, in case of alarm, everyone went there, took with them small bags with documents, passports and money and sat in this sand, talking. Then, when it was lights out, everyone got out. But we only went into this hole for the first time. I can't say exactly how long, but only the first time. Then, during the alarm, everyone was already sitting at home.

And in August 1941 we evacuated the same thing from my father’s institution. Recently, part 1 of the film “Evacuation” was shown at the Sakharov Center. They promised more parts 2 and 3, but haven't shown them yet. He talks about how terrible the evacuation was, that people lost each other, a mother lost her child. Then I also read from Panova how kindergartens were evacuated from Leningrad, it’s something terrible. We didn’t have any of this because we were traveling in an organized manner.

They brought us to the city of Kirov (Vyatka), and we went there... (now the train goes there in less than a day) for five days, and not in human carriages, but in heated vehicles. There was wooden flooring and straw. The only thing I don’t remember is how our things got to Kirov. What kind of things? Only soft ones, of course: a blanket, linen. And they settled us. There was a special word for this...

A.P. Lavut suggests : Compaction.

There was some kind of school or technical school, such a good building, with pre-revolutionary walls. And everyone who came with this train put us in this building. It was a classroom, a very large room and it was divided into three parts by plywood partitions. My younger brother was also with me. Our older brothers were not with us; the eldest was in his 3rd year at university; he came running from Moscow State University when panic began there. I saw that notebooks and books were lying there, but no one from the authorities was there. And he called his father at work and he said that everyone was already evacuating, everyone was on the railway at the Yaroslavl station. The brother rushed there to look for his father. I found my father and went with this train to us in Kirov.

My father’s institution was also evacuated to Kirov, but my father soon returned to Moscow; he did not live with us for long. And my brother went to Sverdlovsk, where there was a university mechanics and mathematics department. He was in two places: in Tashkent and Sverdlovsk. And my brother went there and went to university, he was enrolled and he continued to study, but I don’t know exactly when, maybe in 1942 in winter or spring.. There is no one to ask, my brother died. Older brother, eight years older than me. ...He was called to the Academy. Zhukovsky, who was there in Sverdlovsk. Then he graduated and became a military man. But he was not a combat soldier, but an engineering unit (those white shoulder straps). And the next brother, who is closer to me in age, he came with us, but he could not sit well, and he quickly returned to Moscow. In Moscow, before the start of the war, he entered a special artillery school. So during the evacuation I was only with my younger brother. I had three brothers...

We didn’t go to school; they were all closed. One old school building was taken over as a hospital. And we didn't study at all. Then there was a new school building. A three-story building, a long wooden building, and we studied there. Then he was sent to the hospital. A lot of wounded people arrived, and we went to see them in the hospital. There was such a group, we entertained the wounded, those who could not move, those who needed to be fed. Then we sang some songs to them.

– That is, Have you been out of school for several years?

“My father kept telling me: “Don’t just sit there, study!” Take a math book and solve problems.” Well, I was lazy, but somewhere in the winter we were invited to study at some museum, in my opinion, Gorky. We started studying there. And in the spring of 1942, when the time came for exams for the 6th grade, we only had 2 exams. We wrote a dictation and decided something. In March 1943 we returned to Moscow, we had permission.

A.P. Lavut: When did you herd pigs?

– When I graduated from the 6th grade, at the age of 14 they took me to the collective farm, and I was not 14, only 13.5, because I'm September. I tell my mother: “Listen, I’m going to the collective farm,” and she: “You’re still little, don’t, stay.” “No, when I turn 14, they will come to your house and arrest you,” I said and left for the collective farm. We lived there until the end of October 1942. We ate, you don’t understand what. They left one person on duty for the household. I’m just now thinking: how did I go into the forest alone? With a large bucket I collected all sorts of mushrooms: russula, etc. We cooked a big, big pot of soup. In our unit there was a German teacher, Stefania Antonovna (I still remember her name!).

At first there was no bread. When the new harvest ripened, they began to bake us some bread. And they gave the so-called return. When the cows are milked and taken to the churns, it remains there, it looks like liquid kefir, like yogurt. This is what they ate. In the autumn of 1942, of course, it became easier, otherwise I had vitamin deficiency, such a tangle formed on my head, my hair stuck together. Everything was covered in pus, scrofula or something, as they said before, so I, a girl, had my hair cut very short, there was no medicine. And I had abscesses as big as my fingers on my hands.

– Didn’t you plant anything? Garden?

- What a prisoner! We worked first weeding, then mowing. And we pulled flax. And flax has tough, but beautiful stems with small blue flowers. Then I went to herd the pigs. (Laughs).

– How did you greet the Victory?

- Oh, I was sick. On Victory Day, I was sick and envied my little brother, who went with his dad to Moscow by train. We were already in Losinka then. And I pressed myself against the window and looked towards Moscow to at least see the glow of fireworks. But on victory day there was no parade, it was on June 24 on Red Square and my dad and I went to watch. It was raining, of course they were jubilant... Victory Day is a real holiday!

– Was the war a difficult test for you?

- Certainly!

A.P. Lavut: The fact that Sima Borisovna said that the evacuation was well organized is explained by the fact that her father worked in the People's Commissariat of Railways. So it was easier for them.

S.B. Mostinskaya: Dad had armor, but one day he was almost drafted into the army. And my mother seemed to recognize this telepathically. We lived in Kirov, dad was in Moscow, and mom said: “I’m worried, something is wrong there,” and indeed my father was called to the military registration and enlistment office and they were going to draft him into the army. And at work they were alarmed: he had a reservation, he was some kind of boss. And they returned him, although he was already in the military registration and enlistment office. And my mother felt everything that was happening to my father.

And when we returned to Moscow, I went to study at my school, and the guys in my class, of course, went ahead, I didn’t know anything about it, I started with a D in algebra (Laughs). But then I caught up. We followed Losinka to the collective farm, where we pulled carrots and cut heads of cabbage.

– Previously, children grew up quickly; at the age of 14, were you already considered adults?

Certainly! When we lived in Kirov on a collective farm, we had one teacher for 13 people. That's all! The village was very remote, we wrote letters to our parents, but very rarely.

For working on a collective farm near Kirov, they gave me two bags of rye. Dad went on a business trip to Kirov, and he was told that he needed to contact the teacher who was with us, and she actually somehow arranged these two bags. Dad brought this rye home. There was a mill nearby in Losikha, and we went to grind flour. During the war, I so dreamed of eating brew. And here I have a whole bag of rye flour. Wealth! Then I picked more carrots. I sat and studied, once you peel the carrots and chew them...