Konstantin Dyachkov
Series 
Veterans of war
Vera Ivanovna Rogova, junior sergeant
“At the end of July, 1941, my friends and I approached the military commissar. He asked us: “What can you do, girls?” We could not do much, but we could shoot well, after all, each of us was a Voroshilovsky strelok (honorary title awarded for high achievements in marksmanship in USSR in 1932-41). At the time almost every teen had this title. No, he said, we do not need cannon fodder. So we were sent to a one-month nursing course, where we were taught to dress wounds. Tables, clean tools, stretchers – all was different at the front-line. You just press a shirt to the wound, put bandage on top of it and take the wounded to the medical unit.
On July 22 we were appointed to go to the First Kirovsky militia division. As soon as we jumped off of trucks, bombardment began. We were taken aback and did not know what to do. So we hid behind trees. And soldiers who had been there for a month were more experienced, so they yelled: “You, stupid, why are you hiding your heads? Don’t you care for the rest of your bodies?” They pulled us by feet to the nearest trench.
Soon we were transferred to Dubrovka, opposite Nevsky Bridge-head. On the other bank, by the crossing there was our trench. Every meter was under Germans’ control, water in Neva boiled with explosions, and night was the only time when one had a chance to cross. It was quite an ordeal to go down to the river to get water – our own mines on one side and their bombardment – on the other side. That water was not suitable for drinking, anyway. It was like gunpowder broth.
Countless number of people got killed there! Only vodka would float on water – 250-gram bottles of vodka used to be given to soldiers. At the time the norm was 100 grams of vodka or 50 grams of pure alcohol a day, to warm up and get a proper mood. Virtually all those who left for Nevsky Bridge-head died. Only a few survived. Modern historians calculated that an average soldier lived there for two full days. Every square meter accounted for eighteen dead people.
In our trench a special niche was dug out. This is where two signalers and two intelligence officers keep in touch with the Bridge-head. One of them, Kolya Zaitsev, was a year older than me, we were in school together. One day I asked him to bring wide bandages. We had special bandages for stomach wounds. As soon as he brought those, a shell got right into their niche. Everything got torn into pieces. Germans enclosed us in bracket; they opened fire on two sides, so the commander forbade me go there right away. When it calmed down a little, I crawled up there… I still have that terrible sight before my eyes: steam, blood, meat, bones, and smoke. It was difficult to overcome nausea. Two men blew up, and other two were completely covered with wounds. Kolya had a terrible stomach injury. While we tried to disentangle him from his entrails, he said to me quietly: “Vera, it turned out I brought those bandages for myself…”.
In January, 1942, I was transferred to a bridge-building battalion at the Lifeline Route to be a traffic-controller. In March, in Leningrad there was a mass draft of all girls who were still more or less strong. They were scorbutic, with sores. For five days we fed them with peas, since we had nothing else to give them. Then they got even weaker. We started giving them millet (we used to call it ‘blonde’ for a joke). Almost all men went to the front line, and only girls were left here, on ice.
The road consisted of six lanes; each of them was called a thread. One was used to take evacuees out of Leningrad, second one – to take coal and ammunition to Leningrad, third and fourth ones – for provisions, fifth one – for soldiers, and sixth one was a reserve one. The first winter was frosty, temperature dropped down to 40-50 degrees centigrade below zero. Terrible wind, ice everywhere. And when the track became thin, we – weak girls – carried water from ice-holes in teakettles, pots and helmets to pour it on track. On Lake Ladoga shearing of ice is a common thing so our girls made footbridge with hands blue from ice-cold water; they also split ice-hummocks with axes and picks. It was especially scary in times of firing and bombing, because a traffic-controller had no right to leave her post. Every day in spring we worked standing knee-deep in water, and in summer we worked as loaders. On our backs we carried 60-kilogram bags of flour to barges. We had to carry cobblestones to reinforce pier piles. But none of us complained. We knew what it was for. Equipment failed, but people did not even get sick, even though sometimes, to be honest, we really wanted to.
Something else remained in my memory. One day a truck engine died, and a young driver could not do anything with it. The column stopped. That driver dropped to his knees and cried: “Dear, please start. In Leningrad people are waiting for bread, they are starving.” He pleaded just like a child. Mechanics ran to the truck and started it, so he began to thank the truck. He laughed and cried, and even went away with tears in his eyes. I have never seen such a happy face since.
I was a Komsomol leader and often had to go to Leningrad for new membership cards. Once in a while someone would send a package with food to their family with me. Up to this day I remember dark corridors, open doors, and dead silence. I would give the package trying not to look in people’s faces. They would ask me to have a seat, get some rest. But I couldn’t, every time I would run outside thinking that staying at Lake Ladoga, on ice, under bombs was better than what they had… No electricity, no heat, no water. Plumbing did not work, so they had to take sewage outside. That winter was frosty, but as soon as the sun warmed the land in March, one day all people went outside, split piles of garbage and took it all to Fontanka River. You know, it was cleaner there than it is now in some areas.
Vera Ivanovna Rogova, junior sergeant
Sankt-Peterburg, Russia
23 march 2008
Foto ID: 0722
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