The museum exposition tells about the feat of a courageous Cossack woman who lost nine sons on the fronts of the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars. The idea of creating a unique museum arose in 1963, in 1970 it was opened in a building specially built for it, and in 1975 it became a branch of the Krasnodar Museum-Reserve named after E.D Felitsyn.

The museum presents several exhibitions:

“The Greatness and Pain of the Stepanov Family” will introduce visitors to the high destinies of the legendary mother and her nine sons, who laid their heads on the altar of the Motherland. In the hall there are display cases with personal belongings and photographic documents of the Stepanov family; in the center of the exhibition are nine ruby bells, like nine drops of blood on a mother’s heart. The busts of the Stepanov brothers located along the wall by sculptor Vladimir Zhdanov complement and enrich the perception.
“History and Culture of Kuban” will introduce visitors in detail to the history and culture of the Kuban Cossacks from the moment of resettlement of the Cossacks to the present day. Connection with modernity, veneration of the holy traditions of the Cossacks, rituals and customs - this is not a complete list of sections of a fascinating Cossack tour of the museum. The exhibition reflects the events of the Civil War, which reflected pain not only in the fate of the Cossacks, but also the Stepanov family - the eldest son, Sasha, died. The hall contains the forge of the heroes’ father, Mikhail Stepanov. The Stepanovs were craftsmen; any rural craft was in their hands.
“Heroes of the Land of Timashevskaya” touches not only on the history of his native city. Timashevites fought on many fronts of the Motherland, defending the Fatherland at the cost of their lives. Among them is the glorious son of Kuban, Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexander Stepanov. The sections of the exhibition reflect the following themes: “Timashchevites during the Second World War”, “Young prisoners of concentration camps”, “Home front workers”, “Women - participants of the Second World War”, Roads of Victory.”
Exposition “Fauna of the Krasnodar Region” - The exhibition presents stuffed animal species of our region, many of which are included in the Red Book. This means that they are rare and endangered species that need human protection. In order to reliably protect animals and birds, you need to learn as much as possible about them and their lives.

Memorial courtyard of the Stepanov family located in a picturesque steppe corner near the village of Dneprovskaya on the Pervo Maya farm (today the Olkhovsky farm), where the family lived from 1939 to 1964. The “Slavic Dwelling” hall is located in the administrative building of the farmstead, and visitors can get acquainted with “The Life and Life of the Stepanov Family” in the hut itself, in which the furnishings of the pre-war years have been preserved - objects of peasant life and everyday life.

The Great Patriotic War brought grief to every home, breaking hearts and families. The embodiment of all mother-heroines is Epistinia Stepanova. The war took away 9 sons from this woman. At Epistinia Fedorovna's...

The Great Patriotic War brought grief to every home, breaking hearts and families. The embodiment of all mother-heroines is Epistinia Stepanova. The war took away 9 sons from this woman.

Epistinia Fedorovna (1874 - 1969) and Mikhail Nikolaevich (1873 - 1933) Stepanov gave birth to 15 children, but only 9 sons and a daughter survived. The civil war also took the adult Alexander from his mother. Later, Fedor died on the Khalkhin Gol River during a battle with the Japanese.

The Stepanov family lived in the Kuban farm, from there the mother saw off the children on their last journey, ready to fight for the freedom of their country.
Epistinia Feodorovna followed each of her little bloods with her gaze until he disappeared from sight. That's how she remembered them - leaving. The only person my mother saw returning was Nikolai, who died in 1963 from wounds received at the front.

During the difficult years of the war, the sons wrote to their mother in rare letters with love, warmth and tenderness. They talked about faith in victory, about returning home soon, about loyalty to the oath and hatred of the enemy. Later no letters arrived at all. In 1943, the youngest son Alexander, who was only twenty years old, died heroically. Little finger, as his family called him, went to the front as a junior lieutenant, immediately after graduating from military school. Being a commander who lost all his soldiers near the village of Selishche, Alexander went out to the Nazis with a grenade. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the USSR.

While defending the Brest Fortress, Pavel (1919-1941) went missing, Vasily (1908 - 1943), being a scout, died near Dnepropetrovsk, Philip (1910 - 1945) was tortured to death in a concentration camp, Ilya (1917 - 1943) died on Kursk Bulge, Ivan (1915 - 1943) died on Belarusian soil, where he was buried in a common grave.
The mother for a long time refused the thought of the death of her beloved children, she believed that they were alive, but did not have the opportunity to send news. Epistinia Feodorovna was waiting for letters from her sons, but funerals arrived.

After the war, the heroic Stepanov family became known throughout the country. Marshal of the USSR A.A. Grechko and Army General A.A. Epischev addressed Epiphania Fedorovna in 1966 in a letter with words of gratitude and sorrow.

A museum named after the Stepanov brothers or the Russian mother, as it was popularly dubbed, was opened in Kuban. Here the unfortunate mother brought personal belongings and letters from her sons - all of this is imbued with tenderness and maternal love.

A book was written about Epiphania Fedorovna Stepanova herself, and a museum named after her was opened. While the mother-heroine was still alive, a documentary film was made about her, which can be seen in the museum. This picture does not shine with special effects and directorial inventions, but it is deeper and stronger. In the film, a small woman, just over 90, wears a white scarf tied on her head in a country style. In a quiet voice, filled with the torture of loss, she talks about her sons. About how they grew up in their father’s house, about the carefree time when they gave love to their children. These memories transform a woman, as if making her younger and more alive. But then her voice breaks off and everyone who heard this confession is filled with the unbearable pain of maternal grief and the suffering of loss.

Epistinia Feodorovna never visited the graves of Paul, Philip and Vasily, and did not wash the earth over her children with tears.
On February 7, 1969, the mother-heroine herself passed away.
In the village of Dneprovskaya there is the grave of an unforgettable mother, where people constantly go, carrying flowers and candles, expressing their respect and grief. The epitaph reads: “You who lived valiantly, who crushed death, the memory of you will never die!”

Every family has its own story. But there are still special stories that make your heart ache. Today there are two of them. The first gives faith in the strength of man and in good fortune. This is exactly the story of the Ukrainian Lysenko family, in which ten sons went to the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. They left to return with victory. The second is about the Kuban peasant woman Epistinia Stepanovna, who laid on the altar of Victory the most precious thing she had - the lives of her nine sons.

In the 1930s, the Lysenko family lived in the Ukrainian village of Brovakhi near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. Over the years, Makar Nazarovich and his wife Evdokha had sixteen children - 5 daughters and 11 sons.

The father and mother managed to save all their children in the most difficult years, leading them all through illness and hunger alive. In 1933, Evtukh, one of the sons, in search of a better life, went to work in Kyiv, lost sight of him, lost contact with his family and died somewhere. My father died at the beginning of 1940. And when the Great Patriotic War began, ten sons left their mother’s house to go to the front: Khtodos, Petro, Ivan, Vasil, Mikhailo, Stepan, Nikolai, Pavlo, Andrey and Alexander. Mother's prayer saved the children: all 10 sons of Evdokia Lysenko returned alive!

The first to return in 1944 was his son Nikolai. He miraculously survived the battle in which he lost all his comrades. Before the war, he was a tractor driver, and before going to the front, he had to survive the German camps in Korsun and Kyiv. And every time he ran away - home, to his mother, to his native land. In the fall of 1943, many people were gathered in a huge barn in Darnitsa, but they didn’t have time to destroy them - Soviet troops came. Then Nikolai stood at the gun and went to the West.

Stepan took his first fight near Smolensk. He was a tank driver, although without a tank - at the beginning of the war there weren’t enough tanks for everyone. He was taken out of that battle 2 weeks later with a serious wound to the head. He spent 1.5 years in the hospital and returned to his 83rd Guards Tank Division. And when the war ended, he went to finish off the Nazis in the Far East. He returned home in 1947.

Pavlo Lysenko, for whom the war began near Korsun, also returned home only in 1947. After the end of the war, he had business in the Carpathians - in the ranks of the Red Army he cleared forests for Bandera’s followers. And when I came home, my mother didn’t recognize me. At that time, recruits who were sent to cut down the forest were billeted in her house at that time. Pavlo knocked on the window, and my mother heard it and just waved her hand: “Go, go, little soldier, the house is full...” Then she admitted it and cried.

The most joyful event for Pavlo during the war, according to him, was a chance meeting with his brother Mikhailo. Regimental intelligence officer Mikhailo Lysenko went (without knowing it himself) for the Order of Glory. That night, he and a comrade captured an armored personnel carrier and seven soldiers and an officer from the German rear. He celebrated Victory Day in a Yerevan hospital, where he arrived from the Hungarian city of Miskolc.

Khdos came from the front without a leg - near Budapest he ran into a mine. Divisional reconnaissance, in which brother Khtodos fought, ran into a minefield. He recalled that when his wounded man was being transported on a cart, he screamed in pain and fear. And then an elderly man came up to him and said: “What are you doing? You're missing a leg and screaming. You can live and work. The man over there has both eyes burned out, let him scream.” Khodos thought: “That’s right. He’s worse, let him... And lock it.” He returned, his mother was crying - the main thing is that he is alive.

Evdokha Lysenko is a mother who saw 10 sons off to war and waited for all of them to come home.

Vasily Lysenko was the only officer among the brothers - he served in the war as a platoon commander and a mortar battery. He ended the war in Budapest, where he was seriously wounded for the third time. I ended up in a hospital in Yerevan. From there he returned home to his mother.

For Ivan, the war became a “circling”: from home to the north, to the Mannerheim Line and home again. Defended Cherkassy, Lubny, Romny, Kyiv. Near the Polish city of Treblinka, he was captured and fled (of course, home to his mother). And then, with a Soviet tank unit, he reached Vienna itself, in order to return home forever.

Petro also went through the entire war, he didn’t write home - where should he write if his native village was under the Germans. And after the war, the table became a postman, as if covering up his guilt for those unwritten letters.

Andrei was an infantryman, at the end of the war near Iasi he was seriously wounded. I returned home without a leg, but how happy my mother was! After the war he became a stove maker. And in the village they said: “Oh, his stoves are warm! He himself looks more like his mother, Evdokia Danilovna, and brings warmth to her people.”

And the family was most happy when the last brother, Sashko, returned from the war. The youngest Alexander, who turned only 18 in 1944, stormed Berlin. I later remembered that I wanted to sign on the Reichstag, but I was embarrassed - my handwriting is unimportant. Where could handwriting come from if I was herding cattle at the age of eight, and at the age of fifteen the war began? In Berlin, he stayed to serve out his army term after the war, sending parcels to his mother and five sisters (his brothers had already started families). And when he returned, he got married and began working on the collective farm as a carpenter, saddler, and miller.

And what a mother they had! Thin, cheerful, melodious and friendly. She worked until she was 77 years old, until her last day, like a moth.

Monument to Evdokha Lysenko.

When LG correspondent Yuri Rost visited the Rossiya collective farm in the early 1980s, he wrote an essay about the Lysenko family, and at the end of the article there were the following lines: “Let us pay tribute to the mother who raised ten soldiers and five daughters. And it would be nice to erect a monument to her in Brovakhy, especially since she was small in height and it would take a little bronze for her.” The chairman of the collective farm liked the material, but he immediately clarified that “there is no bronze at all in the village, but it would be nice to make a plaster bust.”

This photo was taken after the opening of the monument to the mother of the brothers - veterans of the Great Patriotic War, Evdokia Lysenko in 1984. There are already 9 of them.

But the director of the Dnieper plant, Leonid Stromtsov, also drew attention to this note, and wrote to the newspaper that his company was ready to cast a sculpture of his mother free of charge. Sculptor Konstantin Chekanov from Dnepropetrovsk made the model. And two years later, the bronze figure of Evdokia Danilovna was brought to Brovakhi and installed on a pedestal on that very slope.

Part of the memorial complex.

Behind the monument, Chairman Kovtanets planted ten poplars and five weeping willows (in memory of his daughters). It worked out well. At the opening of the monument in 1984, the sons stood with their heads uncovered in memory of their mother and brother Vasily, who did not live to see the holiday.

Heroes of Russia » Epistinia Stepanova: “When it’s hard for you, remember my fate, and it will be easier for you...”

In the big arms of a tired mother
Her last son was dying.
The field winds quietly stroked
His silver flax is gray.
Tunic with the collar open
There are stains on it.
From severe wounds
In wet plowing
His blood fell like fire.
- Didn’t I cherish you, son,
Didn’t I take care of you, dear?..
The eyes are clear
These white curls
Gave me heroic strength.
I thought that holidays would come together in life...
You were my last joy!
And now your eyes are closed,
White light in eyelashes
Became not nice. -
Seeing her sad tear,
Surrounded the mother among the fields
Nine troubles that broke the Russian heart,
Nine sons killed in battle.
Tanks froze, destroyed by thunder,
The rein horses took over.
...A mother stood up in the village on the main square
And petrified forever.

Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova (1874-1969) - Russian woman, whose nine sons died in the war, holder of the Order of Mother Heroine and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

Stepanov, Alexander Mikhailovich (1901–1918) - shot by the White Guards in retaliation for the Stepanov family's assistance to the Red Army;

Stepanov, Nikolai Mikhailovich (1903–1963) - returned from the Great Patriotic War as an invalid, died of wounds;

Stepanov, Vasily Mikhailovich (1908–1943) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. He was buried in a mass grave in the village of Sursko-Mikhailovka in the Dnepropetrovsk region;

Stepanov, Philip Mikhailovich (1910–1945) - died in the Forelcruz camp, near Paderborn;

Stepanov, Fyodor Mikhailovich (1912–1939) - having shown heroism and courage, died in battles with the Japanese near the Khalkhin Gol River;

Stepanov, Ivan Mikhailovich (1915–1943) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Buried in a mass grave in the village of Drachkovo, Smolevichi district, Minsk region;

Stepanov, Ilya Mikhailovich (1917–1943) - died on July 14, 1943 in the Battle of the Kyr Bulge, buried in a mass grave in the village of Afonasovo, Kaluga region;

Stepanov, Pavel Mikhailovich (1919–1941) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War;

Stepanov, Alexander Mikhailovich (1923–1943) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

The personification of all mother-heroines was the Kuban peasant woman Epistinia Stepanova, who laid on the altar of Victory the most precious thing she had - the lives of her nine sons. Alexander, Nikolai, Vasily, Philip, Fedor, Ivan, Ilya, Pavel and the younger Alexander - all of them, except the elder Alexander, who died in the civil war, and Fedor, who fell in battle with the Japanese invaders on the Khalkhin Gol River, were called up to Great Patriotic War. Daughter Valya stayed with her mother. And Nikolai, the only one who returned from the front, died after the war from the consequences of front-line wounds.

Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova had the lot to lead all her sons on the hard roads of the war. Only one returned home. Nine times she went out the gate, holding on to her son’s duffel bag. The road from the 1st May farm, in the Kuban, first went through a field, and then went slightly uphill, and then a man in a soldier’s overcoat was clearly visible. This is how Epistinia Fedorovna remembered her sons leaving.

Throughout the war years, the mother lived with news from her children. And the sons did not forget their mother. “We will soon return to our native places. I assure you that I will beat the rabid bastard for my native Kuban, for the entire Soviet people, I will be faithful to the military oath until my last breath, as long as my heart beats in my chest... We will finish, then we will arrive. If there is happiness,” wrote the youngest Sasha, Little Zinchik, that’s what his brothers called him. He was the last of his sons to go to war.

And then there were no letters. They were not from Pavel, Philip, Ilya, Ivan... So, in uncertainty, persistent anxiety and expectation, 1943 came - a year of difficult trials. Sasha died in 1943. He was twenty. After graduating from military school, junior lieutenant Alexander Stepanov fought in Ukraine. When crossing the Dnieper near the village of Selishche, all the soldiers of his unit died. Then he, the commander, the only survivor, holding a grenade in his hand, went out to meet the Nazis... Posthumously, Alexander Stepanov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Ilya died on the Kursk Bulge. Near Dnepropetrovsk, partisan intelligence officer Vasily Stepanov died. Ivan's grave is on Belarusian soil. One of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, Pavel Stepanov, went missing. Philip was tortured to death in the fascist concentration camp Forelcruz... The mother did not immediately receive a funeral. She didn’t wear a black mourning scarf, she believed that the children were alive, but they couldn’t send news. But days and months passed, and they did not respond. The mother was waiting for letters from her sons, but received news of their death. Each such news inflicted deep wounds on my heart...

Marshal of the Soviet Union A. A. Grechko and Army General A. A. Epishev wrote to her in 1966: “You raised and educated nine sons, blessed nine people dearest to you for military feats in the name of the Soviet Fatherland. With their military deeds, they brought the day of our Great Victory over our enemies closer and glorified their names. ...You, the soldier's mother, are called by the soldiers their mother. They send you the filial warmth of their hearts; they bow their knees before you, a simple Russian woman.”

In Kuban, in the village of Dneprovskaya, a museum has been opened. It bears the name of the Stepanov brothers. People also call it the Museum of the Russian Mother. After the war, the mother gathered all her sons here. The things stored in it can hardly be called “exhibits” by the museum word. Each item speaks of maternal love and filial tenderness. Everything that the mother took care of is collected here: Vasily’s violin, a notebook with Ivan’s poems, a handful of earth from Sasha’s grave... Addresses to the mother are full of filial love and care: “I think about you a lot, I live mentally with you, dear mother. I often remember my home, my family.” The Stepanovs lived on the 1st May farm (now the Olkhovsky farm) in the Timashevsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. Epistinia Fedorovna gave birth to fifteen children. The Stepanovs survived ten children - nine sons and a daughter.

After the war, the whole country learned about the Stepanov family. A book has been written about the Russian Mother, and a museum named after her has been created. And there's also a movie. It was filmed during the life of Epistinia Fedorovna, when she entered her ninth decade. It is shown on a small screen in the museum. Documentary film. There are no bright directorial discoveries or flashy camera techniques in it. His heroine is a very middle-aged woman wearing a white scarf, tied neatly, in a country style. She speaks quietly, and it seems to everyone who listens to her that her words are addressed only to him. She quietly talks about those years when children grew up nearby. She is all in that distant happy time, and her wrinkles are smoothed out, and her eyes become bright, and her hand seems to be looking for her son’s soft-haired head to caress...

And then the mother’s voice breaks, and then it becomes difficult to look at the screen because of the surging tears, it is difficult to listen to the woman and it is impossible to cope with the excitement. Her voice sounds alive: “All the sons are coming, but mine are not and are not…” The screen is silent, and people in the hall are crying. No one can answer the mother where the graves of Pavel, Philip, Vasily are. There is nowhere for her to come to cry out her pain, nowhere to plant a white-trunked birch tree - a symbol of the Russian land and the Russian soul. Epistinia Feodorovna lived a quiet life. She spent most of her allotted years waiting for her sons. She died on February 7, 1969. The soldier's mother was buried in the village of Dneprovskaya, Timashevsky district, Krasnodar region, with full military honors. People keep coming to her grave. There are flowers on it in winter and summer. The mother's name combined nine other names. All together they are the Stepanov family. People bow their heads in front of the obelisk, on which is carved: Those who lived valiantly, who crushed Death, The memory of you will never die!

Epistinia Fedorovna gave birth to fifteen children: four-year-old Stesha, the first-born and the first loss, was scalded with boiling water; twin boys were born dead; five-year-old Grisha died of mumps; in 1939, daughter Vera died of death. Ten children survived from the Stepanovs - nine sons and a daughter.

In recent years, Epistinia Fedorovna, a personal pensioner of union importance, lived in Rostov-on-Don, in the family of her only daughter, teacher Valentina Mikhailovna Korzhova. She died there on February 7, 1969.

The soldier's mother was buried in the village of Dneprovskaya, Timashevsky district, Krasnodar region, with full military honors.

A Word about a Russian Mother (doc. film)

A poignant film by Boris Leonidovich Karpov about the Russian mother Epistimia Fedorovna Stepanova, who lost all nine of her sons in the wars.

And in fact there are a lot of such stories...

Here, for example, is a monument to Maria Frolova, who lost eight sons at the front. City of Zadonsk, Lipetsk region.

And these are the Gazdanov Brothers - seven Gazdanov brothers who died at different times in the battles of the Great Patriotic War. All brothers were born in the village of Dzuarikau (North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, RSFSR, USSR) and were called up to the front from their native village. Their mother, Tasso Gazdanova, died after the third funeral. Father Asakhmat lived until the end of the war.

Magomed (Makhomat) Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1909-1943), private. He worked as a tractor driver. Called up by the Ordzhonikidzovsky RVC in 1942. He went missing in August 1943. Killed during the defense of Sevastopol.

Makharbek (Makhorbek) Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1911-1941), private. Worked as a teacher. Died near Moscow.

Khadzhismel Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1913-1942), private. He worked on a collective farm. Killed during the defense of Sevastopol.

Dzarakhmet (Dzarakhmat) Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1916-1942), private. He went missing in October-November 1941. Killed in the battle of Novorossiysk. He was buried in the city of Novorossiysk, central district, southwestern district, in the city cemetery. The only one of the brothers who managed to get married before going to the front (his daughter Mila was born without a father).

Sozyrko (Sozriko) Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1918-1942), private. Worked as a technologist. He died in the battles for Kyiv.

Shamil Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1916-1945). In the Red Army since 1937. Candidate member of the CPSU(b). Awarded the Order of the Red Star (No.: 85/n dated: 08/31/1944 to the 2nd division for the destruction of 4 enemy firing points and 45 soldiers), Order of the Patriotic War 1 (order No.: 380 dated: 11/01/1943 for the destruction 5 heavy machine guns, 2 grenade launchers, 20 enemy soldiers and 3 observers) and 2 degrees (order No. 90/n dated July 22, 1944 on page 11 of the corps for the destruction of 20 enemy soldiers, 3 heavy machine guns and 1 anti-tank gun), Order of the Red stars (order No.: 38/n dated 06/11/1943 for the destruction of an enemy platoon, 4 bunkers and 1 NP). Guard Lieutenant Gazdanov, battery commander of a gun platoon of the 6th Guards Regiment of the 2nd Guards. division, killed in battle on November 23, 1944 on the territory of the Latvian SSR. Buried southeast of the village. Nikrac of the Latvian SSR.

Khasanbek Asakhmetovich Gazdanov (1921-?), private of the 14th Guards Army. He went missing on September 24, 1941 during the defense of the village. Timoshevka, Zaporozhye region, Ukrainian SSR.

It was about the Gazdanov brothers that the poet Rasul Gamzatov wrote the famous poem “Cranes,” which became a song. In the village of Dzuarikau there is a monument dedicated to the Gazdanov brothers, the work of sculptor Sergei Pavlovich Sanakoev, depicting a grieving mother - Tasso Gazdanov - and seven cranes.

| 03/08/2013 at 19:30

Stepanova E.F. - mother of nine sons who died during the Great Patriotic War
Every Russian family defended their Motherland, and the Stepanov family defended it heroically!
The great and tragic fate of the Russian mother, who outlived her children, fell to the lot of the simple Kuban peasant woman Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova (1874-1969). Epistinia Fedorovna gave birth to and raised nine sons, all nine gave their lives for their Motherland.
In the late 1880s, from a village near Mariupol, the family of peasant Fyodor Rybalko moved to the free Kuban in search of a better life. The head of the family overstrained himself on the road and, having reached the Cossack lands in 1890, soon died. The family went around the world. The mother gave 8-year-old Pesya to work as a farm laborer for feeding, where the girl grew up until she was 16 years old. By that time, although she grew up as an orphan, Pestya blossomed and became an attractive girl, whom the Kursk immigrant Mikhail Stepanov wooed.
There were 15 children in their family. Four were killed by disease and hunger even before the revolution.
In thirty-three, my husband, Mikhail Nikolaevich, passed away.
A grain farmer, a kind craftsman, died; his hands knew the craft of a cooper and a blacksmith, a carpenter and a tinsmith.
Epistinia Fedorovna's children grew up friendly, hard-working, and cheerful.

But war was already knocking on the door of the mother’s house.

Alexander, Nikolai, Vasily, Philip, Fedor, Ivan, Ilya, Pavel and the younger Alexander - all of them, except the elder Alexander, who died in the civil war, and Fedor, who fell in battle with the Japanese invaders on the Khalkhin Gol River, were called up to Great Patriotic War. Daughter Valya stayed with her mother. And Nikolai, the only one who returned from the front, died after the war from the consequences of front-line wounds.

And then there were no letters. They were not from Pavel, Philip, Ilya, Ivan... So, in uncertainty, persistent anxiety and expectation, 1943 came - a year of difficult trials.

Sasha died in 1943. He was twenty. After graduating from military school, junior lieutenant Alexander Stepanov fought in Ukraine. When crossing the Dnieper near the village of Selishche, all the soldiers of his unit died. Then he, the commander, the only survivor, holding a grenade in his hand, went out to meet the Nazis... Posthumously, Alexander Stepanov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The mother did not immediately receive a funeral. She didn’t wear a black mourning scarf, she believed that the children were alive, but they couldn’t send news. But days and months passed, and they did not respond. The mother was waiting for letters from her sons, but received news of their death. Each such news inflicted deep wounds on my heart...

In Kuban, in the village of Dneprovskaya, a museum was recently opened. It bears the name of the Stepanov brothers. People also call it the Museum of the Russian Mother. After the war, the mother gathered all her sons here. The things stored in it can hardly be called “exhibits” by the museum word. Each item speaks of maternal love and filial tenderness. Everything that the mother took care of is collected here: Vasily’s violin, a notebook with Ivan’s poems, a handful of earth from Sasha’s grave... Appeals to the mother are full of filial love and care: “I think about you a lot, I live mentally with you, dear mother. I often remember my home, my family.”

“No matter how hard it is for you, remember about me, and all your troubles will seem not so terrible” - the film ends with these words from Epistinya Fedorovna.

There are many books in the Stepanov family museum. Standing on the shelf are “And the dawns here are quiet...” by Boris Vasiliev, “White Bim Black Ear” by Gavriil Troepolsky, “Hot Snow” by Yuri Bondarev... They are open on the first page: “To the Stepanov family museum - with sorrow and soldier’s memory about the fallen. Yuri Bondarev"; “I give this book in memory of the nine Stepanov brothers who gave their lives for their Motherland in the Great Patriotic War. Their heroism was a manifestation of love for man, a manifestation of honor, sincerity and truth. The nine sons of E. F. Stepanova will forever remain in the memory of descendants along with their heroine mother, a glorious daughter of her Motherland. Gabriel Troepolsky.

You look at a photograph of Epistinia Feodorovna in the museum and see a kind, tired, wise woman with a kind of enlightened look. There are no pictures left of her in her youth. The one in the museum was made in old age. This photograph conveys the state of the Mother’s soul that elevates her above suffering.

Epistinia Fedorovna received many letters in her life. After the war, complete strangers wrote to her. Each of those who wrote found the only true words that were so necessary for her. One of them is from the young soldier Vladimir Lebedenko. “Allow me,” he wrote, “to consider your sons as brothers, and you as a mother... Dear Epistinia Feodorovna, you had nine sons, and now there will be even more of them.” And her heart gained new strength in lines like these.

Epistinia Fedorovna lived a quiet life. She spent most of her allotted years waiting for her sons. People keep coming to her grave. There are flowers on it in winter and summer. The mother's name combined nine other names. All together they are the Stepanov family. People bow their heads in front of the obelisk, on which is carved:

Those who lived valiantly

Death crushers

Memory of you

Will never die!

Remembering the Great Fatherland War, talking about it, about the sub-vi-ge of the soldiers, the officers, the -it’s not-ra-loving, it’s all the same, it’s impossible not to remember the mother-te-ray, whose sons before our country you were not afraid- given by victory. These simple Russian women, in the name of freedom of the Ro-di-na, gave away the most precious thing they had - their sons -no-wey.

So it was in Da-le-koi Ar-khan-gel-skaya de-re-vush-ke Sha-kha-nov-ke Shen-kur-skogo district. May 9, 1945 kre-st-yan-ka Ka-li-sta Pav-lov-na So-bo-le-va, us-ly-shav about ka-pi-tu-la-tion Ger-ma- nii, on-li-la seven hundred-po-chek bitter and covered them all with rye bread... Sy-no-vya Kuz-ma, Ivan, An-d-rey, Ni- ki-ta, Pa-vel, Stepan, Jo-sif laid down their heads on the military roads from Brest to Ber-lin. So it was in the white-Russian Zho-di-no, where Ana-sta-siya Fo-mi-nich-na Ku-priya-no-va did not come from the front those five sons. Unfortunately, there are similar examples of mass. Ol-tse-tvo-re-ni-em all ma-te-rey-ge-ro-yin st-la Kras-no-dar-kre-st-yan-ka Epi-sti-nya Step-pa- but-va, still barking at the howl-not of the nine-those sons.

At the end of the 1880s, from one village near Ma-riu-po-lem, in search of better ones, they moved to freedom Ku-ban family kre-st-ya-ni-na Fe-do-ra Ry-bal-ko. The head of the family was on the road in the road and, having reached their lands in 1890, soon died. The family went around the world. The mother gave birth to 8-year-old Pes-ty bat-ra-chit for the core, where the girl grew up until she was 16 years old. By that time, although she grew up orphaned, Pes-t blossomed and became an attractive girl, for I'm wooing a Kursk pe-re-se-le-nets - Mi-ha-il Ste-pa-nov. As usual, a year later the young couple gave birth to a daughter - Ste-pa-ni-da. Two years later, in 1901, a boy, Alexander, was born. In 1902, little Ste-nya died... Step-by-step, life progressed, the family grew up - in 1903, she was born No-bark, in 1908 - Va-si-liy, in 1910 Philip was born, in 1912, Fedor, in 1914 again a daughter - Varya, and a year later the son again - Ivan, Ilya was born in 1917. That’s how Stepa would have lived his hard and honorable life, if it weren’t for the horsemen with red pho-on , from time to time they talk about various places.

Sasha

When the wave of the Gradian War reached Ku-ba-ni, the mountain remembered itself with new strength. At the village of Shku-ro-pat-sky, where Ste-pa-no-you lived, there were battles going on, the eldest son of Sa-sha was wounded in the hand . By evening the fighting had subsided, mother and son were free to look for their horses, Sash followed them into the steppe, where he grabbed the white ones, taking the red ones in one go. In the village of Rogovskaya de-ni-kin-tsy they established a terrible dis-ru-vu over the trust-women of the new government - in Sa-shi’s corpse was thrown into the same pit.

In 1919, Pa-vel was born, after that, he was born again and saw, at some time, Epi-stinya re -sha-et-is-from-the-fruit-yes - but nothing happened, and in 1921 a little girl was born and more - climbed Vera, and in 1923 again a boy, who was named in honor of the deceased elder - Alec -san-drom. The family of Ste-pa-no-vykh count-you-va-la 13 children, which at that time was a number of appearances for the Christians. I eat - after all, you are not all of us. Thirty years have passed for the family, as well as for the whole country, fast and hard. In 1933, the head of the family died. The children grew up, moved away, or became involved with the seven. At the pleasure of her husband, Epi-sti-nya moved to the main collective farm estate - the farm of May 1st.

Fedor

In 1935, he was drafted into the army. By this time, Fe-dya was working de-lo-pro-iz-vo-di-te-lem in the village of Ti-ma-shevskaya. Before the call, he had a disagreement with the authorities - he left the hu-to-ra without the permission of the com-so -mol-cell, for which he was expelled from this organization. In 1938, senior officer Ste-panov was sent to study for officer courses. In May 1939, Fe-do-ru received the rank of junior lei-te-nan-ta, and he left for the Far East with a com-man-di-rom platoon -yes, to the 149th infantry regiment. The regiment marched to the area of the Khal-khi-n-Gol river, where it participated several times in border skirmishes with the Japanese. tsa-mi. On August 20, com-corps Zhu-kov led his troops to the station. On the very first day of his arrival, Fedor died. He is ho-ro-ni-li there, on Khal-hi-n-Go-le, in the brotherly mo-gi-le. And to Ku-ban it’s-le-te-la-cho-ron-ka.

At Fe-do-ra’s birth, he never got the weight, and his brothers soon became the same - to bark at you. Then, in 1939, in the winter, the ill-natured Vera soon died. Epi-sti-nya za-met-but-old-re-la, se-di-on more and more eyes-you-va-la her curly-hair-s, but with-all Don't give up on your grandchildren.

Paul

In 1939, Pa-sha za-kan-chi-val pe-da-go-gi-che-school in the village of Lenin-gradskaya, at the same time I was called by the military commissar and offered to try and join the Second Kiev Art-Till-Leriy School. more Pa-vel so-gla-sil-sya. He, as a well-trained person, was accepted into the school without ex-ex-men - wouldn’t the country need co-managers? di-ry. Pa-vel remembered his co-course as a real god - no one could defeat him either in lifting barbells or in a gy-re-vom dispute. June 6, 1941, before you could wait for the ek-za-men, the commander-in-chief of the Kiev special military In the vicinity, General Kir-on-the-nose handed the kur-san the officer's badges. Lei-te-nant Stepa-nov po-lu-chil pre-pi-sa-nie to take the position of co-man-di-ra ba-ta-rei in the 141st Gau-beach-no- Ar-til-le-riy regiment of the 55th rifle division, which is dis-lo-tsi-ro-val-sya in Slutsk. On the night of June 22-23, the regiment moved to Brest to help the border guards, and, taking up defensive positions on the Shcha River -ra, kras-no-ar-mey-tsy entered the battle. By the end of the day on June 24, the regiment, due to the action of enemy aviation, had lost most of its guns; whether on the is-ho-de, the ko-man-dir half-ka may-or Se-rov died. The regiment in the ar-er-gar-de-division began from the station along the Warsaw highway to the east. To cover the art-til-le-ri-sty os-tav-la-li behind the layers from one-d-two gau-bits in the places most successful nykh for or-ga-ni-za-tion for-garden. One of these behind-the-slo-nov headed the young battalion commander Stepa-nov. Since then, no one has seen him again. Epi-sti-nya is a bureaucratic envelope with a certificate that “Pa-vel Mi-khai-lo-vich has disappeared without weight.”

Basil

The most handsome of the brothers, a dandy and a devil-like dancer, he was from-ba-lo-van a woman's attention-ma-ni-em bu-k-val-but from youth. Ra-bo-tal Va-si-liy in the ki-no-te-at-re of the Ti-ma-shev-skaya sta-ni-tsy, he himself-stand-but mastered the game ru on the violin and in ki-no-za-le oz-vu-chi-val not-my ki-no. In May 1941, when the air smelled of war, he and his brother Philip were called to military training -ry. Va-si-liy fell in the Crimea, in art-till-le-riya, served as a co-man-di-rum from de-le-niya tya-gi in the 2nd bat-ta-rei 553 half. With the start of the war, the regiment took an active part in the defense of the southern borders of the country, and in the se-re-di- not yet in January he was re-dis-lo-tsi-ro-va-li to the small ro-di-nu Va-si-lia, in Ta-man. Here, in stubborn battles in the foothills of Kav-ka-za, Sergeant Stepa-nov fell into the encirclement. On the farm, another envelope with the words “vanished without weight” was on the hu-tor. Va-si-liy with a group of one-half-chan was able to escape from the ring and, fighting with a group of co-servants, to heaven one Dnieper-ro-pet-rov-ska entered-drank in the raz-ved-v-vod place-st-no-go par-ti-zan-sko-go-rya-yes, kos-tyak- Ro-go was recently dropped on para-shu-tah.

November 2, 1943 group under co-man-do-va-ni-em Ste-pa-no-va po-pa-la in za-sa-du, not many utse The left-wings, including Va-siliya, were taken prisoner. The trial was not long. On December 1, in Ni-ko-po-le, the Germans shot 78 people, including Va-si-lia Ste-pa-no-va. In 1944, when our army os-vo-bo-di-la Uk-rai-nu, Epi-sti-nye sent a letter from the teacher Ma-Riya Pri-so-ha, in which she told about the last days of Va-si-lia...

Philip

He was the support not only of ma-te-ri, but of the whole hu-to-ra. Working in his native kol-kho-ze, Phillip very much would have become a member, and then a bri-ga-di-rum. It was a real ration-on-li-za-tor - he was one of the first in Ku-ba-ni to use mineral-convenience for pshe -no-tsy, or-ga-ni-zo-val collection of ash and bird-me-ta, so that the grain would be even better. April 22, 1941 about talant-li-vom bread-bo-ro-be na-pi-sa-la ga-ze-ta “Pravda”. While taking care of the family, he didn’t forget about his mother - he gave her a house, but didn’t have time to do it. Together with Va-si-li-em he went into the army, together with his brother he ended up in the Crimea. The last letter from him arrived in May 1942. Philip wrote that he was serving in the south, and a big offensive would soon begin. This offensive for the Red Army ended with the Kharkov cauldron. Philip was captured. After receiving the next news that this son had also “disappeared,” Epistinya kept waiting , that the son is sure, because the land cannot be settled without the owner... Summer of 1950 from the use For the Soyuz-societies of the Red Cross and the Red Cross, a letter came to Epi-sti-nye’s house: “According to we have news, gr. Stepa-nov F.M. died on 02/10/45 in Germany, in la-ge-re 326". Attached to the letter was a military card, which read: “Personal number 25944. Ste-pa-nov Fi-lip Mi-hai-lo-vich. Kras-no-dar, right-glorious, year of birth - 12.22.1910, baptism , Russian, healthy. Row of the 699th rifle regiment. Captured - Kharkov, on the way - 4.6.44". Kar-to-ka-la-ak-ku-rat-but re-cher-cherk-well-ta, and at the top there was an inscription in German: “Died 10.2.45.”

Half a month after the death of Fi-lip-pa to the-ro-there la-ge-rya under-ka-ti-li-American tan -ki... The 326th camp is located in the tech-ke town of Fo-rel-K-rug in the Ruhr industrial-mine district of Ger-ma -nii. On the territory of la-ge-rya the Amer-i-kan-tsy ob-na-ru-li there are 36 mass graves, 115 meters long each. The last grave turned out to be half-empty, and it was in it that the Kras-Dar-nin Fi found his rest -lipp Ste-pa-nov. He died of hunger.

Already in our time, his sup-ru-ha Alek-san-d-ra, at the invitation of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, went to those lands from where did I bring a cartridge case with soil from that 36th grave that was not completely filled...

Ivan

After the end of his seventh year on the Kom-so-mol-skaya route, he went to the village of Med-ved-kovskaya pioneer -in-ja-tym. The station was considered difficult, since the number of le-k-ti-vi-za-tions was very strong in the years - all local se-le-no you were-se-le-but in 24 hours, and in its place there were “kol-khoz-ni-ki Se-ve-ra”. In 1937, Ivan was called into the army. He went to serve in Ti-ras-pol, and soon the ko-man-do-va-nie from the prim-vi-lo per-spec-tiv-no-go sol-da-ta in -en-noe school in Or-jo-ni-kid-ze. In 1939, he graduated from it and was sent to Rostov. One of the young officers would have moved further - to the 8th army of Lenin-grad. -en-no-go ok-ru-ga, the Finnish campaign has begun... Unfortunately, about the participation of lei-te-nan-ta Ste-pa-no-va in “that howl-don’t-know-me-ni-that” is known too little. There is only indirect evidence that he served in the Pet-ro-za-vod-ska region, in the intelligence department. After the re-re-mi-ria, Ivan was sent to Be-lo-Rus-sia, to the 310th Infantry Regiment co-man-di-rum pu-le-met-no -th platoon.

With the beginning of the war, the 8th division, where Ivan’s regiment entered, entered the encirclement. The young officer, together with that-va-ri-sha-mi, went to the east, but the front from where-you-came even faster . In the autumn of 1941, Ivan and two other wasps were in the white-Russian village of the Great Forest , not far from Minsk. There are not enough hands in the village, and there are no military left in the community. Ivan sat down, sat down in the house of Peter No-rei-ko, and soon became friends with his daughter, Ma-ri-ya. Without forgetting that they are all military, they began to quietly collect weapons and more -e-pri-pa-sy. In 1942, the par-ti-zan-movement in White Russia just started. Ivan behaved in a very rude manner - he threatened the Soviet court in a lyceum manner, and as a result, one of the -st-nykh reported that Ste-pa-nov was hiding a pu-le-metal tape in the barn. Iva-na-are-sto-va-li, pregnant Maria and her father tried to rescue him, but they only saw him The corpse of Ivan in the dream, with the sign “par-ti-zan”...

Ilya

The same age as the revolution, he was a re-ben-com of bread from all those difficult years: race-ku-la-chi-va-nie, hunger, collection-ti- vision and hunger again. His sister Va-len-ti-na remembers that when the teacher arrived at school, he paid attention , how one of the ragged and dirty boys looks at her steelily. “Ur-ka ka-koi-something,” - pre-spectator-but-du-ma-la Va-len-ti-na Mi-hai-lov-na, and then almost fell in ob-mo-rock, having learned in "ur-ka" a brother-in-law. When asked why he didn’t come to his sister, Ilya said that he was shy. In 1937, Ilya was drafted into the army. Po-lu-chen-noe ob-ra-zo-va-nie yes-va-lo right to st-p-le-nie in the First Sa-ra-tov-skoe auto-bro -no-teacher. After graduating from school, Ilya became the commander-in-chief of a platoon of KV tanks and fell near Polotsk, in the 18th tank brigade -duh, from where, soon, in the company of the consolidated battalion, he drove his steel -but the horse on earth was again united to the Union of Lithuania.

In July 1941, Ilya unexpectedly appeared at home, pale, wounded. The military unit of Ilya stood in the town of Ruk-la, not far from Russia. On June 22, the Germans began to bomb the dispersal of the tanks. In one of the first battles, Ilya was wounded - one of the wasps ripped open the abdominal cavity, the second pierced his shoulder. Hi-rur-gi Ilya was saved, but the front would have been too far away, and the doctors offered to those wounded who could -go to your places, go to-my place. Ilya did it. Arriving at the farm, he had a chat with everyone in the army. When news came from Va-ni-noy part that “the lie-te-nant I.M. Stepa-nov had gone missing,” Ilya again I went to the front, although I was still ill. In vo-en-ko-ma-te not-to-le-chiv-she-go-xia ofi-tse-ra from-pra-vi-li in May-kop ko-man-di-rum kur-san- Comrade, but soon learned the race-for-mi-ro-va-li, and Ilya again found himself at the crossroads.

He studied in the defense of Moscow, where he was again wounded, and this time he was treated in the state pi-ta-le of Sta-lin-gra. Yes. Having received the rank of senior lei-te-nan-ta, Ilya left for a new regiment that had just been formed. Together with his unit, he participated in the Battle of Stalin-Grad, where on December 12, 1942 he received the third No, then he ended up in the Ryazan State Hospital.

On May 1, 1943, Ilya on-know-cha-li ko-man-di-rum of the management of the 70th tank-co-voy bri-ga-dy, and at the end of July- He didn't get the title of ka-pi-ta-na. 11th Army Bagh-ra-mya-na, where-da-entrance-di-la bri-ga-da, spread-out-at-the-main-on-the-right-line . There was a major s-stu-p-le-tion, the poor stage of which Ilya was never able to see - he died in the very the height of the battle. This is what it was for-pi-sa-but in the zhur-na-le bri-ga-dy: “Ste-pa-nov Ilya Mi-hai-lo-vich, ka-pi-tan, com-ro-you management, non-party, born in 1917, cadre. Killed on July 14, 1943 during the bombing of the village of Melekhovo, Ul-ya-nov-sko-rai. -she Or-lov-o-las-ti. Ro-home - Kras-no-Dar-sky region, Ti-ma-shevsky district, collective farm 1st Maya, mother - Stepa -no-va E.F."

Sasha

"Little finger", the youngest in the family. Most lovely. They didn’t take him into the army, because after all, ma-te-ri-ge-roi-ni was the main support for him. When Ko-lya also went to war, Sa-sha practically ran away from home to “flight school.” But the military fate was different: Ste-pa-no-va’s goodwill for the number in Uryu-Pin-skoe region -hot-teacher, and already after 6 months the new ley-te-nant left the platoon co-man-di-rum-da mi- but-met-chi-kov to the 339th Ros-tov rifle division, which at that time was fighting in his native Ku-ba-ni . His 1133rd regiment marched with battles to the foothills of the Kavkaza Mountains. Near the Kholmskaya station, during the re-transmission, Alexander was away for the first time, for which he received his title old-she-go lei-te-nan-ta. In January 1943, when we were on our way, Sa-sha was seriously wounded near the village of Abin -sky. Talking about this to his sister Va-len-ti-ne, Sa-sha also encouraged her by the fact that the whole Ku-ban is os-in-bo-z -de-na from the Germans and Ti-ma-shev-skaya are no longer ok-ku-pi-ro-va-on the enemy. And in the spring of the same year Epi-sti-nya again received a government-issued envelope. Grabbing her heart, she opened it. Immediately from the con-vert you received the usual letter: “Hello, ma-ma-sha. I give you warm greetings and congratulations on May 1st. Let me serve you on behalf of you, dear ma-ma-sha. , you don’t have sincere gratitude for your son Alek-san-d-ra - a true hero, personally but a ko-man-di-ra and a wonderful warrior of the Red Army. Your Alexander behaved in battles like a real pat-ri-ot, demon- mercifully crushed the enemy, for which I was recently awarded the Order of the Red Star. On our last day, the Danish soldier's greetings to all the relatives and friends of Aleksandr. Goodbye. baht - star-ley Li-si-tsa." At that time, Sa-sha was already serving in the 9th me-ha-ni-zi-ro-van-noy bri-ga-de, joining the 3rd guards -sko-go st-lin-grad-sko-go-pu-sa. On April 25 he turned 20 years old, his unit marched towards the Dnieper.

By the end of September, Bri-ga-da was behind-the-zi-tion in the Ka-ne-va region, and Mo-sk-va had already made a decision information about the establishment of Kiev will not fail by November 7th. For-si-ro-va-nie on the move, without any preparation, and, as it turned out later, the 9th brigade -yes, with-a-very-attracted-ma-neur, at-the-price-of-your-life-from-you-taking-on-yourself-from-the-bor-ing Germans partly, to give our troops the opportunity to cross the Dnieper on foot on other parts of the front.

One of the first to climb onto the raft was Ste-pa-nov, and our fighters managed to seize the cross-cut trenches Germans As soon as the spirit passed, real hell began. The reinforcement could not penetrate further than the islands, and the Germans kept bringing fresh hours into the battle. you. The bri-ga-dy ran out of pa-trons, died. The left flank of the parade ground is dar-ma der-zha-la po-re-dev-shaya ro-ta Ste-pa-no-va, and the ko-man-dir himself, og-lokh-shiy from the r-ry- Vov and in dirty bandages, with a hand-held gun, he ran along the trench-neck, with his hand under-the-le-no-em. October 2, when only a few units remained from the company, the Germans bro-si-against her until the bat-tal-o-na nope. Os-ta-but-vi-vit such a la-vi-well would not be possible...

When the fascists rushed into the NP companies, the guards senior lieutenant Sta-pa-nov dor-valed himself and them after him bundle of garnet. Po-ho-ro-ni-li ofi-tse-ra in the place-tech-ke Tal-ber-go-va Da-cha.

October 25, 1943 Alek-san-d-ru Mi-hai-lo-vi-chu Ste-pa-no-wu was given the title Ge in death -swarm of the Soviet Union.

Nikolai

Remaining after Sa-sha's death for the eldest, he took full charge of the family upon himself. A 14-year-old boy was already working on an equal footing with men - there must have been something. Ra-but-nil-sya. He worked at his native farm, lived next door to his mother. He was a well-known musician - he could listen to even classy music by ear.

Kolya went to the front himself, together with the pre-se-da-te-lem and many more one-no-sel-cha-na-mi in the 4th Dob-ro-vol-che Ku-Ban-Ka-za-chiy Ka-va-le-riy-sky regiment riding on guns of a race. No-bark pi-sal rarely and ma-te-ri, and no. In the autumn of 1944, for-the-pla-kan-naya-on his Du-nya vbe-zha-la in the house of the be-ro-vi: “Since he died”... In the hands of the Ma-la knows my epi-st-nye from-veh-ness so well: “Missed without weight.” From now on, wait for pi-sem ma-te-ri, except for until-che-ri Val-li, who settled in Ka-zakh-sta- no, it was no longer from anyone. But heaven still heard the prayer of Epi-sti-nyi Fe-do-rov-ny. In September 1945, a letter arrived from Niko-lay, it turned out that he had been in the state hospital all this time. He had a very serious injury, his legs were badly damaged. From the state-pi-ta-la Ni-ko-laya for-bra-la family. Both mother and Du-nya with labor uz-na-va-li in the village and hu-house sol-da-te of his ba-la-gu-ra Ko-lyu. He became silent, thoughtful, spoke reluctantly, and answered sullenly to questions: “Why didn’t you write?” ?" - “I thought, I didn’t think so.” - “How was the war?” - "As everybody". - “How are you?” - “Sna-rya-house.” His arrival for some time brought everything to Epi-sti-new on-de-zh-du - and maybe the rest of the sons will return too Vya? But time passed, the children did not return, Niko-bark became more and more ill. At first he stood firm and moved, crawling, because his legs could not support his body. Then we moved to the factory, and soon fell ill. Somehow, on one of his last days, when his mother was sitting by his bed, Niko-lay told how he wanted bodies, even before the war, create an orchestra of “brothers of Stepa-no-vyh”: after all, they had everything - gi-ta-rs, and violin, and tambourines, and ba-yan, and house-sconce, and ba-ra-ban, and there were brothers: Sash-ka, Ilya-ha, Vas-ka, Van-ka, Fil-ka, Fed-ka, Pash -ka. You can’t find the best mu-zy-kans in the whole region. It was then that he asked his mother: “Sing some kind of mar-chic for me.” Mother, you didn't ask him.

Where are my sons?

What Epi-sti-nya experienced, probably, no one can understand. How did she, having lost everything in the literal sense, manage to maintain her kindness to people until the end of her days? and responsiveness, and at the same time not breaking itself - such a og-rom-naya for-a-nasty. I really don't know the soul of this Russian woman. In the autumn of 1944, when all her little boys had fallen silent, the elderly Ka-zach-ka began to look like she was in the presence of -nie. But for years she prayed for a mother-to-be for the wedding, and during the day she went to the shore and pla- ka-la in voice. The grandchildren were afraid to approach grandma, all because you lay down on the bride. Epis-st-nya came to its senses only in the spring of 1945, when there was a smell of trouble in the air and the whole country froze. -get ready to meet your soldiers. On May 9, the long-awaited message echoed across the village: “It’s a big deal.” All of you ran out into the street and saw Epi-sti-new, who fell on his face and washed his hands, with an unearthly voice. som za-kri-cha-la: “Earth, answer me: where are my sons?”

Those returning from the front sta-nich-ni-ki mi-mo her ha-you tried to walk faster. Seeing how she looked at the people walking by, the former front lowered her eyes, as if feeling confessing my guilt for not having saved a single servant of one of the villages from the family of Ste-pa-no-vyh .

She was waiting for her sons. In the closet there were laid-out shirts, the garden was waiting for pa-ha-ray, the yard - the owner, everything in the house -mi-na-lo about the children, but the children did not come...

After the death of Sta-li-na, Nik-ki-you Mat-vei-chu-ka about Epi-sti-nye appeared in the local ma-lo-ti-ra-zh-ka . Essay on the re-pe-cha-ta-la regional gas-ze-ta, then the central-tral-nye... For many axis-ro-tev-shih, ov-to-ve-ve- shih Epi-sti-nya Fe-do-rov-na with white hair and piercing sadness in the eyes of the st-la oli-ce- what a bitter woman cares about you, who is without sweat, according to her fate, and no less can -whose will to life. About Epi-sti-nye for-go-re-li, they began to write to her from all corners of the USSR, letters came from both generals and schoolchildren. kov, and she, illiterate, asked people she knew to write from you, dictating her thoughts.

In 1966, Marshal Grechko wrote to her: “You are a saint of our era, we are all your sons.” In the same year, te-le-vi-zi-on-schi-ki came to her from Moscow - Bo-ris Kar-pov and Pa-vel Ru-sa-nov. They filmed a conversation with her, and after that they went to the mo-gi-la to see their youngest son Sa-she, where Epi-sti-new is also in the vicinity of the pio-ne-ditch. “No matter how hard it is for you, you won’t remember about me, and all your troubles won’t seem so scary” - these -mi words Epi-sti-nyi Fe-do-rov-ny for-kan-chi-va-et-sya film.

Kar-ti-na came out not big, but strong. In 1968, in Mont-te-Car-lo, the documentary film “The Tale of a Russian Ma-te-ri” took 1st place. And in the beginning of 1969, the Lord took his mu-che-ni-tsu to himself - Epi-sti-nya died. Pro-si-la po-ho-ro-thread herself in her native hu-to-re, but she no longer belongs to herself, having become a know-me Sol-Danish Ma-te-ryu. It's good for her in the village of Dnieper, where in the same fraternal mo-li-lu "li-li-li" and her sons-no-vey. Soon a whole me-mo-ri-al arose there, sacred to Stepa-no-vym. Secretary-General Le-o-nid Brezh-nev mortally awarded her the order of the Ote-che-st-ven-war, in Ti-ma-shev-skaya from- the wings of the museum, a year later, a separate bust of the youngest son - Sa-sha and a monument to my Epi -sti-nye. Already in our time, one of the li-te-ra-tour prizes was named after her, and the pub-li-cy-sts Alek-sey By-st-rov and Viktor Konov dedicated his monographs to her.

Alexander Berezin(photo from the author’s archive)

In the city of Timashevsk, Krasnodar Territory, a military-historical Museum of the Stepanov family was created.
The documentary film "The Tale of a Russian Mother" is also being sought. (1966? 1968?).
It would be nice to post it.

Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova is a Russian woman whose nine sons died defending the Soviet Motherland! Soldier's mother Mother who saw off 9 sons to the front

Heroes of Russia » Epistinia Stepanova: “When it’s hard for you, remember my fate, and it will be easier for you...”

A Word about a Russian Mother (doc. film)

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Soldier's mother Mother who saw off 9 sons to the front

Corrected project. Torpedo boat pr.123 "Komsomolets" History of the creation and development of the project of torpedo boats "Komsomolets"

Pedagogical project “Creativity

THE BELL