14-year-old Ivan from near Smolensk, apparently, was one of those who wanted to take revenge on the enemy for the death of his father, Fyodor Gerasimovich. He was also sure that his mother and three sisters died in his burnt hut.
Fedorov was discovered by Lieutenant Alexey Ochkin, one of the artillery commanders, in the carriages at the Povadino station, through which the artillery of the 112th Infantry Division was advancing towards Stalingrad. A young man in a large overcoat and boots was hiding under a tarpaulin. Fedorov was fed porridge and managed to get him to talk. He talked about how he no longer had a dad and that he was ready to go to the front. When Captain Bogdanovich learned that there was a boy among the soldiers, Ochkin was ordered to drop off the “free rider” at the next station and hand him over to the commandant.
The restless Fedorov escaped from there and walked along the roofs of the carriages to the tender, where coal reserves were stored, and buried himself in this coal. He was found and taken to the staff car to Commissar Filimonov. Ultimately, the intractable young man was assigned to the kitchen, where he began to help the cook and was put on boiler allowance. To the question “what is your name,” he answered in the old village manner: “I am Ivan, Ivan Fedorov.” Soon the soldiers, through their own efforts, collected Vanya’s uniform, cut his hair and began to proudly call him “fighter”.
In the field kitchens in Stalingrad it was almost as dangerous as on the front line. The Nazis did not skimp on bombs, mines and bullets. On August 8, 1942, in front of Vanya’s eyes, the division commander, Colonel Sologub, was mortally wounded. The boy began to handle the anti-tank gun “forty-five” well, and on September 23 he proved himself in a difficult battle, when Ochkin and his artillery fell into a ring of enemy tanks and infantry near the village of Vishnevaya Balka.
On October 13, 1942, Fedorov appeared before the Komsomol meeting, preparing to join the Communist Youth League. The candidate received instructions from his seniors, and then the division chief assistant for Komsomol work signed the documents and handed the treasured little book in a gray cover to the new Komsomol member. According to Stalin's order, Vanya, like many other teenagers, was to study at a vocational or Suvorov school. He had to be evacuated to the east.
However, at half past five in the morning on October 14, 1942, the enemy began artillery preparation. By eight in the morning the tanks moved in - dozens of tanks against the three "forty-five" and nine anti-tank rifles remaining with Ochkin. After the first successfully repulsed attack, an air raid followed. The enemy advanced. The Soviet guns were cut off from one another. Ivan was a carrier at one of the guns when his crew was completely out of order.
The young hero independently managed to fire the last two shells, after which he picked up the machine gun and opened fire from the ditch. Ovechkin and Filimonov saw how Fedorova’s left elbow was crushed. Then a fragment from another shell deprived Ivan of his right hand. When the tanks took a detour along the factory wall, the seriously wounded Fedorov found the strength to stand up, get out of the ditch and press the anti-tank mine with his stump. He accomplished a feat at the cost of his life: he got close to the lead tank, pulled out the pin with his teeth and lay down under the caterpillar.
Subsequently, Alexey Ochkin wrote the book “Ivan – I, Fedorov – We”. It turned out that Ivan’s mother and sisters did not burn in the house, having managed to get out of the fire. One of his sisters became a Hero of Socialist Labor. A street was named in honor of Vanya Fedorov, and a memorial plaque was installed near the place of his death. However, for a number of reasons, Fedorov did not receive posthumous awards from the government.
Vanya Fedorov
| Milkmaid mother. Father is a blacksmith. Mother is far away. Father killed. And their son is Ivan Fedorov At the age of fifteen he already fought. Now on the Don, now - now - On the Volga he fights with the enemy For my native Smolensk region With his soldier's fate. To the tractor factory in the morning He doesn't climb too impudently. From the Junkers - darkness to the floor of the sky, And houses collapse in fire. Yes, furiously - once again - The clang of a tank shook the ruins, Like blood through a dirty gray bandage The dawn seeps through the smoke. One attack after another It rolls in like a surf. But, like roots, deep into the earth Ochkin's soldiers have grown. And against all hell | They hit the tanks almost point blank. Fourteen of them have already That line is burning. But the gun crew is melting, Only Fedorov fires. Suddenly he was wounded in the left elbow And, barely holding back a groan, Sends peace to the fascists Right hand grenades. And a new explosion cuts her off, And the tank rushes towards the guys’ flank. And Vanya gets up wounded, Comes with a grenade at full height Towards tank armor, Like on dug-up virgin soil, And, falling shoulder forward He tears the pin with his teeth. And the steel tank could not pass, Where he grew up on his way Smolensk fire guy In the battle for our Soviet land. |
This poem is dedicated to our fellow countryman Vanya Fedorov, who died on October 14, 1942 at the height of the battles for Stalingrad. The poem was written by the Smolensk poet R. Velikovsky.
Vanya was born in the village of Burtsevo, Novoduginsky district in 1927. His father, Fedor Gerasimovich Gerasimov, is a peasant. In 1930 he joined the collective farm. For several years, Vanya’s father worked as chairman of the collective farm named after. Lenin. In 1938 He was recruited to go to Leningrad, where he worked at a military plant until 1941. Fyodor Gerasimovich was called to the front, where he died in 1942. Vanya’s mother, Natalya Nikitichna, gave birth to six children. Sons - Ivan, Dmitry, Nikolai - died at the front. Vanya studied at Burtsevskaya elementary school from 1935 to 1939. His first teacher was Makari Grigorievich Belousov, who had a great influence on the boy. He taught Vanya to respect work, to love the Smolensk region, his father’s land. According to the stories of his fellow villagers, Vanya was an average student at school and was not particularly persevering, but he loved work and respected his family and fellow villagers. Before the war, my father left for Leningrad and entered the Kirov plant. He took Vanya with him to enroll in a vocational school. Vanya began to study to become a turner. Fyodor Gerasimovich planned to transfer the entire family to Leningrad, but this plan was not destined to come true: war broke out. When fascist bombers attacked the village of Burtsevo and almost burned it to the ground, Natalya Nikitichna managed to get Vanya’s three younger sisters out of the hot hut: Zina, Lida, Masha, but all the documents were burned. There are no official documents left about Van. Now they are collecting bit by bit the memories of Van. The father and his two eldest sons, Nikolai and Dmitry, went to the front. Vanya and the school went for evacuation, but he escaped from the train. And in July 1942, Vanya Gerasimov was discovered in a military train near the Povorino station, not far from the Don bend. In front of Lieutenant Ochkin was a boy in a long overcoat and large soldier's boots.
Well, get out of here, boy! - commanded the lieutenant, who himself was only a couple of years older than this echelon “hare”.
You're a boy yourself! – the guy snapped.
This is how two fellow countrymen from Smolensk, Alexey Ochkin and Ivan Gerasimov, met for the first time. And when the commander of the anti-tank division, Captain Bogdanovich, asked his name, Vanya replied:
I am Ivan, we are Fedorov.
He answered according to village habit, calling his father’s name. And he entered the history of the Battle of Stalingrad under the name of Fedorov. The day before the battle where he died, Vanya wrote a statement asking to be accepted into the Komsomol “I ask you to accept me into the Lenin Komsomol. While I’m alive, I won’t let the fascist bastards drink from the Volga. I swear to fight until my last breath." He kept his oath. He only had the chance to be in the Komsomol for one day, but this day was equal to his whole life. An eyewitness to Vanina’s death, Alexey Yakovlevich Ochkin, talks about that day as follows: “It happened on October 14, 1942 in Stalingrad. Hundreds of fascist planes bombed the tractor factory, where soldiers of the 37th Guards and 112th Siberian divisions stood to their deaths. After the bombing, an endless artillery shelling began: shells and mines dug up and tormented every piece of land. Iron melted and burned. As soon as the guns fell silent, the fascist tanks rushed ahead, followed by the infantry. Among the defenders of the tractor was a fifteen-year-old boy, Vanya Fedorov. When the gunner and gun commander were wounded, he continued to fire at enemy tanks until the shells ran out. And then Vanya hit the enemy infantry point-blank with a machine gun. Wounded in the elbow, he remained in service. Alexey Ochkin wrote the book “Severe People” and in it described Vanya’s feat this way: “A shell exploded, the young fighter’s right hand was torn off... He lay motionless, then moved, tore his head off the ground. Several tanks, bypassing the square on the left, rushed along a narrow passage along the ruins of the factory wall. How to stop?! With a groan, he pressed his crushed hands to his chest. And there was despair... Anti-tank grenades lay in front of him, but how could he throw them if he had no hands? And such anger overwhelmed him... “As long as I live, I will fight!” Vanya clenched the handle of an anti-tank grenade with his teeth. He squeezed it so hard that his teeth crunched. But he can’t lift it. The grenade is heavy, it hurts your mouth. Overcoming the hellish pain, he helped hold it with the stumps of his hands, got out of the trench... And the lieutenant, and the commissar, and all the soldiers who still survived saw how a boy without arms rose above the burning, distorted earth, with a grenade in his teeth and, leaning forward with a sharp shoulder, he walked towards the roaring tanks... He pulled the pin with his teeth and fell under the roaring tracks. There was an explosion! The fascist tank froze, and behind it in a narrow passage was the entire armored column.” This is how the boy stepped into immortality. His name is now carved on a red marble banner in the Hall of Military Glory of the monument-ensemble to the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad on Mamayev Kurgan. He was only in the Komsomol for a day. And at that time he was less than 15 years old.
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On February 3, 1973, in Moscow, a memorable meeting took place between the mother of our countryman hero and his sisters with Vanya’s fellow soldiers, the heroic defenders of Stalingrad. In a large, colorfully decorated hall, young soldiers of the Moscow garrison, boys and girls of the city of Moscow gathered. Prominent military leaders, heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad, Vanya’s mother and sisters took pride of place in the ceremonial presidium. Schoolchildren and soldiers from Volgograd, who came to the meeting in Moscow, presented Vanya’s mother, Natalya Nikitichna, with fresh flowers and a box with soil from Mamayev Kurgan in memory of the heroic defenders of Stalingrad. The young soldiers swore to the hero’s mother to selflessly serve the Motherland, protecting its peace, and sacredly honor the memory of Van Fedorov.
A museum was created at the Novoduginsk secondary school in 1973. Under the guidance of teacher Olga Petrovna Skvortsova, a variety of material was collected about the life and exploits of Vanya Fedorov. Now this material has been transferred to the regional museum of history and local lore. V.V. Dokuchaeva. In the museum of the village of Novodugino there is a copy of the appeal of the party, Komsomol and pioneer organizations, teams of two schools: Novoduginsk secondary school in the Smolensk region and Kaliningrad secondary school No. 12 in the Moscow region to the City Committee of the CPSU and the city Council of People's Deputies of the Komsomol City Committee of the city of Volgograd dated January 4, 1978.
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Here is the text of the appeal: “On February 2, 1978, the Soviet people will solemnly celebrate the 35th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. On October 14, 1942, in the midst of the battles for Stalingrad, a young graduate of the 62nd Army under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, V.I. Chuikova, Vanya Fedorov, whose homeland is the village of Burtsevo, Novoduginsky district, Smolensk region. Having gathered in the homeland of Vanya Fedorov, we address you with a sincere, convincing request: to install a memorial plaque commemorating Vanya Fedorov’s military feat in Stalingrad on the building of secondary school No. 3 in the city of Volgograd for the 35th anniversary of the historical Battle of Stalingrad and to invite Vanya Fedorov’s relatives to this solemn act and representatives of the Novoduginsk secondary school in the Smolensk region and the Kaliningrad secondary school in the Moscow region. The appeal was adopted at a solemn joint meeting of school delegations.”
In June 1978, in Volgograd, on Dzerzhinsky Square, where Vanya Fedorov accomplished his immortal feat, a memorial plaque was installed at school No. 3 in memory of his feat, and in the school itself there is a desk with a memorial plaque - the most worthy students win the right to sit at this desk . Zinaida Fedorovna, Vanya’s sister, came to the opening of the memorial plaque in Volgograd. But Vanya’s mother was unable to come to Volgograd: she had become very old and was often sick. Natalya Nikitichna worked as a milkmaid all her life. Together with her fellow villagers, she saved a collective farm herd of cows of the famous Sychev breed from the fascist occupiers. The daughters, growing up, came to work for their mother on the farm. For their dedicated work, all three of Vanya Fedorov’s sisters were awarded high awards of the Motherland, and the youngest of them, Zinaida Fedorovna, became a Hero of Socialist Labor and was more than once elected to the supreme bodies of the republic, to the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. Natalya Nikitichna died in 1981. They say that the Fedorov dynasty originates from Vasilisa Kozhina, the same old woman partisan from Sychevka who, back in the Patriotic War of 1812, armed men with pitchforks and axes and took Napoleon’s soldiers on the Old Smolensk Road.
In the Fedorov dynasty, like the sun in drops of dew, all of Russia is reflected. The Fedorovs absorbed all the most beautiful things from our people - the Russians.
Know, Soviet people, that you are descendants of fearless warriors!
Know, Soviet people, that the blood of great heroes flows in you,
Those who gave their lives for their homeland without thinking about the benefits!
Know and honor, Soviet people, the exploits of our grandfathers and fathers!
In almost every echelon of troops moving to the front, hares were regularly caught - pre-conscripts of pioneer and Komsomol age who were eager to go to war. Some sincerely believed that without him the Red Army would not be able to cope with the Nazis, some were no less sincerely afraid that they would not have time to grow up before being drafted to the front, and some, not childishly, wanted to personally avenge their fallen relatives and friends.
So at the Povadino station, in the carriages in which the artillery of the 112th Infantry Division was traveling to Stalingrad, 14-year-old Ivan Gerasimov from near Smolensk was discovered. His father Fyodor Gerasimovich died at the front, the house burned down, and he was sure that his mother and three sisters died in it.
One of the artillery commanders, Lieutenant Alexey Ochkin, recalled:
...looking at the neighboring platform, I was stunned by surprise: the tarpaulin moved, its edge bent back, and a trickle sprayed out from there. I lifted the tarpaulin and saw under it a boy of about thirteen in a long, torn overcoat and boots. At my command to “stand up,” he turned away. The hair on his head stood up like a hedgehog's. With great effort, I managed to pull him off the platform, but the train started moving, and we fell to the ground. The soldiers dragged the two of us into the carriage as it moved. They almost forcibly tried to feed the boy porridge. His eyes looked sharply.
“Your dad is probably strict?” - asked the oldest soldier. - “There was a dad, but he swam away! Take me to the front!
I explained that this could not be done, especially now: Stalingrad was in the thick of it. After the battery commander, Captain Bogdanovich, found out that there was a teenager among the soldiers, I was ordered to hand him over to the commandant at the next station.
I carried out the order. But the boy ran away from there and climbed onto the roof again, ran along the roofs of the entire train and climbed into the tender, buried himself in the coal. They again brought the boy into the staff car to Commissar Filimonov. The commissioner reported to the division commander, Colonel I.P. Sologub, and the latter reported to V.I. Chuikov - commander of the 62nd Army.
After several attempts to send the boy back, they decided to assign him to the kitchen. So Ivan was enrolled as an assistant cook and on a boiler allowance. Units were not yet included in the lists; uniforms and insignia were not provided. But they began to call him a fighter. They washed it with a whole platoon. They outfitted him piece by piece, gave him a haircut, and he started running from the kitchen to us.”
It was then that Vanya Gerasimov became Fedorov - sedately answering questions “what’s his name” according to the old village custom:
“Ivan I, Fedorov Ivan.”
The field kitchens in Stalingrad were little safer than the front lines. The Germans generously showered our positions with bombs, mines and bullets. On August 8, in front of Ivan’s eyes, divisional commander Colonel Sologub was mortally wounded. Ivan fully mastered the “forty-five” and proved himself to be a brave and determined fighter when, on September 23, Ochkin’s artillerymen at Vishnevaya Balka were surrounded by enemy tanks and infantry.
In October, an order came once again - in fulfillment of Stalin's order, all teenagers should be sent to the rear to be assigned to vocational and Suvorov schools. However, fighter Fedorov’s admission to the Komsomol was planned for October 13. They decided that he would go beyond the Volga later, as a Komsomol member.
There were no questions to the candidate at the Komsomol meeting, there were wishes: to study no worse than to fight. The division chief assistant for Komsomol work signed the gray book, handed it to the new Komsomol member and left for headquarters.
And at 5:30 am on October 14, the Germans began artillery bombardment, and the issue of evacuating Ivan to the east was postponed. At 8:00 the tanks arrived. Dozens of tanks for Ochkin’s three remaining “forty-fives” and nine anti-tank rifles.
The first attack was repulsed, then an air raid, then the Germans moved forward again. There were fewer and fewer defenders left. The guns were cut off from each other. The crew of the cannon, for which Ivan was the carrier, was completely out of order. Vanya single-handedly fired the last two shells at the tanks, picked up someone’s machine gun and opened fire on the advancing Germans from the ditch. In front of Ochkin and division commissar Filimonov, his left elbow was crushed. And then grenades flew towards the Germans.
A fragment of another shell tore off Ivan’s right hand. It seemed to the survivors that he had died. However, when German tanks bypassed the artillerymen’s position along a narrow passage along the factory wall, Ivan Gerasimov stood up and got out of the ditch, pressing an anti-tank grenade to his chest with the stump of his right hand, He pulled out the pin with his teeth and lay down under the track of the lead tank.
The German attack stopped. The defense of Stalingrad continued.
And the lieutenant Alexey Yakovlevich Ochkin(1922 - 2003) survived and reached Victory (by the way, he will definitely become the hero of one of the following notes). And he wrote a book about his fighting younger brother “Ivan - me, Fedorovs - we”, the first edition of which was published in 1973.
After the publications, it turned out that Ivan’s mother and sisters survived, having managed to get out of the burning hut, but they knew nothing about the fate of their son and brother, considering him missing. Ivan’s two older brothers, by the way, also died at the front. But one of the sisters - Zinaida Fedorovna - became a famous milkmaid throughout the Soviet Union, a Hero of Socialist Labor, and was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR.
The name of Ivan Fedorov is engraved on the 22nd banner in the Hall of Military Glory of the memorial on Mamayev Kurgan. In the hero’s homeland, in the regional center of Novodugino, Smolensk region, there is a street named after him. A memorial plaque was installed at school No. 3 in Volgograd, located very close to the place where the hero died.
But government awards are a feat Ivan Fedorovich Gerasimov-Fedorov was not marked, as it happened for various reasons.
But the main award, which no one can take away from him - no one except us, living citizens of our country - memory. About him and about all those who went to Victory. source to
Heroes are not born, they are made. War reveals the whole essence of man. When you are on the verge of death, you have only one choice. Ivan Fedorov, posthumous Hero of the Great Patriotic War, made this choice for himself. His participation in hostilities along with adults began with sad events. Vanya lived near Smolensk in a village. During the first Nazi offensive, his father, who had gone to the front, was killed. Unfortunately, this path turned out to be his last.
He mourned his loss very heavily, and at the same time often ran away into the forest near the village, left alone with his grief. During one of these escapes, Vanya heard explosions and screams in his native village. The Nazis bombed the village, and Vanya’s mother also died under the ruins.
This happened when the boy was not yet fourteen. Filled with hatred for the Nazis, who were left without relatives and housing, he tried with all his might to get to the front. He tried to sneak into the train with the soldiers, hiding in carts with provisions and weapons, but every time he was found and sent to the rear.
Hero artilleryman: I had to learn in the war
After several futile attempts to go to war, the boy survived as best he could. I had to go hungry and sleep wherever I could. But then the commander of an anti-tank battery, Lieutenant Ochkin, accidentally noticed him and decided to take the boy into his squad. From that moment on, Vanya’s military career began as an assistant cook and student. But Vanya was happy about this too.
All his free time, Ivan studied anti-tank guns and practiced throwing Molotov cocktails, which were called Molotov cocktails. Thanks to his help, the battery repeatedly withstood difficult situations. The boy easily replaced any soldier at the gun - he was a loader, a gunner, and delivered ammunition.
The final battle: there is nowhere to retreat
Ivan got along well with older fighters and could find a common language with each of them. In the detachment he was considered a mascot. But the miracle did not happen. At the moment of the most difficult defense of Stalingrad, Lieutenant Ochkin alerted the Red Army soldiers. At his disposal were only three 45-mm cannons and a dozen anti-tank rifles.
And there were significantly more German tanks. There were several dozen of them in the first line of attack alone! Explosions rang out, and our soldiers took over the battle. Ochkin commanded desperately, and with incredible efforts the first attack was repulsed.
The Germans did not give a break! As soon as the first wave of tanks was stopped, fascist aviation covered our artillerymen with a hail of bombs. The shells ran out, and the detachment suffered colossal losses. Giving orders to the soldiers, the lieutenant looked for Ivan with his eyes. The boy found himself behind another crew, already alone firing shots at enemy equipment. No matter how the lieutenant shouted or ordered Vanya to retreat, the noise from the explosions and his passionate hatred of the Nazis were stronger than the commander’s voice.
In front of his commander's eyes, the hero fired the last two shells at the enemy and picked up the machine gun from his fallen comrade. With one precise hit from the German side, the gun was completely disabled, and Vane’s elbow was crushed by a shrapnel. With his healthy hand, the fearless hero continued to throw grenades at the fascist tanks. The next shrapnel tore off Vanya’s hand. For a few moments everyone thought he was dead. At the same time, German tanks began to go around the crew along a narrow road that ran nearby. But this was not the end. The bloodied hero Ivan Fedorov, with an incredible effort of will, rose from the trench and, with a grenade in his hand, rushed under the track of the lead tank. There was an explosion and the tanks were blocked.
Vanya Fedorov turned out to be one of those same hares who were regularly caught by military units moving in trains to the front during the Great Patriotic War. Some young men of pioneer and Komsomol age left their homes and relatives, firmly believing that the Red Army could not cope with the enemy without their participation. Other pre-conscripts were afraid that the war would end before they were entitled to receive a military uniform.
14-year-old Ivan from near Smolensk, apparently, was one of those who wanted to take revenge on the enemy for the death of his father, Fyodor Gerasimovich. He was also sure that his mother and three sisters died in his burnt hut.
Fedorov was discovered by Lieutenant Alexey Ochkin, one of the artillery commanders, in the carriages at the Povadino station, through which the artillery of the 112th Infantry Division was advancing towards Stalingrad. A young man in a large overcoat and boots was hiding under a tarpaulin. Fedorov was fed porridge and managed to get him to talk. He talked about how he no longer had a dad and that he was ready to go to the front. When Captain Bogdanovich learned that there was a boy among the soldiers, Ochkin was ordered to drop off the “free rider” at the next station and hand him over to the commandant.
The restless Fedorov escaped from there and walked along the roofs of the carriages to the tender, where coal reserves were stored, and buried himself in this coal. He was found and taken to the staff car to Commissar Filimonov. Ultimately, the intractable young man was assigned to the kitchen, where he began to help the cook and was put on boiler allowance. To the question “what is your name,” he answered in the old village manner: “I am Ivan, Ivan Fedorov.” Soon the soldiers, through their own efforts, collected Vanya’s uniform, cut his hair and began to proudly call him “fighter”.
In the field kitchens in Stalingrad it was almost as dangerous as on the front line. The Nazis did not skimp on bombs, mines and bullets. On August 8, 1942, in front of Vanya’s eyes, the division commander, Colonel Sologub, was mortally wounded. The boy began to handle the anti-tank gun “forty-five” well, and on September 23 he proved himself in a difficult battle, when Ochkin and his artillery fell into a ring of enemy tanks and infantry near the village of Vishnevaya Balka.
On October 13, 1942, Fedorov appeared before the Komsomol meeting, preparing to join the Communist Youth League. The candidate received instructions from his seniors, and then the division chief assistant for Komsomol work signed the documents and handed the treasured little book in a gray cover to the new Komsomol member. According to Stalin's order, Vanya, like many other teenagers, was to study at a vocational or Suvorov school. He had to be evacuated to the east.
However, at half past five in the morning on October 14, 1942, the enemy began artillery preparation. By eight in the morning the tanks moved in - dozens of tanks against the three "forty-five" and nine anti-tank rifles remaining with Ochkin. After the first successfully repulsed attack, an air raid followed. The enemy advanced. The Soviet guns were cut off from one another. Ivan was a carrier at one of the guns when his crew was completely out of action.
The young hero independently managed to fire the last two shells, after which he picked up the machine gun and opened fire from the ditch. Ovechkin and Filimonov saw how Fedorova’s left elbow was crushed. Then a fragment from another shell deprived Ivan of his right hand. When the tanks took a detour along the factory wall, the seriously wounded Fedorov found the strength to stand up, get out of the ditch and press the anti-tank mine with his stump. He accomplished a feat at the cost of his life: he got close to the lead tank, pulled out the pin with his teeth and lay down under the caterpillar.
Subsequently, Alexey Ochkin wrote the book “Ivan – I, Fedorov – We”. It turned out that Ivan’s mother and sisters did not burn in the house, having managed to get out of the fire. One of his sisters became a Hero of Socialist Labor. A street was named in honor of Vanya Fedorov, and a memorial plaque was installed near the place of his death. However, for a number of reasons, Fedorov did not receive posthumous awards from the government.