Scientific Regiment: Alexander Vasilyev’s letter from the frontline
Kazan Federal University continues to publish a series of materials as part of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science’s Scientific Regiment campaign. Before the year of the 80th anniversary of the Victory, we tell about the courage and heroism of the university’s students and teachers during the Great Patriotic War.
AlexanderVasilyev went to the front from his student bench at the Faculty of Geology and Soil Science in 1942. Our History Museum holds several of his letters from the front. Today we present to you the contents of the letter he wrote on 26 April1945, just two weeks before the capitulation of Nazi Germany.
“Hello, dear Papa, Mama, Lelya and Zoichka!!! First of all, I congratulate you on the new addition, that is, the birth of my niece Zoya. I received your letter yesterday, that is, on April 25th, for which I am very grateful, and I also received a letter from my mother the other day.
I am very glad that everything is fine at home, everyone is alive and well!
I was very happy to hear that Vasya Sukhanov is alive, but on the other hand I was very, very saddened by the news of the death of the two Igoshin brothers, for which I am very sorry.
Mom, you write that you are keeping my suit and coat, I ask you not to do this, but to sell them to use [money] for food, and if I live, I will get all this.
I am now in battle again, and from the reports of the information bureau you know how our troops are moving now. We have already approached the center of the fascist lair – Berlin, now I am writing a letter from the suburbs. In general, I hope that this will be the last blow to Germany. Now I am sitting in a luxurious room and writing you a letter.
You write that you have bad weather. Well, here it is already real summer, there is greenery all around! Gardens are blooming, flowers are blossoming. Well, that’s all for now, I kiss everyone very, very hard. Your loving son Shura V. 26.4.45.
Say hello to all your friends.”
The next letter to the parents was written not by Vasilyev, but by the district military registration and enlistment office of the city of Kazan. Its employees sent the family a notice of Alexander’s death: “being at the front, in the battle for the Socialist Motherland, faithful to the military oath, having shown heroism and courage, he died on April 30, 1945. He was buried in Germany in the cemetery of the city of Malov, a suburb of Berlin.”
It would later turn out that Vasilyev’s car, in which he went to help his fellow soldiers, was blown up by a mine. Along with the lieutenant, 17 people who were also in the car died. Vasilyev was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. The parents collected all of their son’s letters and kept them as a memory of their loved one. Soon the entire collection of documents was transferred to the History Museum of Kazan University.