Ivan Zakharov

Several relatives of mine have taken part in the Second World War.

I’d like to tell you about one of them, namely, about my great-grandfather Ivan Zakharov. My father has told me about him. He had the opportunity to ask his grandfather about the war. Now my dad is excited to tell me everything he remembers about it. Usually, on May holidays, my family recollects the happenings of the war and my great-grandfather’s participation in it, we look through the photos and ask Dad to tell us something about his great-grandfather again.

Ivan Zakharov was born in 1918 in the village of Zorka, Orel province. In 1938, he was called up for military service in the Red Army and eventually joined the artillery. He served in the north of the Soviet Union, near Leningrad, which automatically led to his participation in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. With the rank of sergeant and the position of commander of the gun crew, Ivan Zakharov ended this war and took part in the Second World War.

Until 1943, he participated in the defence of the city of Leningrad by shooting down German aircraft, therefore he received the Order of the Patriotic War of the 2nd class later in the same year.

He reached Berlin with the Third Belarusian Front. Sergeant Zakharov took part in many operations, one of which was the capture of the city of Königsberg in 1945, for which he was awarded the Medal “For the Capture of Konigsberg”.

Following demobilization, Ivan Zakharov arrived in the city of Makiivka, where he started working in the mines of the Donetsk coal basin, got married, and raised three children.

Ivan Zakharov died at the age of seventy-six.