Evgenia Kostrikova Biography

Kostrikova Evgenia Sergeevna Daughter S. in the spring of G. It was here that then Kostrikov met with a woman who became his first wife. However, the marriage was short -lived, soon his lover fell ill and died. In the city of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad Provkom, as well as the city committee of the party, was elected the first secretary of the Leningrad Provincial Committee.

In this post, he was constantly busy with party and state affairs. His second wife-Maria Lvovna Marcus-did not accept Little Zhenya into the family, as a result, the girl was identified in an orphanage. Thus, after the murder of Sergei Kirov in the city, she graduated from a secondary boarding school at one of the orphanages of “special purpose”, which were established by the USSR government for “children of war” from Spain.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, having an unfinished higher education behind her shoulders, Evgenia Kostrikova graduated from three -month courses of nurses after which she volunteered to the front. The newly made nurse was sent to the medical and sanitary platoon of a separate tank battalion, which took part in battles on the Western Front during the battle for Moscow.

It was near Moscow that the countdown of kilometers of front -line roads began for her. In October, the nurse who had the qualifications of the nurse and the unfinished higher education of Yevgeny Kostrikov became the military -wrestler of this regiment, which corresponded to the rank of lieutenant of the army units. In December, in brutal battles for Stalingrad, when, according to the Soviet Marshal V.

Chuikov, it seemed that even his hand could not be lifted above the ground, the military -wrestler Evgeny Kostrikov directly on the battlefield managed to provide first aid to the wounded fighters, and also carried them to a safe place under the enemy dense fire, showing real courage. After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, the guards. Leonid Yuzefovich Girsch retired colonel, a participant in the famous tank battle that occurred under Prokhorovka, and after the war, who became a writer and poet, then met Evgenia Kostrikova.

Simplified by an officer of the communication officer of the GV. It is known for certain that at the post of the military-guards of the 5th Guards. Kostrikova was able to save their lives to 27 tankers, only during the fighting period from July 12 to 25 G. At the same time, Zhenya herself was wounded by a fragment of the German shell, which fell into her right cheek.

For her feats, she was presented to the Order of the Red Star. After the treatment in the hospital, in the fall of G., after its injury and the completion of treatment at the end of G., this contains information in the memoirs “in the fire of tank battles”, which were written by the former head of the operational department, General A. However, the headquarters work was not to his liking.

From the available front -line reports, she knew that there were enough women in the armored forces. Many of them managed to distinguish themselves in the battles on the Kursk arc, when the eagle was released from the Nazis, the glory of the brave women-tankers rattled on all fronts. Eugene decided to become one of them, and not stay at the headquarters. With the direct support of the head of the operational department of the corps, then still Colonel Ryazansky, Eugene began to petition for her direction to undergo training at the Kazan Tank School.

Why was Kazan chosen? The thing is that even before the war, Alexander Pavlovich Ryazan from the GG. Initially in the position of commander of the tank battalion, and then a tactics teacher. Initially, Evgenia Kostrikova was in every possible way refused, saying that tanker is not a female profession. Someone told her that "the armor does not love the weak," someone, that "it is hard on the tank and guys." As a result, I even had to personally turn to Marshal of the Soviet Union K.

Voroshilov, whom Kostrikova was able to convince that she had already settled for the levers of the formidable combat vehicle in her regiment and will be able to master the tank no worse than any man. Veterans who graduated from the Kazan Tank School recalled that his boss Colonel V. Zhiluk was originally very surprised when a young woman arrived in order to study him, albeit in the rank of senior lieutenant.

Then he dropped the phrase: "Yes, this is like a woman on a ship." However, the attitude towards the girl gradually changed, especially when later the order of the commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army on the award of Evgeny Kostrikova “for the defense of Stalingrad” came to the school. During her studies in Kazan, Yevgeny Kostrikova, along with other male cadets, mastered driving and shooting from the tank at the training ground, and also studied the tactical and technical characteristics of military equipment and weapons, taught the material part in the park, simulators and in the training classes.

Even after the end, she continued to cammer the instructions and instructions on the armored service. Fragile in appearance, the girl steadfastly endured all the hardships of learning, primarily heavy physical activity. Only in order to control the levers of the tank well, real male power was required. For example, to squeeze one of two on -board clutch levers, a force of 15 kg was required, and to squeeze the main adhesion pedal - 25 kg.Here, the hardening helped his wife, which she received as a nurse and a military -wrapper, when she had to endure dozens of wounded fighters and commanders from the battlefield on the front line.

Evgenia Kostrikova graduated with honors from the accelerated courses of the Kazan Tank School and returned to her native 5th Guards. According to some information, she managed to take part in the battles of the liberation of the city of Kirovograd, who went in January in the years of the Great Patriotic War tankmen about 20 women were able to become tank schools, but only 3 were graduating from the tank school.

And only Evgenia Sergeyevna Kostrikova, after the completion of the school, commanded a tank platoon, and at the end of the war and a tank company. As part of her native corps, Kostrikov took part in the battles on the forcing of the Oder and Neisa, and by April 30 she went to the southeastern outskirts of the German capital. From Berlin, her tanks on May 5 were put forward to Czechoslovakia to liberate Prague.

It was in Czechoslovakia that captain Evgeny Kostrikov completed her battle path of the guard. After the war ended, a brave woman who went a glorious military path along with men returned home, becoming an ordinary housewife.

She lived for another 30 years, the Victory Field, having died in the city of the guard, the captain of the tank troops Evgeny Sergeevna Kostrikova was buried in Moscow at the famous Vagankovsky cemetery. Awards: Order of the Red Banner