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Exhibition “Daughters of Russia”

An exhibition “Daughters of Russia” from the State Museum-Reserve of War History “Prokhorovskoye Pole” will have a run in the Excursion and Exhibition Centre “People’s House” from September, 29, to November, 30.

The exhibition opens with a family photo, and then goes to the photo gallery. The main theme of the exhibition expressed by the installation is a tragedy of a mother who lost her child.

A prewar living-room interior symbolizes happiness fixed still for a moment and destroyed in one day. For the people the world split into a peaceful past, that was just yesterday, and a war. The portals shown, like fragments of human life, introduce us to the harsh wartime.

Two sections of the exhibition – “Frontline Dugout” and “Medics at War” tell about the frontline roads, which women went by. “I have never read how terrible a war is. How it is terrible, especially in hand-to-hand fighting, that you get stuttering and for a few days you are unable to utter words correctly”, - a woman, a fighting participant, recalls.

“Everything for the front, everything for the Victory” – these words are about the labour exploit of the women in the war time, when their role in some branches of the national economy became not just important, but determining. The women built roads, laid rails, harvested; they made and knitted warm things for the soldiers and took care of the soldiers’ families.

Never before had the women taken such a massive and active part in the armed defence of the country as in the years of the Great Patriotic War. At the war they were medical workers, pilots, snipers, drivers, topographers, reporters, tankers, gunners; they served in the infantry, participated in the war underground and guerilla movement.

About 1 million women fought on the front, 80 thousand of them were Soviet officers.

In those years, for the first time in history, in the Armed Forces of our country there appeared female combat formations: 3 aviation regiments, a separate women’s volunteer infantry brigade, a separate women’s reserve infantry regiment, a central women’s sniper school, a separate women’s seamen company.

90 women (49 of them posthumously) became Heroes of the Soviet Union, 4 became Holders of the Order of Fame. The women, who went through the war and gained the Victory, took part in the postwar Victory Parade. The exhibition displays personal belongings of A.M.Cherkashina, a participant of that unforgettable Parade.

The exhibition “Daughters of Russia” is a gratitude to mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and soldiers.

Let’s give them our deepest bow for their mercy, their great mother’s heart, their courage and love, their patience and faith, their tears and their joys.

Irina Panchenko