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Mother of the Hero of the Soviet Union Was on a Visit to Mikhail Sholokhov

 55 years ago, on June 21, 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov was visited by Bagzhan Zhaykenova, mother of the Hero of the Soviet Union Nurken Abdirov, who repeated Nikolay Gastello’s feat.

On December 19, 1942, during an assault operation in the area of ??Konkova Farm in the Bokovsky District of the Rostov Region, Nurken Abdirov repeated the feat of Nikolay Gastello directing his damaged plane to a column of enemy tanks. For this heroic deed he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

For more than 20 years, Bagzhan Zhaykenova did not know where her son was buried. She flew to the Don land at the invitation of students and teachers of Bokovskaya secondary school. She was accompanied by her grandchildren Auken and Aliya and the first flight mentor of Nurken Grigory Vasilyevich Yakimov who was the leader of the Karaghanda flying club and subsequently wrote the book “Pique to Immortality” about N. Abdirov.

Dear guests were greeted by schoolchildren and workers of state farms of the Bokovsky district, representatives of the district military commissariat. Bagzhan Zhaykenova visited the places where her son fought and ended his earthly journey. A mass rally was held at the mass grave in the village of Konkovo. The Kazakh guest met with residents of the village of Bokovskaya, schoolchildren, visited their museum, was elected an honorary Cossack of the stanitsa Bokovskaya.

Upon learning of the arrival of Bagzhan Zhaykenova, Mikhail Sholokhov invited her to his house. The meeting of the writer with the mother of the Hero of the Soviet Union took place on June 21, 1965 in a hospitable Sholokhov house. During her conversation with Mikhail Sholokhov Bagzhan Zhaykenova noted that the exploit of the second crew member who died with her son and was buried in the same grave with Nurken went unnoticed. As a result of lengthy searches it was possible to establish the name of the shooter-radio operator of the junior sergeant Alexander Komissarov from the Nizhny Novgorod Region. He thanks to the writer's request was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class.

Elena Popova