In 1942, the “Omskaya Pravda” newspaper published “A Letter from Ada Zanegina,” which marked the beginning of the only movement of preschool children in the country to raise funds for the front.

It said:
“I am Ada Zanegina. I am six years old. I am writing in print.
Hitler kicked me out of the city of Sychevka, Smolensk region.
I want to go home. Little me, I know that we need to defeat Hitler and then we’ll go home.
Mom gave money for the tank.
I collected 122 rubles and 25 kopecks for the doll. And now I’m giving them to the tank.
Dear Uncle Editor!
Write in your newspaper to all the children so that they also give their money to the tank.
And let's call him “Baby”.
When our tank defeats Hitler, we will go home.
Ada.
My mom is a doctor, and my dad is a tank driver.”

Then a letter from six-year-old Alik Solodov appeared on the pages of the newspaper: “I want to return to Kiev,” Alik wrote, “and I’m donating the money I collected for boots - 135 rubles 56 kopecks - for the construction of the Malyutka tank.”

“Mom wanted to buy me a new coat and saved 150 rubles. I'm wearing an old coat. Tamara Loskutova."

“Dear unknown girl Ada! I’m only five years old, but I’ve already lived without my mother for a year. I really want to go home, so I happily give money to build our tank. Our tank would sooner defeat the enemy. Tanya Chistyakova."

Account No. 350035 was opened in the regional branch of the State Bank. Children - preschoolers, schoolchildren in the city and region began collecting funds for the Malyutka tank. Money arrived almost every day - rubles, even small change that was in children's wallets. Children kindergarten State farm "Novo-Uralsky" prepared a concert and transferred the earned 20 rubles to the State Bank.

Every day the newspaper published letters from children who donated their “doll” savings for the “Malyutka” tank. The leaders of the Omsk City Administration sent a telegram to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “Preschool children, wanting to help the heroic Red Army completely defeat and destroy the enemy, the money they collected for toys, dolls... are given to the construction of a tank and ask to call it “Baby.” A reply telegram came under the heading “Highest Government”: “Please convey to the preschool children of Omsk, who collected 160,886 rubles for the construction of the Malyutka tank, my warm greetings and gratitude to the Red Army.”

Ada dreamed that her father, a tank driver, would fight on the Malyutka tank. But his driver-mechanic was 22-year-old Ekaterina Alekseevna Petlyuk, senior sergeant of the 56th tank brigade, who in a month retrained as a mechanical driver from a pilot at the Odessa Aero Club Osoaviakhim, passing all exams with excellent marks. She led the “Malyutka” into the first battle near Stalingrad in November 1942 in the Kalach-on-Don area, between the state farm “X Let of October” and MTF-2. The messenger “Malyutka”, whose commander was Senior Sergeant Kozyura, quickly jumped through the black fountains of explosions, drove up to the command vehicles, took orders, rushed to the units, transmitted these orders, drove repairmen to damaged tanks, delivered ammunition, and took out the wounded.

In December, the brigade was disbanded and “Malyutka” with a new crew (junior lieutenant Ivan Gubanov became the tank commander, Katya remained the driver, and there was no one else in the T-60) ended up in the 90th tank brigade. After the end of the fighting in Stalingrad, the tank, along with the driver, was transferred to the 91st separate tank brigade of Colonel I. I. Yakubovsky.

For courage and heroism in the battles for Stalingrad, Katya Petlyuk received the medal “For the Defense of Stalingrad” and the Order of the Red Star. Not only her hands were frostbitten, but also her face and legs. The communists elected Katya as party organizer of the company (Komsomol activist Petlyuk was accepted into the party on January 17, 1943). The brigade was renamed Guards in March 1943 and in August joined the formed 7th Mechanized Corps.

In the crucible of the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943, Ekaterina Petlyuk had to part with “Malyutka” and transfer to the T-70, taking as a souvenir from a broken tank a tank watch, which is now on display in the Museum of the Defense of Stalingrad, and the name Malyutka, which Katya has been affectionately called since then (she herself was 151 cm tall). This is what Ekaterina Alekseevna was called by fellow veterans of the 7th MK from the Odessa group.

The platoon commander, Lieutenant Mikhail Kolov, became the tank commander. During the Oryol operation, the car was hit by enemy aircraft, and Katya Petlyuk was ordered to transfer to the T-70 to junior lieutenant Pyotr Fedorenko. In one battle, the tank lost speed, but continued to fire from the spot. They managed to destroy two German dugouts and suppress a machine-gun nest. Fedorenko was wounded in the head and sent to a rear hospital, and Katya was wounded in her left leg, but remained in service. For the courage shown in these battles, she was awarded her second military order - the Patriotic War, II degree.

Before reaching the Dnieper, company party organizer Katya Petlyuk, together with tank commander Mikhail Kodov, was transferred to the 39th Guards Separate Reconnaissance Army Armored Battalion of the 3rd Guards Tank Army. After the liberation of Shepetovka on February 11, 1944, the troops of the 3rd Guards were withdrawn from the battles and received a respite, and the driver-mechanic Petlyuk, who by that time had three wounds, two military orders and a medal, was sent to the Ulyanovsk Tank School.

In October 1944, Ekaterina Petlyuk passed all final exams with an “excellent” grade. She was awarded the rank of junior lieutenant and... left at the school as a training platoon commander.

In heavy battles from October 1942 to February 1944, “Guard Katya” earned 3 orders and 12 medals. She was discharged due to injuries. In 1945, the garrison military medical commission issued a merciless verdict: disabled person of the second group.

Ekaterina Petlyuk becomes a military training instructor in Odessa. Soon she is elected as a deputy of the district council. She is graduating from the university's Faculty of Law in absentia.

In 1975, Volodya Yashin, a schoolboy from the “Seeker” club of the Omsk Palace of Pioneers, discovered a letter from Ada Zanegina from the distant year 1942 in an old file of Omskaya Pravda. The guys were excited about this letter. They began searching for the girl who initiated the fundraising for the construction of the Malyutka tank.

On May 19 of the same year, the two owners of the Malyutka tank met for the first time in Omsk. Adel Aleksandrovna Zanegina, an ophthalmologist from Elektrostal near Moscow, and Ekaterina Alekseevna Petlyuk, head of the registry office Leninsky district Odessa. It turned out that Ada’s father, a tank driver, also fought on the Oryol-Kursk Bulge. He died there. Then they visited Smolensk, Ada’s homeland.

After meeting with them, second grade students high school No. 2 of the city of Smolensk decided: “Our front is in the grain field!” The guys began collecting scrap metal, waste paper, medicinal plants, to use the money raised to build a “Malyutka” tractor and present it to the best tractor driver in the region. The call of the Smolensk Octobers was picked up by pioneers throughout the region, and a year later in Smolensk, fifteen powerful MTZ-80s lined up at the Mound of Immortality. On each tractor there are brass letters: “Baby”. These tractors were built by Komsomol members of the Minsk Tractor Plant during the cleanup days.


The next year, Smolensk schoolchildren raised money for fourteen tractors, then another twenty-one. Children from Omsk region. Kharkov schoolchildren decided to build one hundred and twenty tractors and add them to the “Malyutka” column.

Seeing off the leading tractor column “Malyutka”, Ekaterina Alekseevna Petlyuk told the guys:

I will never forget today. Once again, I deeply felt: it was not in vain that we fought for every inch of land, it was not in vain that we watered it with our blood. We have sown good seeds, and now the shoots are pleasing to our eyes. Today there is a peaceful sky above us and children are collecting scrap metal for tractors.

Publications in the Lectures section

Operation "Baby"

Ada Zanegina (Voronets), an ophthalmologist from Elektrostal near Moscow, doesn’t really remember this story. After all, the war began when she was five years old. Later, the mother talked about her father, a tank driver, who went to the front on the first day of the war, June 22, 1941, about the evacuation beyond the Urals. Doctor Polina Terentyevna transported hundreds of children from orphanages here. “And no one got sick, died, or got lice...”

In the memories of that time, Ada only had a potbelly stove in the carriages and a single stool, which made up the entire furnishings in the annex where they settled in the Siberian Maryanovka. “Then, during the war, I tried chocolate for the first time: it was brought by a wounded soldier whom my mother was treating,” Ada said. He remembers how he and his mother collected parcels with mittens and socks for the front. Then the girl saved money for a doll, saving pennies that fell from her mother. And I bought a tank...

In the first year of the war, an article was published in Omskaya Pravda under the heading “Mail from Our Readers.” Ada was already reading syllables then... And she wrote this letter with a simple pencil:

“Hitler kicked me out of the city of Sychevka, Smolensk region. I want to go home. I collected 122 rubles 25 kopecks for the doll. And now I’m giving them to the tank. Dear Uncle Editor! Write in your newspaper to all the children so that they also give their money to the tank. And let's call him “Baby”. When our tank defeats Hitler, we will go home. Ada. My mother is a doctor, and my father is a tank driver.”

The effect of the letter, which is carefully preserved in the People's Museum of the History of the Children's Movement of the Omsk Region, was amazing. Children who were deprived of their homes by the Nazis literally flooded the editorial office with letters and sent their savings.

“I want to return to Kyiv. I contribute the money collected for the boots - 135 rubles 56 kopecks - to the construction of the Malyutka tank. Alik Solodov. 6 years".

“Mom wanted to buy me a new coat and saved 150 rubles. I'm wearing an old coat. Tamara Loskutova."

“Dear unknown girl Ada! I’m only five years old, but I’ve already lived without my mother for a year. I really want to go home, so I happily give money to build our tank. Our tank would sooner defeat the enemy. Tanya Chistyakova."

Shura Khomenko from Ishim: “They told me about Ada Zanegina’s letter, and I contributed all my savings - 100 rubles - and handed over 400 rubles in bonds for the construction of the Malyutka tank. My friend Vitya Tynyanov contributes 20 rubles. Let our dads defeat the Nazis with tanks built with our savings.”

The Omsk City Council decided to inform Stalin about the childish act: “Preschool children, wanting to help the heroic Red Army completely defeat and destroy the enemy, the money they collected for toys, dolls... are given to the construction of a tank and ask to call it “Baby.”

Letter of thanks The leader was not long in coming: “Please convey to the preschool children of the city of Omsk, who collected 160,886 rubles for the construction of the Malyutka tank, my warm greetings and gratitude to the Red Army. Supreme Commander Marshal Soviet Union I. Stalin." A special account No. 350035 was opened in the branch of the State Bank of the USSR in the Omsk Region. The collected money was transferred to him. In the spring of 1942, the lightweight T-60 tank rolled off the assembly line of the Stalingrad Shipyard plant. “Ma-lyut-ka” was written across the hatch.

Ekaterina Alekseevna Petlyuk

Ada thought that her father would fight in the tank, but he was “steered” by one of 19 female tankers in the entire Red Army. A photograph of a pretty girl adorns many museums in the country. Katyusha, 22-year-old mechanic-driver Ekaterina Alekseevna Petlyuk, height 151 cm. “ Perfect hit“The little one in “Malyutka,” the tankers joked. The tank, purchased with children's donations, took its first battle near Stalingrad in November 1942 in the Kalach-on-Don area. Briskly jumped through the black fountains of explosions, drove repairmen to damaged tanks, delivered ammunition, and took out the wounded.

The further fate of the Malyutka tank is unknown. According to one version, he reached Prague or even Berlin. According to another, the tank was sent for melting before the Kursk Bulge.

After the Victory, Ada returned to her native Smolensk region, life went on as usual. And in 1975, Volodya Yashin, a schoolboy from the “Seeker” club of the Omsk Palace of Pioneers, discovered a letter from Ada Zanegina in an old file of Omskaya Pravda. And the search began for the girl who initiated the fundraising for the tank. They found Ada in Elektrostal, where she got married, worked as an ophthalmologist, and was invited to Omsk to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Victory. In the corridor of an Omsk hotel, she was introduced to “driver mechanic Petlyuk,” Ekaterina Alekseevna, a deputy and employee of the Odessa registry office.

They were taken around the city: by the administration, pioneers, orphanages... And everywhere Ada was given the doll she dreamed of during the war. “Two mistresses of the tank,” that’s what Zanegina and Petlyuk were called in Omsk.

The Malyutka trolleybus, built with public money, appeared in the city. And in Elektrostal there is a bus with this name...

During the war of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany, the little girl Ada Zanegina sent a letter to the publishing house of the Omskaya Pravda newspaper. The girl wanted to donate the money she had saved up to buy a toy to the Defense Fund for the construction of a tank.

The assertion that the Soviet Union was ill-prepared for military action contradicts the view that Stalin himself contributed to the development hostile relationship. Despite such disagreements, it is difficult to deny that the Soviet people sacrificed a lot for the sake of victory. It's about about ordinary people, ready to provide the state with everything necessary to defeat Hitler.

Famous personalities also provided active assistance, for example, Mikhail Sholokhov and Dmitry Shostakovich donated the Stalin Prize (about one hundred thousand rubles) to the Defense Fund. The funds were invested in the construction of the KV Besposhchadny tank, and thanks to donations Orthodox Church An aviation unit and the famous column of tanks named after Dmitry Donskoy were built.

Letter to the publisher

At the beginning of 1942, Omskaya Pravda received and immediately published a letter from Ada Zanegina. Below is the full text.

"I am Ada Zanegina. I am six years old. I am writing in print. Hitler drove me out of the city of Sychevka in the Smolensk region. I want to go home. I am little, but I know that we need to defeat Hitler and then we will go home. My mother gave me money for a tank. I I collected 122 rubles and 25 kopecks for the doll. And now I’m giving them to the tank. Dear uncle editor! Write in your newspaper to all the children so that they also give their money to the tank. And we’ll call it “Baby”. When our tank defeats Hitler, we Let's go home. Ada. My mom is a doctor, and my dad is a tanker."

With her actions, six-year-old Ada inspired other children to donate the funds they had saved up for toys to build a tank.

Letter from Comrade Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin sent a response telegram with a text of gratitude:

“Please convey to the preschool children of the city of Omsk, who collected 160,886 rubles for the construction of the Malyutka tank, my warm greetings and gratitude to the Red Army. Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Marshal of the Soviet Union I. Stalin.”

As a result, a separate account was opened in a branch of the state bank for the transfer of donated money. And the following year, the process of assembling the T-60 “Malyutka” tank at the Stalingrad Shipyard plant was completed.

"Baby" on the battlefield

The tank was controlled for a long period by a truly brave woman, Ekaterina Petlyuk, a sergeant of the 56th Tank Brigade. Interestingly, due to her short stature, she was often called “little one.” By the way, after 30 years, Ekaterina Petlyuk and Ada Zanegina finally met.

Peaceful time

This fact became known thanks to schoolchildren who found a girl’s letter in the newspaper archives in the 1970s. The guys in the Smolensk region also wanted to raise money for the production of tractors.
Already at the end of the 1970s, 15 new Malyutka tractors, assembled at the Minsk Tractor Plant, began work.

Nowadays, debates about the story of the girl’s letter do not subside. Many believe that the parents donated the money, and not of their own free will.
According to the data, the state received 35 billion rubles from its citizens. This money was spent on the construction of 2,500 aircraft, 9 submarines and other equipment.
The money was under strict control.


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Ada Zanegina before the war.

I'm Ada Zanegina. I am 6 years old. I am writing in print. Hitler kicked me out of the city of Sychevka, Smolensk region. I want to go home. I collected 122 rubles 25 kopecks for the doll. And now I’m giving them to the tank. Dear Uncle Editor! Write to all the children so that they also give their money to the tank. And let's call him “Baby”. When our tank defeats Hitler, we will go home.

And the children responded.

Adik Solodov, 6 years old:

I want to return to Kyiv. I contribute the money collected for the boots - 135 rubles 56 kopecks - for the construction of the Malyutka tank.

Tamara Loskutova:

Mom wanted to buy me a new coat and saved 150 rubles. I'm wearing an old coat.

Tanya Chistyakova:

Dear unknown girl Ada! I’m only five years old, but I’ve already lived without my mother for a year. I really want to go home, and therefore I happily give money to build our tank. Our tank would sooner defeat the enemy.

Shura Khomenko from Ishim:

They told me about Ada Zanegina’s letter and I contributed all my savings - 100 rubles and handed over 400 rubles worth of bonds for the construction of the Malyutka tank. My friend Vitya Tynyanov contributes 20 rubles. Let our dads defeat the Nazis with tanks built with our savings.

And the children, who had no savings, tried to earn money, as they would say now, through charity events. For example, the children of the kindergarten of the Novo-Uralsky state farm prepared a concert and transferred 20 rubles to a special account in the Omsk branch of the State Bank.

Thus, the entire children's world collected far from a child's sum, which the Omsk authorities transferred to the Defense Fund.

I ask you to convey to the preschool children of the city of Omsk, who collected 160,886 rubles for the construction of the Malyutka tank, my warm greetings and gratitude to the Red Army.

Supreme Commander-in-Chief Marshal of the Soviet Union I. Stalin.

It was released with children's money light tank T-60 (something about the history of its creation and combat use can be read here).

“Baby” looked exactly like this.

Its driver-mechanic was one of the 19 Soviet women tankers, Ekaterina Petlyuk. She herself was short, which served as a source of constant jokes in the unit. However, she fought heroically, which was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War.

The Malyutka tank fought at Stalingrad and witnessed the surrender of Field Marshal Paulus. Before the Kursk Bulge, its combat service ended, and, like all other used armored vehicles, it was sent to be melted down. Ekaterina kept the tank watch as a souvenir (it is now on display in the Museum of the Defense of Stalingrad) and switched to a more advanced, although still small, T-70 vehicle.

Mechanic-driver st. St. Ekaterina Petlyuk.

On the Kursk Bulge, as it turned out later, Catherine fought somewhere next to Ada’s father. But, alas, for tanker Alexander Zanegin, the battles near Kursk turned out to be the last.

The history of the “children’s” tank was unearthed by the Omsk “Red Pathfinders” in 1975, and on May 9, 1975, in Omsk, an employee of one of the Odessa registry offices, Ekaterina Alekseevna Petlyuk, first met Ada Zanegina - by that time an ophthalmologist from Elektrostal near Moscow, Adela Aleksandrovna Voronets.

By the way, May Day this year search engines Volgograd region noted a rare success: they raised the T-60 tank - after restoration it will become the sixth preserved in the world and the third in Russia (this is out of six thousand vehicles produced).

By the way, the example of Omsk children during the war turned out to be contagious; When the story of “Malyutka” became widely known, the pioneers of Smolensk Secondary School No. 2 took the initiative to collect scrap metal and waste paper on a targeted basis. But, since there was no war and was not foreseen, they decided to collect recyclable materials for a completely peaceful battle for the harvest. From 1979 to 1986, using funds raised by the pioneers, Komsomol members of the Minsk Tractor Plant produced 140 MTZ-80 Belarus tractors, which bore the name “Malyutka”.

It must be said that not only children and Stalin Prize laureates showed concern for tank building in the warring USSR.

In 1938, demobilized Red Navy soldier Ivan Boyko was recruited to Magadan. He worked as a driver of a heavy-duty Yaroslavets, transported all sorts of things along the Kolyma Highway miscellaneous equipment, for his impact work he received the “Excellent Dalstroi worker” badge. In 1940, he married Alexandra Morisheva, who also completely voluntarily enlisted in Dalstroy.

In 1942, the best driver Ivan Boyko was included in the delegation of Dalstroevites, which brought gifts to front-line soldiers. What he saw in the fighting part of the USSR shocked Ivan. The couple transferred their savings - 50,000 rubles - to the Defense Fund, and wrote a letter to Moscow, to which the answer came in February 1943:

Thank you, Ivan Fedorovich and Alexandra Leontievna, for caring about the Red Army. Your wish will be fulfilled.
Please accept my greetings
Stalin.

The desire they expressed to Comrade Stalin was very simple: to use the money they transferred to build a tank, and allow them to fight on it themselves. The first step towards fulfilling the wishes of the Boyko spouses was the order of the head of Dalstroi: “To release from work in Dalstroi the driver of the motor depot No. 6 of the motor transport department, Boyko Ivan Fedorovich, and the employee of the Kolymsnab trust, Boyko Alexandra Leontyevna, who are going as volunteers to the front.”

In November 1943, they completed a shortened course at the Chelyabinsk Tank School and graduated as junior lieutenant technicians - but ended up in the reserves. They received their IS-2 No. 40356 only at the beginning of June 1944 in the 48th separate guards. ttp. Ivan Boyko was appointed driver-mechanic, and Alexandra became the commander of the tank, on which, according to some sources, the stern inscription “Kolyma” appeared. Just a few days later they disabled their first Panther, albeit with a ramming attack.


Unit commander of Guards. D.L. Goizman presents the Boyko spouses and crew with an IS-2 tank.

Our press has already reported that Soviet patriots husband and wife Ivan and Alexandra Boyko bought a tank with their labor savings. Currently, they are in the ranks of the Red Army and are fighting against the Nazi invaders. The crew of the tank, whose commander was junior technical lieutenant Alexandra Boyko and the driver junior technical lieutenant Ivan Boyko, destroyed 5 tanks and 2 enemy guns in two weeks.


Photo from the magazine “Ogonyok”, then still Soviet.

Boyko's tank crews ended their combat journey in liberated Prague.

In conclusion, about one more wish and gift.

Maria Filippovna and Ilya Andreevich Shirmanov, collective farmers of the agricultural artel named after Maxim Gorky from Chuvashia, used their peasant savings to buy a T-34 tank and gave it to their only son Andrey. In the photograph, taken during the presentation of the gift, presumably on June 1, 1943, the son is sitting between his parents.


A year later, gunner senior sergeant Andrei Shirmanov burned in this tank along with his crewmates in the battle near Chernivtsi.

We couldn't help but win!