Vyacheslav Simonov - Remember this! Don’t let it sink into oblivion! Second edition. The life and death of the Pioneer Base «Oceanrybflot»

This is the above-mentioned archival document about his father sent to me by Viktor Volodin.

It says:

In the archive fund “Kalingrad Regional Council of People’s Deputies and its Executive Committee” in the minutes of the first session of January 7, 1948 – the eleventh session of the first convocation of the Kaliningrad Regional Council of Workers’ Deputies October 19—20, 1950 is Volodin Aleksey Artemyevich, a deputy from the Pioneers constituency of the Primorsky district and a member of the permanent budget and financial commission.

And below you’ll read his memories of his father. I bring it in its entirety, preserving the author’s style.

“Early left without a father, Alexey 13-year-old learned various methods of fishing in strange farm, and simply farm labourered. It’s a good thing he was strong born. I had to survive somehow, helping Maria’s mother. With the formation of fishing collective farms, he settled in the artel, where along with experienced catchers mastered the collective extraction of live silver on rivers, currents and in the Volga Delta. In society, his efforts to fish, strong hands, knowledge of feeding and spawning of fish, the ability to navigate the river, appreciated, and entrusted to the smart young man to manage the barge. Since then, Alexei, a 14-year-old capten, they began to respectfully magnify Artemych.

In the future, he said, everything was more or less successful. He’s firmly on his feet. There was prosperity in the house. Then they did not think to pay for the work of fishermen with work-days – chopsticks. He’ll be the one to try later when he gets back from the army. And soon the time came to marry, and in the bride Alexey chose the simplest girl Klava, the daughter of Arkhipov Mikhail Fedorovich. Looking ahead, I can say that my parents lived together for 42 years, until the last day of our father. They raised four children, although there could have been more if not for the disease. And they had everything in common, as in people.

Volodin A.A.

In 1935, Volodin was born his first child – our older brother Michael. And the next year my father was called up for urgent military service. He served in the city of Leningrad. Demobilized, he already knew firmly that he would devote himself to the fishing fleet. Whether there was a share of romance, I do not know, but the day after returning from the army, my father took the documents to Astrakhan College for courses in ship navigation, there just ended the reception. It was accepted without unnecessary talk, and the next 1939 it was made of a river peasant- catcher, a shipmaster of ships of the type river-sea. Unfortunately, the document has not been preserved.

Returning from studying at the fish farm “Memory of Kuibyshev” father for a long time could not apply the knowledge in practice: there was no fleet in the collective farm and did not allow to leave. And only with grief in half, literally, after the death of five-month-old son Vitaly, Alexey Artemyevich was released on “free bread.” And a couple of days later, on July 8, 1940, Alexei Volodin was hired by the “Morlov” Volgo-Caspian Trust helmsman. In this position, on the Seiner “Tobolsk”, he began to get acquainted with the Caspian sea on a real ship. After the first trip, Alexei Volodin was appointed assistant captain, and again, as before the army, everybody began to call Artemych gratefully…

However, this benevolent idyll did not last long. The famous events of June 22, 1941, which broke the fate of millions of Soviet people, did not bypass the Volodin family… Aleksey Artemyevich was summoned to the RVC on the fourth day of the war. My mother said that she would remember this black Thursday, June 26, 1941, forever. The day when life was instantly divided into “before and after.” And between them the unknown at the age of four?.. My father was lucky, he returned from the war. Wounded, with a tormented soul and body, but alive.

I do not know, of course, as other front-line soldiers, but our father did not like to remember the war, although for sure he had something to tell the boy. Three wounds, the first near the Northern Donets, near the Ukrainian village of Krestish, the most severe, in the chest. The next year, in the foot, in the Donbass. Forcing Sivash in 1943 and third wound in 1944 at the liberation of Simferopol. The encirclement near the town of Tucums in Latvia. First meeting with the Baltic Sea. And finally, Victory!

The soldier came from the front in the deep autumn of 1945. The village of Karabat quieted down, as if there was no one in it. Not all defenders of the Fatherland returned home. In Volodin’s hut, “a ball of kati” (from old, saying). On the threshold children small, wife, yes mother her old lady. We met the owner, who defeated fascist Germany, boiled potatoes in a uniform from the garden, and the soldier’s daily ration and fed up. And when the tears of joy at all dried up and together gathered to build a new peaceful life of a full-fledged peasant family.

In this regard, Aleksey Artemyevich had to go to the city of Astrakhan, to correct the documents, as they said then. There and there was a fateful meeting with a man from the city of Koenigsberg, who turned the life of the Volodin family into a bright future. Talked. Sergey Golovkov turned out to be a recruiter from Baltgosrybtrest, came to recruit sailors to work. Learning that in front of him the captain of the fishing boat, he, like a tick, clung to his father and began to persuade him to move.

Alexey Artemyevich listened to the walker, asked a few questions for order and almost agreed, promising to consult his wife. The recruiter, in turn, gave two months to think, appointed a day, wrote some piece of paper, perhaps with the address of the collection point and took his father’s honest word. That’s what we parted with…

Volodin arrived in the Baltic in late February – early March. In the trust of the father was sent to the village of Neukuhren, which was later renamed the city of Pionersk. At first they lived in the village of Lippainen (German, I remember it as Lapinino), there survived a lot of buildings. Later the family was moved to the street Dachnaj…

Volodin A.A.

On April 27, 1946, Alexey Volodin was hired by the Neukuhrensky Fish Factory as captain of a motorcycle boat. A little later, several small vessels (MRT) were received, which, even with minimal equipment, proved to be positive.

In each voyage Captain Volodin came out confidently and calmly. He had no fear of the unfamiliar Baltic. He left it forever on the steep slopes of the Northern Donets, in his first combat attack, in 1942, on trench the enemy. Since then, where there once were feelings of doubt, now lived reason, knowledge, solid calculation and natural savvy. Only on these, so-called whales sprouts and matures professional experience – argued Alexey Artemyevich.

– Captain! – My father liked to speak – Mind, Honor and Conscience of the ship, even as small as an MRT. For conscientious work Captain Volodin A.A. with his team of sailors was repeatedly award a prize and encouraged by cash payments.

In December 1947 he was elected a deputy of the Local Councils. In December 1953, the name of Captain Aleksey Artemyevich Volodin was included in the book of Honor of the Baltgosrybtrest and the trade union committee. In 1958, The Motherland added a medal “For Labor Valor” to the combat awards of a WWAR participant.