Youth singed by the War

Childhood and Youth

Though Volodya's childhood, which he has spent in the big village Petrovskoye of Stavropol Territory (nowadays the town of Svetlograd), was not careless and well-to-do (his mother was a housewife, and his father was a worker), he still has a warm feeling for it:
- Every year I went to a pioneer camp, - says the veteran. – We, boys, were very happy there: far from father's belting, with camp fire songs and movies. That was a real life, which we started dreaming about from the very beginning of academic year.
Vladimir's youth occurred with the hardest and most dramatic years in the history of our country - the war found him as a fourteen year teen, immediately giving all pre-war life up as hopeless. Volodya's childhood was ended together with the quiet life.
- Terrible news about the war were brought into our house by the father, - remembers Vladimir Mikhajlovich. – We, children, hardly understood that some irreparable harm has happened, but the faces of our parents, petrified with grief, spoke volumes.
Father, disabled from childhood, wasn't put in the field. But the Krupin family still payed its bloody tribune to the war: two Volodya's uncles, who went to the front in summer 1941, didn't return home.
The war made its allowances into the routine of life: there was nobody to gather the harvest - bereaved women, with their eyes full of tears, looked at filled ears, there was nobody to teach children  -  teachers were the first who went to the front. And in 1942 the citizens of Petrovskoye knew all the horror of occupation.
- Aliens, enemies, who killed at the fronts our fathers and brothers, made themselves at homes, showing with all their appearances that they came for the long haul, - continues his narration Vladimir Mikhajlovich. – Of course, adults took hard this situation. But for us, the teens, it wasn't so. It doesn't mean that we didn't care a cuss, we simply lived our own lives where our mothers' prohibitions couldn't change anything. And the fortune smiled upon usyt: my friends and I could hide from under the enemy's nose , who took young boys and girls to Germany.
For one year of occupation, everyone in the neighbourhood - young and old - had a hatred for the invaders.
- It was a real happiness for us to see how the yesterday masters of life ran into the woodwork, taking the bits of our food, after our soldiers inflicted a defeat upon the fascists near Stalingrad, - remembers the veteran. – But at that moment we didn't think of a future hunger yet. We could hardly keep ourselves from laughing in faces to this poor war dogs.

Patriots

But the strongest impression of the war years was comparison of the two war periods: at first, when our troops retreated, and later, when after the battle at Stalingrad, our army began to conquer occupational territories. 
- All this happened in front of our eyes (Soviet soldiers retreated through Volodya's village), and we experienced the gamut of the emotions - from despair and pain to pride, - says Vladimir Mikhajlovich.
Just fancy the very beginning of the war: our soldiers with faces grey from grief and dust; miserable, haggard bulls pulling heavy calibers… That wasn't army. At least not the army, that could give battle to the fascists.
And the more serious the situation at the front was, the harder Soviet people set their teeth, and more furious plunged into the thick of the battle to revenge the enemies for their near and dear ones.
- Patriotism was colossal at that time, - says the veteran. – A call from the military commissariat was received with great joy, that couldn't be darkened by mothers' tears. The boys falsified documents, they tried to get in the front by hook or by crook. I think, that it was that very patriotism, that could help Soviet people to achieve the impossible - to influence the inclination of the war and to march victoriously to Berlin. For a very short time the Soviet army could pass a way from the bulls, pulling heavy calibers, to the newest military hardware of the times. It was impossible not to be proud of the feeling that you are a part of these people.  

  
They could only dream of peace

In 1943 he couldn't graduate from school: in October he became 17, and in November he received a call from the military commissariat. He and his friends, born in 1926 and 1927, were the teens of the last military call. One may say, that the fate has guarded them. The main thing was that they were not immediately plunged into the thick of the battle from the very troop train, as it was with the recruits of the first war years. Volodya and his friends have passed the basic training first. And it wasn't mere formality.
Besides, thanks to lucky stars, Vladimir had to fight not in the Western front, but in the Eastern front, where the heat of the war wasn't so strong. But meanwhile the soldiers of the First Far East front could only dream of peace: instead of long sanguinary battles - the craftiness of the Japanese soldiers, whose victims often became Volodya's friends.
- We never failed to amaze to the always new methods of destruction of the Japanese soldiers, - says Vladimir Mikhajlovich. – Japanese kamikaze were the real masters of invention. They liked, for example, to dressed up as the Chinese peasants, in blouses, beneath which they could easily hide a cluster of grenades; or they could climb a tree and seat there days and nights waiting for the Soviet army to come, and then suddenly threw themselves, head downwards, in the very thick.
Poisoned water and food also cut off many men. Day and night we had to keep eyes on the ball.
Struggle for the railway junction Mudantszyan, near the river Sungari, became our fire baptism.
- We didn't sleep a night before the battle. We didn't think that this battle could be the last one for us, we didn't sleep because of the emotions - we wanted to settle accounts with the enemy, - says Vladimir Mikhajlovich.
But our courage immediately disappeared in the hot: the death took one after another, making us to be more discreet.
The victory to the First Far East front came in September 1945:
- We neglected anything for joy - both army bible and chain of command. Everything was forgiven that day, - says the veteran.
We could hardly signalize a victory with celebrations, when were about going home. But, as it turned out, it was in vain: long five years Volodya spent in the prison camps for the Japanese. Anyway, he could get his high school degree, graduating from the evening school in Vladivostok.

Quiet life

Returned home - the quarter of the century is behind already. He decided to continue his education, thanks God, overgrown students, veterans of the war  were not curiosity for that time.
- Neither in the childhood, nor in youth I didn't think, that all my life would be connected with oil, - says Vladimir Mikhajlovich. – Probably, it happened because my village was close to the oil Caucasus, besides all my relatives and friends spoke a lot about oil, so I decided: I'll become an oil worker.
I've chosen Institute of Petroleum in Grozny - speciality "Operation of oil-and-gas oilfields". Further life of Vladimir Krupin is connected with Saratov, where he arrived in 1956. The work record of the veteran is also 50 years.
Sokolovogorskoye oilfield became his basic directing mark, where Vladimir Mikhajlovich started as a Production foreman of oil treatment, and later managed apparatus of "Saratovneftegaz", and nowadays the veteran teaches in the Training Centre "Saratovnedra", where he does lecturing on the courses of oil production, transportation, equipment facilities for oil and gas gathering, well-workover operation.
For bravery under fire he was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the second degree, the Medal "For the victory over Japan" , Zhukov's medal and other orders. And in his quiet life he was awarded as an "Excellent worker of oil industry", and he also has a number of certificates of honor.
Here, in saratov, Vladimir Krupin found his love. With his wife, Marina Alekseevna, they celebrated gold anniversary of their marriage. His daughter and granddaughter joy him with their successes: his granddaughter graduated from school with honors, and now successfully studies in the University. And Vladimir Mikhajlovich  himself joys his relatives and friends with bracing and good mood. "A secret" of his youth is simple: one should take life as it is, to work well, and not to give illnesses to gain an advantage of you.