About the book: 2011 / This book of memories was written by my father Anatoly Fedorovich Zabotin. He was born in 1916 and died in 2008, at the ninety-third year of his life. Even after becoming physically weak in the last days of his life, my father retained a clear mind and a strong memory. And his memory was extraordinary. He did not write down phone numbers or addresses and was very surprised how it was possible not to know the dates of some significant events (he worked as a history teacher) or biographical details, names and patronymics, life dates of many writers and artists. I remember a letter of gratitude from the editor of one of the books in the ZhZL series, in which my father found errors. It was just being prepared for re-release. The war years were especially clearly imprinted in his memory. “I can say exactly where I was and what I did on each of the days I spent at the front,” he said. We tried to check, asked questions and made sure that this was the case. While preparing this book for publication, I found on the map the settlements mentioned by my father, and it was no longer just geography, but the inexorable, cruel logic of war itself that appeared before my eyes. Look, too, how close to the railway to Murmansk the battles took place in Karelia. And this is the artery through which Lend-Lease supplies passed. No, it was not for nothing that my father’s friends lay down in the frozen snow forever!.. The events described in the book have long since become history. But history cannot stand up for itself, so it is turned like a pole, now in one direction, now in the other. The living testimony of an ordinary participant in these events can help to better understand that time. And someone may find the names of their relatives in this book and find out how they died. No wonder they say that people are alive as long as the memory of them is alive... Alexander Zabotin, 2011