Defender of Leningrad Tuturova was invited to the Victory Day Parade in Moscow

Ekaterina Tuturova, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, is preparing to go to the main Victory Day parade in Moscow. She is already 103, she has the defense of Leningrad, the blockade, Nevsky piglet, where it was a real miracle to survive, and a victorious path until May 9th. On the eve of the next anniversary, she was awarded the award "For Services to St. Petersburg."

In the summer of 1941, immediately after the first year of law school, Ekaterina Ivanovna, like 77,000 other Leningraders, joined the People's militia.

"All the students went, and I went. We went to the military enlistment offices, and there were already queues of young people," Tuturova said.

She remembers how she got her uniform on the Champ de Mars, without any fittings.: What I got is yours, as I went to the front in canvas boots eight sizes too big.

"A tunic, trousers, there were such boots, and footcloths," the veteran recalls.

During the day, she was a staff clerk according to documents, issued reports and orders, and at night she was in the trenches along with everyone else. She was in service during the most difficult first months, when three Wehrmacht soldiers fought against one Red Army soldier, when one of our fighters had ten Messerschmitts.

"They take this wounded man, we helped them carry him off the battlefield," she added.

Her division was surrounded in August 1941 near Luga. Losses, retreat, in a couple of weeks the Germans would close the blockade ring, and in November Ekaterina Ivanovna found herself on Nevsky Prospekt. I checked the lists of the living, ordered groceries so that every fighter would have a hot stew.

"How many of them died and how many of them will swim and come running. And there was almost no soup left, the thermos was shot through with holes, and it spilled out while he was swimming," the veteran explained.

On Nevsky Prospekt, where the average life expectancy of fighters was only 52 hours, Ekaterina Ivanovna miraculously survived. There's ice and boards underfoot, and fire overhead.

"The wooden ones were all thrown in there, and then they were poured on top, and they, one might say, grew into this shore. It was called Nevsky Prospekt," recalls Ekaterina Tuturova.

In the spring of 1942, young Lieutenant Tuturova became secretary of the military tribunal, he sentenced policemen and traitors, those who shot civilians without trial for a pioneer tie or a party ticket.

"Everyone tried to justify themselves. There were very few Russians, most of all those who know German, and we don't have many of them," she said.

From the first to the last day, she went through the entire war from the Neva River to the Elbe, and celebrated Victory Day in the city of Greiswald. The commemorative badge "For Services to St. Petersburg", which was presented to her in May, is something more than recognition of achievements. This is a reward for life and trials that were not chosen, but passed with honor.

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