6 famous Soviet beauties who went through the war

The feat of the Soviet people who survived the Great Patriotic War can be admired and certainly remembered about them. Each had his own battle - some defended the fatherland with a rifle in their hands, others worked in sanitary brigades and pulled out the wounded from the battlefields, while others inspired hope and faith in victory with their songs and roles. And you must admit that any contribution to the cause of the great victory was in demand - whether it was labor on the front line or performances of artists under the threat of shelling. Today we will remember these actresses with a capital letter and courageous heroes of the Patriotic War.

Zoya Vasilkova

When the war began, Zoya was only 15 years old. Her father is a professional soldier who commanded air defense units and subsequently rose to the rank of lieutenant general of artillery. Therefore, Zoya could not indifferently experience the terrible time. In 1943, when the girl was 17 years old, she entered the service of her father. The task of the young defender was to charge the balloons with hydrogen, with the help of which they exploded the planes of the fascists. It was a difficult time. Once, while hiding from the bombing, the car in which the girl was traveling had an accident. Zoya flew out through the windshield and then underwent treatment in the hospital for a long time. During the service, she traveled from Voronezh to Kiev. For her services to the fatherland, she was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree. And after the onset of peace, she became an actress and starred in many popular films: Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed, Live in Joy, Pomegranate Bracelet, Nine Days in One Year.

Irina Kartashova

Irina Pavlovna was born in 1922 in Petrograd. With the beginning of the Stalinist repressions, her father was shot, and she and her mother were exiled. In 1940, the girl managed to return to her hometown and enter the theater, but the war ruined all plans. During the evacuation, she got on the last train from Leningrad, which brought her to Saransk. There Irina got a job as a postman at the hospital and became the most beloved person among the wounded soldiers, because she brought them news from relatives and friends. It was in this city that the future actress showed her choreographic skills and artistry - after an amateur circle, she was hired to serve in the local music and drama theater. In 1943, the talented artist was included in the brigade, which was supposed to entertain the fighters during the rare breaks between battles.

Their front-line team somehow got into the first echelon, where after they stopped letting ordinary people. As they later learned, this was the most terrible section of the front - the Oryol-Kursk Bulge. A parallel brigade of artists died, and they managed to get to the conquered city of Oryol an hour and a half after the capture. As the artist recalled, the sight was terrible. But it was impossible to show your fear - no matter how the circumstances developed, the team had to give a joyful mood and optimism to the audience. After the war, Irina Pavlovna served no less than 70 years at the Mossovet Theater, dubbed more than 300 films, acted in films. Her last works, which can be seen on the screen, are roles in the TV series "Who is the Boss in the House?", "Wedding Ring", "Lavrova's Method".

Claudia Shulzhenko

The Great Patriotic War found Klavdia Ivanovna during a tour in Yerevan. The artist did not sit out in a rich southern city, but voluntarily enrolled in the Red Army. The jazz orchestra under the direction of her husband became the Leningrad front-line ensemble. Together with him, she spoke many times on the front lines and in front of wounded soldiers, instilling hope in them. Songs from her repertoire "Blue Handkerchief", "Let's Smoke", and a little later, "Friends-Brothers" became legendary soldiers and popularly loved. Letters of gratitude came to the singer in batches, in them people told that it was her compositions that helped to experience the sorrows of losses, fear of battle, horror of war. Just think: during the siege of Leningrad, she gave more than 500 concerts, despite the famine, devastation and constant bombing. After the great victory, Klavdia Shulzhenko was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR and awarded the Order of the Red Star (1945). She was also awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" (1942).

Maria Mironova

The mother of the popularly beloved actor Andrei Mironov also survived the hardships of the war. Since 1938, she served at the Moscow Variety and Miniature Theater. It was at this time that she managed to star in the legendary film "Volga-Volga". Well, the artist, like many of her colleagues, began to fight against fascism through art. Together with her colleagues in the theater, she organized a propaganda team, with which she went to meetings with soldiers and raised their military spirit. And after the war she starred in a number of films, the most memorable of them are the film-play "Man and Women", "Monday is a Hard Day", "Maritsa".

Elina Bystritskaya

One of the most beautiful actresses in Russian cinema, Elina Avraamovna Bystritskaya, met the war as a thirteen-year-old girl. Her father, a military doctor, was drafted to the front. And the wife and daughter, without hesitation for a second, signed up to be a nurse. They served in a mobile sorting evacuation hospital, where wounded from the front arrived in whole wagons and they had to be transported to the rear for treatment. In a few days, the hospital could provide first aid to the entire echelon, and this sometimes in numbers reached five thousand people. Elina was a strong girl, but at the same time the youngest of all the staff. A difficult task fell on the shoulders of a teenage girl - there was not enough staff, so women sometimes had to single-handedly drag the wounded men on them.

As the actress later said, perhaps this is why, due to hard physical work during the war years, she could not subsequently have children. I would also like to note the incredible modesty of the actress. She received her military awards only 39 years after the Victory. Somehow one of the employees of the theater doubted the merits of Bystritskaya, because at the time of the war, in fact, she was a child. Then Elina Avraamovna went to the archives of Podolsk and collected evidence. Subsequently, the actress was called a real Cossack Aksinya for her role in the film "Quiet Flows the Don", she played the main roles in the films "Volunteers", "Unfinished Story".

Antonina Maximova

Women in military uniform are not that uncommon when it comes to saving the Motherland. Antonina Maksimova served as a radio operator until 1943, while the enemy was on our territory. After that, a beautiful and talented girl was offered a less dangerous profession - she was enrolled in the front-line theater. Subsequently, Antonina Maksimova was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree. " She knows about the hardships of a terrible time in the first person, so she could very convincingly play a mother waiting for her son from the war in the film "The Ballad of a Soldier". The actress also starred in the films How the Steel Was Tempered, Othello, The Secret of Two Oceans.