Two wars in the life of Yuri Nikulin: For which the famous actor received military awards

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

One of the brightest artists in our country fought for almost seven years, going through two terrible wars. In his book "Almost Seriously", talking about this part of life, he wrote:. During his service, Yuri Nikulin was awarded medals "For Courage", "For the Defense of Leningrad" and "For Victory over Germany."

When 17-year-old Yura immediately after school was brought a summons from the military registration and enlistment office in the fall of 1939, neither he nor his family, of course, could have predicted that this service would turn out for him seven years of almost continuous wars. In the army, like every young man of that time, he went joyfully:

So, as a very young boy, Yuri Nikulin got into the Russian-Finnish war. A month later, he turned 18. On this day, for the first time, he drank one hundred grams of vodka a day assigned to the soldiers. Before that, I also tried it, but did not like it, so he changed the portion of the intoxicating drink for a piece of bacon, which was supposed to go with the vodka. Before the first battle, imbued with the phrase of the Red Army man - assistant political instructor, Yura wrote in his application for joining:.

The battery on which Yuri Nikulin served was located near Sestroretsk. And although this war ended calmly enough for him (the command, probably, was still in no hurry to throw the boys into the meat grinder), the young fighter did not remain without adventures. One winter he got severe frostbite on his feet:

When he was awakened, he could no longer walk on his own. Although the frostbite limbs were recovered after that, the memory remained for life - the legs began to freeze quickly even with a slight frost.

After the end of the Soviet-Finnish war, in the spring of 1940, in anticipation of demobilization, they served "quite cheerfully": they listened to records (Lydia Ruslanova, Isabella Yurieva, Vadim Kozina, Leonid Utesov), rooted for football, arranged concerts - some of the guys had with them musical instruments. Yura Nikulin has already prepared a suitcase made of plywood for the trip home - to his mother, whom he missed very much. However, he did not manage to get to the house:

Thus began his second war. In four years, Yuri Nikulin will turn from a young boy into a real soldier. He will fight in Leningrad, become the commander of an intelligence department, visit the besieged city and understand that this is much worse than at the front. He will be shell-shocked and several times will be on the verge of death. In his own words, he was lucky in the war. This was especially acute when he saw those who were bypassed by luck:

Fate, it seems, really kept the future artist. He was especially shocked by one incident that could have been called comical if it were not so scary. In the summer of 1944, near Izborsk, a group of scouts, which included Nikulin, on a truck with various "military equipment" - cable coils, etc. They sent them to the village, from which the Germans, as they were told, had just recently been driven out. The soldiers rode calmly, not paying attention to the people who, for some reason, waved their hands at them, lying in a field by the road. And only after entering the village, they realized that the Germans were still here. Rifles under the reels, and the Nazis are already running with machine guns. The whole group, without saying a word, jumped off the body and ran into the rye.

Surprising luck - the Germans soon left, and our soldiers were able to safely leave. The rifles, however, they immediately got out as soon as they got to the truck. It turned out that they had been sent to this village by mistake. They just got confused! …

Probably, you can't go through the war and just leave it behind. Yuri Nikulin was waiting for the fate of a popularly beloved artist, work in a circus, shooting in famous comedies. But the war did not let him go to the end, therefore, probably, he was so successful in the touchingly truthful images of people who saw the same thing that the actor himself could not forget.