The country should know its heroes!
On the eve of the 77th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and paying tribute to the memory of all the heroes - the fallen and the living, the staff of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Tatarstan completely renovated the memorial complex dedicated to the participants of the Great Patriotic War - natives of the village of Yambulatovo and the villages of Krestovnikovo and Kazylyary and installed a bust of the Hero of the Soviet Union tank soldier Semyon Konovalov.
He was born on February 15, 1920 in the village of Yambulatovo, Verkhneuslonsky district. In 1941 he graduated from the Kuibyshev Military Infantry School and was sent to the front.
In July 1942, the crew of the KV-1 tank under the command of Konovalov will perform a feat that many will call "tango over the abyss", and later it will form the basis of the film "Indestructible".
The Soviet crew, covering the withdrawal of the tank brigade, will stop a column of German armored vehicles from 75 vehicles for a day, destroying 16 tanks, 2 armored vehicles and 8 enemy vehicles.
Three crew members, including the hero Semyon Konovalov, will survive and even manage to break through to their own on a captured German tank.
For the feat, our countryman was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The well-deserved award found the front-line soldier only in March 1943.
Semyon Konovalov went through the entire war, finished his service in 1956 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, after which he returned to his native Tatarstan.
In the small homeland of the hero, in the village of Yambulatovo, every schoolboy knows about his feat, a small museum has been opened here, in the post-war years an obelisk with the names of all participants of the Great Patriotic War – natives of the Yambulatovsky rural settlement appeared.
Over the years, the monument has become dilapidated. There was no bust of the Hero here. The patronage of the memorial site this year was taken by employees of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Tatarstan. In a short time, together with benefactors, they not only restored the obelisk with the names of veterans, but also completely renovated the entire memorial park.
Now Yambulatovo has its own memorial complex, where there is a bust of the Hero-countryman Semyon Konovalov, granite plaques in memory of all participants of the war who went to the front from the village of Yambulatovo and the villages of Krestnikovo and Kazylyary.
An armored T64B1 combat vehicle is already standing on a special pedestal. The tank was donated to a rural settlement by military unit 32456. The grand opening of the Memorial Park is scheduled for the next few days.
The chronicle of reconstruction is in our special photo-video report.