Ilsur Metshin about the action “Immortal Regiment”

The “Immortal Regiment” is an action, by which the country united. When you walk through the streets of the city together, carrying portraits of your grandfathers, you experience an unprecedented spiritual and patriotic enthusiasm.

I will go to the “Immortal Regiment” with a portrait of my grandfather on the paternal line Muzagit Metshin. He went through the whole war from the first days to the Victory in 1945. He received five wounds, two concussions, which, of course, affected his health. Unfortunately, he passed away in the early 60's. My father was six years old when the war began, and he remembers well this difficult time. Our family lived in a village in the Tukayevsky region and experienced all the hardships of the war, including famine.

My other grandfather Nurulla Sharifullin was sent to the Pskov region in the first months of the war. The reconnaissance group, into which he entered, penetrated the enemy's deep rear and undermined the formations with weapons that went to reinforce the Germans. But after completing the assignment, the enemy destroyed them. Already in our time, search teams found eyewitnesses who, as children in the Great Patriotic War, saw how an enemy tank literally crushed Soviet soldiers, including my grandfather. Then my mother was only three months old and she grew up an orphan, never seeing her father.

We honor the memory of our grandfathers, very proud of their feat, and we pass this memory from generation to generation. Even now, telling these stories, we are overflowing with a sense of pride and huge gratitude for having our right to life, our native land defended with an incredibly high price. A huge tragedy affected the entire country, and today the main thing is to prevent the war so that we or our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will not see it.