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"Victory Parade: Stories and Faces"
MINSK, 21 June (BelTA) - The participant of the Great Patriotic War Lev Melnikov was born on 22 April 1923 in the town of Kostyukovichi, Mogilev Oblast. In 1941 he graduated from high school. His class, like thousands of others throughout the USSR, changed school rooms for battlefields. Many received summons to the military enlistment office along with school certificates.
Lev Melnikov was drafted into the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on 12 July 1941 and on 25 August 1942 joined the active army. He fought on the Stalingrad, Steppe, 4th Ukrainian and 2nd Baltic fronts.
According to the memoirs of his comrades, he was one of the most experienced radio operators of the unit. “He joined our unit as a radio operator. He faced the first serious trials on the Volga, at the walls of Stalingrad,” senior lieutenant Noskov wrote about Lev Melnikov. Back then, radio operator Melnikov received one of his first military awards - the Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad.
Lev Melnikov was drafted into the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on 12 July 1941 and on 25 August 1942 joined the active army. He fought on the Stalingrad, Steppe, 4th Ukrainian and 2nd Baltic fronts.
According to the memoirs of his comrades, he was one of the most experienced radio operators of the unit. “He joined our unit as a radio operator. He faced the first serious trials on the Volga, at the walls of Stalingrad,” senior lieutenant Noskov wrote about Lev Melnikov. Back then, radio operator Melnikov received one of his first military awards - the Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad.
Soon he became a 2nd class radio operator, head of the radio station of the 120th separate guards communications battalion of the 87th guards rifle division. According to his fellow soldiers, during all the battles, no matter how difficult the situation was, Lev Melnikov's radio always worked accurately and never failed. In the battles for Stalingrad and Sevastopol, during the storming of Koenigsberg, he maintained uninterrupted communication with the corps commanders.
In May 1944, Lev Melnikov was nominated for another high award - the Order of the Red Star. He also became one of several hundred Belarusian front-line soldiers who took part in the Victory Parade in Moscow on 24 June 1945.
After the war, he entered Leningrad Law Institute and graduated with honors in 1950. A few months later he started performing his duties. He started as an investigator with the prosecutor’s office in Bykhov District, then served as a prosecutor in the investigative department, a head of the department overseeing police activities, a head of the regional prosecutor’s investigative department, and a deputy regional prosecutor. After that, he served for more than 13 years as a prosecutor of Mogilev Oblast.
Lev Melnikov was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad, the Medal for the Capture of Koenigsberg, and the Medal for the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. He was also awarded with the title of Distinguished Lawyer of the BSSR and held the rank of State Counselor of Justice 3rd Class.
The project "Victory Parade: Stories and Faces" is published in the 7 Days newspaper and on the website of the Belarusian news agency BelTA twice a month. During the year we will be narrating the stories of the Belarusians who took part in the legendary Victory Parade. These men fought at Rzhev and Odessa, won the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, liberated Belarus, and took Berlin. On 24 June 1945 they marched triumphantly through Red Square in Moscow. They are the faces of our great Victory!
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