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"Victory Parade: Stories and Faces"
MINSK, 23 October (BelTA) - During the war, Belarusians fought even in the Arctic. One of them, tank crewman Viktor Yaroshevich, was awarded the medal For the Defense of the Soviet Arctic and also participated in the famous 1945 Victory Parade.
His granddaughter Svetlana Pribysh learned that Viktor Yaroshevich had taken part in the Victory Parade in Moscow on 24 June 1945 when she was working at the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War. On the eve of the parade, its participants were awarded the medal For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. Instituted on 9 May 1945, it became one of the most widely awarded medals in the USSR, given to about 15 million people. However, only the participants of the Victory Parade had a certificate with a red cover. Viktor Yaroshevich had it, too. The medal For the Victory over Germany was presented to Senior Sergeant Viktor Yaroshevich on 18 June 1945. Continuing her research, Svetlana found her grandfather's name in the lists of Victory Parade participants published in the Sovetskaya Rossiya newspaper in 2015. According to that data, Viktor Yaroshevich marched in the composite battalion of airmen and tank crews.
He was born in 1922 in the village of Butsevichi, now part of Minsk District. He was called up for active military service on 12 June 1941. He came to Murmansk shortly before the start of the war, where he took the military oath on 18 June. The 363rd Separate Tank Battalion of the 7th Army of the Karelian Front, in which Viktor Yaroshevich fought, was stationed on the defensive line along the Svir River until May 1944. From September 1941 until the summer of 1944, the Svir line was an insurmountable obstacle for the enemy, who was trying to encircle Leningrad with a second blockade ring. Its defense made the existence of the Road of Life possible.
Later, the 89th Separate Tank Regiment was formed on the basis of the 363rd Separate Tank Battalion. It participated in the Svir-Petrozavodsk Operation from June to August 1944, which led to the liberation of most of Karelia. The regiment was then transferred to the Arctic, where it took part in the Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive, which lasted from October to November 1944 in northern Norway, and distinguished itself in the liberation of Pechenga.
As a tank turret commander and later a driver-mechanic, Senior Sergeant Viktor Yaroshevich received official gratitude from Stalin for excellent combat performance in the liberation of the city of Petsamo (Pechenga), the nickel mining region, the city of Kirkenes, and the Pechenga region. In July 1944, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class and the medal For Courage. In 1945, he received the medal For the Defense of the Soviet Arctic.
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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