and its prototype - Soviet soldier Nikolai Masalov
68 years ago, on May 8, 1949, a monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Treptow Park was solemnly opened in Berlin. This memorial was erected in memory of 20 thousand Soviet soldiers who died in the battles for the liberation of Berlin, and became one of the most famous characters Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Few people know that the idea for the creation of the monument was real story, and the main character of the plot was the soldier Nikolai Masalov, whose feat long years was undeservedly forgotten.
Monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Berlin
The memorial was erected at the burial place of 5 thousand Soviet soldiers who died during the capture of the capital Nazi Germany. Along with the Mamaev Kurgan in Russia, it is one of the largest and most famous of its kind in the world. The decision to build it was made at the Potsdam Conference two months after the end of the war. 
Nikolai Masalov - the prototype of the Liberator Warrior
The idea for the composition of the monument was a real story: on April 26, 1945, Sergeant Nikolai Masalov, during the storming of Berlin, carried a German girl out of the shelling. He himself later described these events as follows: “Under the bridge, I saw a three-year-old girl sitting next to her murdered mother. The baby had blond hair, slightly curled at the forehead. She kept fiddling with her mother's belt and calling: "Mutter, mutter!" No time to think here. I am a girl in an armful - and back. And how she sounds! I'm on the go and so and so I persuade: shut up, they say, otherwise you will open me. Here, indeed, the Nazis began to shoot. Thanks to our people - they helped us out, opened fire from all trunks. The sergeant was wounded in the leg, but the girl was reported to his own. After the Victory, Nikolai Masalov returned to the village of Voznesenka Kemerovo region, then moved to the city of Tyazhin and worked there as a supply manager in a kindergarten. His feat was remembered only after 20 years. In 1964, the first publications appeared about Masalov in the press, and in 1969 he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Berlin. 
Ivan Odarchenko - a soldier who posed for the sculptor Vuchetich, and a monument to the Liberator Warrior
The prototype of the Warrior-Liberator was Nikolai Masalov, but another soldier, Ivan Odarchenko from Tambov, who served in the Berlin commandant's office, posed for the sculptor. Vuchetich noticed him in 1947 at the celebration of the Day of the Athlete. Ivan posed for the sculptor for six months, and after the monument was erected in Treptow Park, he stood guard near him several times. They say that people approached him several times, surprised by the similarity, but the private did not admit that this similarity was not at all accidental. After the war, he returned to Tambov, where he worked at a factory. And 60 years after the opening of the monument in Berlin, Ivan Odarchenko became the prototype of the monument to the Veteran in Tambov. 
Monument to the Veteran in the Tambov Victory Park and Ivan Odarchenko, who became the prototype of the monument
The model for the statue of a girl in the arms of a soldier was supposed to be a German woman, but in the end, the Russian girl Sveta, the 3-year-old daughter of the commandant of Berlin, General Kotikov, posed for Vuchetich. In the original version of the memorial, the warrior held a machine gun in his hands, but it was decided to replace it with a sword. It was an exact copy of the sword of the Pskov prince Gabriel, who fought together with Alexander Nevsky, and this was symbolic: Russian soldiers defeated the German knights on Lake Peipsi, and after several centuries defeated them again. 
Ivan Odarchenko against the backdrop of the monument to the Liberator Soldier, for which he posed
Work on the memorial was carried out for three years. Architect Y. Belopolsky and sculptor E. Vuchetich sent a model of the monument to Leningrad, and a 13-meter figure of the Liberator Warrior weighing 72 tons was made there. The sculpture was transported to Berlin in parts. According to Vuchetich, after it was brought from Leningrad, one of the best German casters examined it and, finding no flaws, exclaimed: “Yes, this is a Russian miracle!” 
Monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Berlin
Vuchetich prepared two drafts of the monument. Initially, it was planned to place a statue of Stalin with a globe in his hands as a symbol of conquering the world in Treptow Park. As a fallback, Vuchetich proposed a sculpture of a soldier with a girl in his arms. Both projects were presented to Stalin, but he approved the second one. 
Monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Berlin
Treptow Park in Berlin
The memorial was solemnly opened on the eve of the 4th anniversary of the Victory over fascism, May 8, 1949. In 2003, a plaque was erected on the Potsdam Bridge in Berlin in memory of the feat of Nikolai Masalov accomplished in this place. This fact was documented, although eyewitnesses claimed that during the liberation of Berlin there were several dozen such cases. When they tried to find that very girl, about a hundred German families responded. The rescue of about 45 German children by Soviet soldiers was documented. 
Monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Berlin
April 15th, 2015
... And in Berlin on a festive date
Was erected to stand for centuries,
Monument to the Soviet soldier
With a rescued girl in her arms.
It stands as a symbol of our glory,
Like a beacon glowing in the dark.
He is the soldier of my state -
Keeping peace throughout the world!
G. Rublev
On May 8, 1950, one of the most majestic symbols of Great Victory. A warrior-liberator with a German girl in his hands climbed to a multi-meter height. This 13-meter monument has become epochal in its own way.
Millions of people visiting Berlin try to visit this place in order to bow to the great feat of the Soviet people. Not everyone knows that, according to the original idea, in Treptow Park, where the ashes of more than 5 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers are buried, there should have been a majestic figure of Comrade. Stalin. And in the hands of this bronze idol was supposed to hold a globe. Like, "the whole world is in our hands."
This is exactly the idea that the first Soviet marshal, Kliment Voroshilov, imagined when he called the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich to himself immediately after the end of the Potsdam Conference of the Heads of the Allied Powers. But the front-line soldier, the sculptor Vuchetich, just in case, prepared another option - an ordinary Russian soldier, who stomped from the walls of Moscow to Berlin, who saved a German girl, should pose. They say that the leader of all times and peoples, having looked at both proposed options, chose the second one. And he only asked to replace the machine gun in the hands of a soldier with something more symbolic, for example, a sword. And for him to cut the fascist swastika...
Why a warrior and a girl? Evgeny Vuchetich was familiar with the story of the feat of Sergeant Nikolai Masalov ...
A few minutes before the start of a furious attack on German positions, he suddenly heard, as if from under the ground, a child's cry. Nikolai rushed to the commander: “I know how to find a child! Permit! And a second later he rushed in search. Weeping came from under the bridge. However, it is better to give the floor to Masalov himself. Nikolai Ivanovich recalled this: “Under the bridge, I saw a three-year-old girl sitting next to her murdered mother. The baby had blond hair, slightly curled at the forehead. She kept fiddling with her mother's belt and calling: "Mutter, mutter!" No time to think here. I am a girl in an armful - and back. And how she sounds! I'm on the go and so and so I persuade: shut up, they say, otherwise you will open me. Here, indeed, the Nazis began to shoot. Thanks to our people - they helped us out, opened fire from all trunks.
At this moment, Nikolai was wounded in the leg. But he didn’t leave the girl, he informed his friends ... And a few days later the sculptor Vuchetich appeared in the regiment, who made several sketches for his future sculpture ...
This is the most common version that the soldier Nikolai Masalov (1921-2001) was the historical prototype for the monument. In 2003, a plaque was erected on the Potsdamer Bridge (Potsdamer Brücke) in Berlin in memory of the feat accomplished in this place.
The story is based primarily on the memoirs of Marshal Vasily Chuikov. The very fact of Masalov's feat is confirmed, but during the GDR, eyewitness accounts were collected about other similar cases throughout Berlin. There were several dozen of them. Before the assault, many inhabitants remained in the city. The National Socialists did not allow the civilian population to leave it, intending to defend the capital of the "Third Reich" to the last.
The names of the soldiers who posed for Vuchetich after the war are precisely known: Ivan Odarchenko and Viktor Gunaz. Odarchenko served in the Berlin commandant's office. The sculptor noticed him during sports competitions. After the opening of the Odarchenko memorial, it happened to be on duty near the monument, and many visitors, who did not suspect anything, were surprised at the obvious portrait resemblance. By the way, at the beginning of the work on the sculpture, he held a German girl in his arms, but then she was replaced by the little daughter of the commandant of Berlin.
Interestingly, after the opening of the monument in Treptow Park, Ivan Odarchenko, who served in the Berlin commandant's office, guarded the "bronze soldier" several times. People approached him, marveling at his resemblance to a warrior-liberator. But modest Ivan never told that it was he who posed for the sculptor. And the fact that the original idea to hold a German girl in her arms, in the end, had to be abandoned.
The prototype of the child was 3-year-old Svetochka, the daughter of the commandant of Berlin, General Kotikov. By the way, the sword was not at all far-fetched, but an exact copy of the sword of the Pskov prince Gabriel, who, together with Alexander Nevsky, fought against the “knight dogs”.
It is interesting that the sword in the hands of the "Warrior-Liberator" has a connection with other famous monuments: it is understood that the sword in the hands of the soldier is the same sword that the worker passes to the warrior depicted on the monument "Rear to the Front" (Magnitogorsk), and which then raises the Motherland on Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd.
The "Supreme Commander" is reminded of his numerous quotes carved on symbolic sarcophagi in Russian and German. After the reunification of Germany, some German politicians demanded their removal, referring to the crimes committed during the Stalinist dictatorship, but the entire complex, according to interstate agreements, is under state protection. No changes without the consent of Russia are unacceptable here.
Reading Stalin's quotes today evokes ambiguous feelings and emotions, makes us remember and think about the fate of millions of people in Germany and the former Soviet Union who died in Stalin's times. But in this case, the quotations should not be taken out of the general context, they are a document of history, necessary for its comprehension.
After the Battle of Berlin, the sports park near Treptower Allee became a military cemetery. The mass graves are located under the alleys of the memory park.
The work began when the Berliners, not yet separated by a wall, were rebuilding their city from the ruins brick by brick. Vuchetich was assisted by German engineers. The widow of one of them, Helga Köpfstein, recalls that many things about this project seemed unusual to them.
Helga Köpfstein, tour guide: “We asked why a soldier does not have a machine gun in his hands, but a sword? We were told that the sword is a symbol. A Russian soldier defeated the Teutonic Knights on Lake Peipsi, and a few centuries later he reached Berlin and defeated Hitler.
60 German sculptors and 200 masons were involved in the manufacture of sculptural elements according to Vuchetich's sketches, and a total of 1,200 workers participated in the construction of the memorial. All of them received additional allowances and food. The German workshops also made bowls for the eternal flame and a mosaic in the mausoleum under the sculpture of the warrior-liberator.
Work on the memorial was carried out for 3 years by the architect Y. Belopolsky and the sculptor E. Vuchetich. Interestingly, granite from the Reich Chancellery of Hitler was used for the construction. 13 meter figure Warrior Liberator was made in St. Petersburg and weighed 72 tons. She was transported to Berlin in parts by water. According to Vuchetich, after one of the best German foundry workers in the most accurate way examined the sculpture made in Leningrad and made sure that everything was done flawlessly, he approached the sculpture, kissed its base and said: “Yes, this is a Russian miracle!”
In addition to the memorial in Treptow Park, monuments to Soviet soldiers were erected in two more places immediately after the war. Around 2,000 fallen soldiers are buried in the Tiergarten park in central Berlin. There are over 13,000 in the Schönholzer Heide park in Berlin's Pankow district.
During the GDR memorial Complex in Treptow Park served as a venue for various kinds of official events, had the status of one of the most important state monuments. On August 31, 1994, a thousand Russian and six hundred German soldiers participated in the solemn verification dedicated to the memory of the fallen and the withdrawal of Russian troops from united Germany, and Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian President Boris Yeltsin took part in the parade.
The status of the monument and all Soviet military cemeteries is enshrined in a separate chapter of the agreement concluded between the FRG, the GDR and the victorious powers in World War II. According to this document, the memorial is guaranteed an eternal status, and the German authorities are obliged to finance its maintenance, ensure integrity and safety. Which is done in the best way.
It is impossible not to tell about the further fate of Nikolai Masalov and Ivan Odarchenko. Nikolai Ivanovich, after demobilization, returned to his native village of Voznesenka, Tisulsky district, Kemerovo region. Unique case- his parents escorted four sons to the front and all four returned home with a victory. Nikolai Ivanovich could not work on a tractor due to shell shocks, and after moving to the city of Tyazhin, he got a job as a supply manager in Kindergarten. This is where the journalists found him. 20 years after the end of the war, fame fell upon Masalov, which, however, he treated with his usual modesty.
In 1969 he was awarded the title Honorable Sir Berlin. But talking about his heroic deed, Nikolai Ivanovich never tired of emphasizing: what he accomplished was no feat, many would have done the same in his place. So it was in life. When the German Komsomol decided to find out about the fate of the rescued girl, they received hundreds of letters describing such cases. And the rescue of at least 45 boys and girls by Soviet soldiers was documented. Today Nikolai Ivanovich Masalov is no longer alive ...
But Ivan Odarchenko still lives in the city of Tambov (information for 2007). He worked in a factory and then retired. He buried his wife, but the veteran has frequent guests - his daughter and granddaughter. And Ivan Stepanovich was often invited to parades dedicated to the Great Victory to portray a liberator with a girl in his arms ... And on the 60th anniversary of the Victory, the Memory Train even brought an 80-year-old veteran and his comrades to Berlin.
Last year, a scandal broke out in Germany around the monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators, installed in Berlin's Treptow Park and the Tiergarten. In connection with the recent events in Ukraine, journalists from popular German publications sent letters to the Bundestag demanding that the legendary monuments be dismantled.
One of the publications that signed the frankly provocative petition was the Bild newspaper. Journalists write that Russian tanks have no place near the famous Brandenburg Gate. “As long as Russian troops threaten the security of a free and democratic Europe, we do not want to see a single Russian tank in the center of Berlin,” angry media workers write. In addition to the authors of Bild, this document was also signed by representatives of the Berliner Tageszeitung.
German journalists believe that Russian military units located near the Ukrainian border, threaten the independence of a sovereign state. “For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russia is trying by force to suppress a peaceful revolution in Eastern Europe", - write German journalists.
The scandalous document was sent to the Bundestag. By law, the German authorities must consider it within two weeks.
This statement by German journalists caused a storm of indignation among the readers of Bild and Berliner Tageszeitung. Many believe that the newspapermen deliberately escalate the situation around the Ukrainian issue.
For sixty years, this monument has truly become accustomed to Berlin. It was on postage stamps and coins, in the days of the GDR here, probably, half of the population of East Berlin was accepted as pioneers. In the nineties, after the unification of the country, Berliners from the west and east held anti-fascist rallies here.
And neo-Nazis have repeatedly beaten marble slabs and painted swastikas on obelisks. But every time the walls were washed, and the broken slabs were replaced with new ones. The Soviet soldier in Treptover Park is one of the most well-kept monuments in Berlin. Germany spent about three million euros on its reconstruction. Some people were very annoyed.
Hans Georg Büchner, architect, former member Senate of Berlin: “What is there to hide, we had one deputy of the Berlin Senate in the early nineties. When your troops were withdrawn from Germany, this figure shouted - let them take this monument with them. Now no one even remembers his name.”
A monument can be called a national one if people go to it not only on Victory Day. Sixty years have changed Germany a lot, but they have not been able to change the way Germans look at their history. And in the old GDR guidebooks, and on modern travel sites - this is a monument to the "Soviet soldier-liberator". To the common man who came to Europe in peace.
Why execute monuments? Here is a man who has been going all his life, but how they did it The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -
A small German girl is frightened pressed against the chest of a Soviet soldier who is standing on the fragments of a swastika with a lowered sword. This is the world-famous monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Berlin's Treptow Park. The memorial was officially opened on May 8, 1949. The group of authors was headed by architect Yakov Belopolsky and sculptor Evgeny Vuchetich.
Not everyone knows that according to the original idea, in Treptow Park, where the ashes of more than 5 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers are buried, there should have been a majestic figure of Stalin with a globe in his hands. This is exactly how the first Soviet marshal, Kliment Voroshilov, imagined the monument when, immediately after the end of the Potsdam Conference of the Heads of the Allied Powers, he summoned the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich to his place. However, the front-line soldier Yevgeny Vuchetich, just in case, made the second option - with a Red Army soldier holding a German girl in his arms. Both projects were presented to Stalin, and he chose the "fallback" option.
The prototype of the "Warrior-Liberator" was Sergeant Nikolai Masalov, who on April 26, 1945, during the battle, carried a three-year-old German girl out of the firing zone. The hero himself recalled his feat in this way: “Under the bridge, I saw a three-year-old girl sitting next to her murdered mother. The baby had blond hair, slightly curled at the forehead. She kept fiddling with her mother's belt and calling: "Mutter, mutter!" No time to think here. I am a girl in an armful - and back. And how she sounds! I'm on the go and so and so I persuade: shut up, they say, otherwise you will open me. Here, indeed, the Nazis began to shoot. Thanks to our people - they helped us out, opened fire from all trunks.
Marshal Chuikov was the first to tell about the feat of Masalov. The very fact of Masalov's feat is documented, but during the GDR, eyewitness accounts were collected about dozens of other similar cases throughout Berlin. Before the assault, many inhabitants remained in the city. The National Socialists did not allow the civilian population to leave it, intending to defend the capital of the "Third Reich to the last." After the war, Yevgeny Vuchetich met with Nikolai Masalov, whose feat prompted him the key idea of the monument in Treptow Park: saving a girl, a soldier protects peace and life.
However, Vutechich chose a completely different person as a sitter. At the celebration of the Day of the athlete, the sculptor noticed 21-year-old private Ivan Odarchenko, who participated in running competitions. It is curious that Odarchenko, who served in Berlin, was on guard at the monument to the “Liberator Soldier” several times. People constantly approached Ivan and were amazed at the resemblance to the monument, but the private guard did not reveal to the visitors the secret of this resemblance. According to the memoirs of Ivan Odarchenko, the model for the statue of the girl that the warrior holds in his arms was first a German girl, and then a Russian - 3-year-old Sveta - the daughter of the commandant of Berlin, General Kotikov.
Many believed that the sword was out of place in the statue of the Liberator Warrior, and advised the sculptor to change it to some modern weapon, for example, to a machine gun. But Vuchetich insisted on the sword. In addition, he did not make a sword at all, but exactly copied the sword of the Pskov prince Gabriel, who, together with Alexander Nevsky, fought for Russia against the “knight dogs”.
Work on the memorial was carried out for 3 years. Interestingly, granite from the Reich Chancellery of Hitler was used for the construction. The 13-meter bronze figure of the "Warrior-Liberator" was made in St. Petersburg and weighed 72 tons. In Berlin, it was transported in parts by sea.
In the autumn of October 1, 2003, the sculpture of the warrior was dismantled and sent for restoration. In the spring of 2004, the monument to the soldiers of the Soviet Army who fell in the battles against fascism in Berlin was returned to its original place.
The status of the monument and all Soviet military cemeteries is enshrined in a separate chapter of the "two plus four" unification agreement concluded between the FRG, the GDR and the victorious powers in World War II. According to this document, the memorial is guaranteed an eternal status, and the German authorities are obliged to finance its maintenance, ensure integrity and safety. Which is done in the best way.
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May 8, 1949 in Berlin, in Treptow Park, the grand opening of the monument to the soldiers of the Soviet army took place, dead by death brave during the storming of the capital of Nazi Germany. This monument has become a symbol of the sacrifices made by the peoples of a state that no longer exists today - Soviet Union- in the name of the liberation of Europe.
MONUMENT FROM TROPHY GRANITE
Back in 1946, the Military Council of the group of Soviet occupation forces in Germany announced a competition for the design of a monument to the soldiers of the Red Army, which was supposed to be installed in the former capital of the Third Reich.
The creative team that created the monument-ensemble in the center of Europe skillfully used the possibilities of a multifaceted three-dimensional composition and successfully applied the synthesis of the three arts - sculpture, architecture and painting, to perpetuate the immortal feat of Soviet soldiers. The greatness of the idea that inspired the artists, and the skill of the sculptor Evgeny Vuchetich, architect Anatoly Gorlenko provided them with a triumph: for the ideological and artistic perfection of the work they were awarded the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree.
Why did Treptow Park become the site for the construction of the monument? Soviet soldiers and officers who died during the storming of Berlin were buried there, and after the war this most picturesque area was a favorite vacation spot for city residents.
The construction of the ensemble, occupying an area of about 200 thousand square meters began in June 1947. The builders, led by chief engineer Mikhail Chernin and foreman Nikolai Koportsev, worked with great enthusiasm at such a landmark facility.
It took about 40,000 square meters of granite to build the monument, and slabs delivered by the Nazis from occupied Holland came in handy here. Hitler intended to use them for a monument in honor of the victory over Russia.
Tens of thousands of bushes and trees were planted on the territory of the ensemble, about 10 kilometers of curb stone were laid.
The area of the stone ornamental mosaic was 3,000 square meters, the area of the reliefs on the sarcophagi was 384 square meters. A 13-meter sculpture of a warrior-liberator was cast from bronze, and the sculpture “Motherland” was made from a granite monolithic block. Sculptures of kneeling warriors were also cast in bronze. It took about 50 square meters of artistic smalt mosaic to decorate the walls of the mausoleum.
Considerable difficulties were presented by the execution on a large scale and in an extremely short time of sculptures and ornaments made of stone.
Let's especially say about the creation of a monumental 13-meter statue of a warrior-liberator. After Vuchetich completed the model of the statue on a scale of 1/5 of its natural size, it was enlarged to the size of life. Then the plaster molds were removed from the sculpture and a bronze statue was cast on them at the Monument-Sculpture Leningrad plant. It is curious that the best German firms, even with the cooperation of the efforts of several factories, undertook to cast such a statue in no less than 6 months. Leningraders completed this work in seven weeks.
The second most important sculpture of the complex is "Motherland" (1967) in the form of a grieving woman. In this figure there is a lot of unspoken pain for the dead and at the same time pride in the heroic deeds of the warrior-liberators. The monument is made of a solid block of light gray granite.
The third part (the first in structure) of the complex is located in Magnitogorsk and is called "Rear to the front!" (1979). The sword - an allegorical symbol of victory over the enemy - was forged in the Urals, raised on the Volga and victoriously lowered in Germany. This is the idea of composition.
The main entrance of the ensemble in Treptow Park also makes a great impression. On three terraces, laid out of light gray granite, two monumental half-mast banners made of red polished granite facing each other rise. At the foot of each banner are bronze sculptures of kneeling warriors - comrades-in-arms of those who rest in mass graves. They seem to be giving the last military honors to their fellow soldiers.
These banners, together with the terraces, represent a single monumental complex of the main entrance. On the polished surfaces of the red granite of the banners, the inscriptions carved on the main facade in Russian and German are clearly visible: “Eternal glory to the soldiers of the Soviet army who gave their lives in the struggle for the liberation of mankind from fascist slavery.”
Sculptural warriors hold weapons tightly in their hands. It seems that they have just now left the battle and take an oath to uphold the glory of Russian weapons, the glory of the banners they carried from the walls of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad to Berlin.
AT THE POINT AT THE BRONZE DOUBLE
During the service in the group Soviet troops in Germany, the author had to visit Berlin's Treptow Park more than once. And we often heard: a monument was erected to Senior Sergeant Nikolai Ivanovich Masolov, the former denominator of the 220th Zaporozhye Guards Regiment - many colleagues saw how he saved a child during a street battle in Berlin.
Of course, the monument to a Soviet soldier with a rescued German girl in her arms does not reflect any specific episode - in it, the sculptor Vuchetich embodied a generalized image of a Soviet soldier who reached the den of the Nazis and saved Europe from the Nazi plague. But the person who helped the sculptor to realize his plan is real. This is Private Odarchenko.
Vuchetich's first acquaintance with a soldier took place in the summer of 1948. Ivan Odarchenko o was a participant in sports competitions from the commandant's office of the Weissensee district of Berlin. At the stadium of this city, the sculptor liked him with his height, kind face and soft smile.
Soon, private Ivan Odarchenko was seconded to a special unit - a group of creators of the monument in Treptow Park. They won the international competition for best project architectural and sculptural ensemble.
Later, Ivan Stepanovich recalled: “For almost six months I went to the studio of the sculptor Vuchetich. They posed with me: first, Marlena, the daughter of the German sculptor Felix Krause, assistant to Evgeny Viktorovich, then Svetlana, the three-year-old daughter of the Soviet commandant of Berlin, Major General Alexander Georgievich Kotikov.
When the molding of the life-size clay statue (11.6 meters) was completed, Vuchetich gave private Odarchenko a parting detail of the working model: a cast of the head of the liberator warrior. In the collection of Ivan Stepanovich, this work of the famous sculptor with the author's stroke was kept for many years.
Subsequently, the veteran handed it over for permanent display to the Tambov Regional Museum of Local Lore. On May 8, 1949, Ivan Stepanovich was among those invited to the opening of the memorial in Treptow Park.
After solemn events the creative team of the creators of the monument left Germany, but the service of Private Odarchenko did not end. He was transferred to the unit that guarded Treptow Park, and several times he - a living soldier - stood at the foot of his bronze double.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Ivan Stepanovich visited Treptow Park several times with his eldest son, his mother, Daria Dementyevna. And his relatives saw with their own eyes how people from all over the world come to the monument to honor the memory of Russian soldiers.
THE FATE OF THE PROTOTYPE
Ivan Odarchenko himself comes from a distant Kazakh village of Novo-Aleksandrovka. Father, mother, brothers - all farmers. The elder Odarchenko - Stepan and his son Peter went to the front as volunteers back in 1941. Ivan replaced them in the grain field. A fifteen-year-old teenager worked from dawn to dusk - there were no allowances for age at that time.
The autumn of 1942 brought two funerals. The first bad news: “Private Stepan Odarchenko died near Stalingrad,” and then Peter laid down his head near Smolensk.
Ivan joined the ranks of the defenders of the Fatherland in January 1944. First he was an armor-piercer of the 309th reserve regiment, then - a paratrooper of the 23rd airborne brigade. He fought on the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian fronts, participated in the liberation of Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Recalling those years, Ivan Stepanovich emphasized: “We beat the remnants of the Nazi army after we celebrated the Victory on May 10, 11 ... And then - Berlin, Treptow Park.” Replaced Odarchenko military uniform for civilian clothing only in 1950. He came to visit his sister in Tambov and stayed in this city, got married. They raised two sons with Vera Fedorovna. The front-line soldier himself worked at the factory, was a milling turner. Worked well. Included in the Book of Glory of the city of Tambov.
At the opening of the monument, the commandant of the city of Berlin, Major General Alexander Kotikov, said: “At the graves dear to us, we honor the memory of the glorious sons of the great Soviet people, the memory of warrior-heroes who fell in the struggle for the freedom and independence of our Motherland, for the life and happiness of the working people of all peace. Centuries will pass, but the great battles of the Soviet army will not be erased in the memory of the peoples ... This monument in the center of Europe, in Berlin, will constantly remind the peoples of the world when, by whom and at what cost the Victory was won ... "
The material was prepared with the assistance of the Military Historical Library of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Petr LAVRUK, journalist (St. Petersburg), Sovershenno sekretno newspaper
Monument "Warrior-Liberator" in Berlin (Berlin, Germany) - description, history, location, reviews, photos and videos.
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How to get there: by train to the station. Treptower Park or buses No. 166, 265, 365.
Opening hours: around the clock 7 days a week. Entrance to the park and memorial hall is free.
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