On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, Akim of the Karaganda region Ermaganbet Bulekpayev congratulated veterans of the Great Patriotic War, home front workers, blockade runners and concentration camp prisoners on the holiday.

The winners were greeted by a brass band performing songs from the war years,

and a lively corridor of pupils from the Begeldinov Republican Military School escorted the guests to the covered dastarkhan.

An exhibition of museum exhibits and military equipment was also organized

to commemorate the heroic pages of history.

Today, 8 war veterans, 2,634 home front workers, 116 widows of front-line soldiers, 29 concentration camp prisoners and 10 Leningrad blockade survivors live in the Karaganda region.

— Dear veterans! This year is special — 80 years of Victory. You have honorably fulfilled your duty to the Motherland by showing indomitable courage. Your life path is an example for young people, a bridge between the past and the future. We are deeply indebted to you. I wish you good health, long life and happiness to your families! — Ermaganbet Bulekpayev addressed the audience.

As a sign of gratitude, veterans, blockade runners, concentration camp prisoners and home front workers were awarded jubilee medals "80 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War".

The participants of the meeting recalled the war years.

100-year-old Grigory Petrovich Stepenko was drafted to the front when he was not even eighteen. I went through heavy battles. This year, he will travel to Astana for the Victory Day Parade as part of a delegation from the region.

"I just want today's children to never learn what war is," he says. — Love yourself and take care of our land!

Anna Nikonorovna Kotova came to the military enlistment office three times to go to the front. They didn't even want to take a small and fragile girl to the medical battalion, but perseverance prevailed. As part of the 65th evacuation hospital, she reached Vienna itself.

— I remember how our chief doctor told us that everything was over, the war was over, we had won. My friend and I were shouting and rejoicing. And even after 80 years, these memories make her happy," the veteran recalls. — And we returned home only in 1946. I wish you all good health, peaceful skies and delicious bread. May no generation of our country know what war is anymore!

It has been 80 years since the cannonade of guns died down, and Viktor Semenovich Abramenkov still remembers everything as if it were yesterday. When the war began, he was six years old and lived in the Smolensk region, where the partisans were active throughout the war. What a little boy didn't have to see in four terrible years!

– I still sometimes dream about the sound of a bomb exploding. He's so shrill that you want to hide somewhere, bury yourself in the ground," recalls the home front worker. – And when the victory was announced, my mother cried: not all of our family returned from the front.

Congratulations to the veterans continued with a concert program. Local performers and ensembles performed musical numbers.

Artists of the Karaganda Musical Comedy Theater and the K. Bayzhanov Concert Association showed a literary and musical production "At the Halt",

where songs of the war years were played.

And the veterans sang along together, having heard their native melodies.

During the war, more than 1.2 million people left Kazakhstan for the front. Only from the Karaganda region — 60 thousand, of which 25 thousand did not return.

Photo: Zhangeldy Abdigalym

Source : https://www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/karaganda/press/news/details/989455?lang=kk