The young hero Volodya Dubinin was born on August 29, 1927 in the family of a sailor and former Red partisan Nikifor Semenovich Dubinin. From early childhood he was active and inquisitive, loved to read and take photographs, and was passionate about aircraft modeling. Volodya's family had many stories about the fight against the White Guards and about the exploits performed by the Red Army.

According to a brief biography of the hero given on Wikipedia, when the Great Patriotic War began, Volodya Dubinin’s father was drafted into the army. And his mother Evdokia Timofeevna, together with her son and daughter, moved to relatives, in an area of ​​​​Kerch called Old Quarantine.

The city leadership, realizing that every day the Nazis were getting closer and closer to them, began to actively prepare for underground activities. The bases of the partisan detachments were to become the Starokarantinsky and Adzhimushkay quarries, which were real impregnable fortresses. Volodya Dubinin, together with his friends Vanya Gritsenko and Tolya Kovalev, began to ask adults to accept them into the partisan detachment in the Starokarantinsky quarries. The head of the detachment, Alexander Zyabrev, had doubts at first, but then finally gave his consent. There were many narrow crevices in the quarries, where only children could crawl through and therefore they could become indispensable scouts. Thus began the military biography of the pioneer Volodya Dubinin, who every day performed feats in the name of the Motherland and his comrades.

The exploits of the young partisan Dubinin.

The active actions of the underground workers of the Old Quarantine began to bring a lot of trouble to the German invaders, so the Nazis began to besiege the catacombs. The Nazis diligently blocked all the entrances they found, filling them with cement, and it was here that the daily exploits of Volodya Dubinin and his friends came in handy for adults.

Children climbed into narrow cracks and brought their command valuable information about the enemy from outside. Moreover, Volodya was the smallest in physical parameters, and the time came when only he could leave the quarries. The rest of the guys worked as a “cover group”, distracting the German soldiers at the entrances from Volodya Dubinin’s attempts to get out. In exactly the same way, the group met the guy at the appointed place when he returned back.

The responsibilities of the young partisans included not only reconnaissance. Children brought ammunition to adults, helped the wounded and performed other tasks of the commander. There were almost legends about Volodya Dubinin himself and his exploits. They told how the boy skillfully “led the nose” of a German patrol, slipping past them, or how he could accurately remember the number of several enemy units located in different places.

In December 1941, the Germans, seeing no other way to end the resistance of the Starokarantinsky quarries, decided to flood them along with the people inside. It was Volodya Dubinin who managed to obtain this information and warn his comrades in time about the danger threatening them literally a few hours before the start of the punitive operation. During the day, risking his life, almost in front of the enemy, the pioneer managed to penetrate the catacombs and alert the detachment.

The soldiers began to hastily build dams and managed to block the entrance to the water, being in it already up to their waists. The feat of Volodya Dubinin in this heroic biographical fact can hardly be overestimated, because many lives were saved who could continue to fight the enemy.

The fourteen-year-old hero died on New Year's Eve 1942. On the instructions of the commander, the guy had to establish contact with the partisans of the Adzhimushkay quarries. Along the way, Volodya encountered Soviet naval landing soldiers who liberated Kerch as a result of the Kerch-Feodosia operation.

The joy of the meeting was overshadowed by the fact that the Nazis had mined the land around the Old Quarantine catacombs, so the adult partisans would not have been able to leave them. And then Volodya volunteered to be the sapper’s guide. January 4, 1942 Volodya Dubinin was blown up by a mine along with four sappers. Everyone was buried in a mass grave in the Youth Park in Kerch. For his accomplished feats, Volodya Dubinin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner posthumously.

In 1949, the Soviet children's writer Lev Kassil wrote the story “Street of the Youngest Son” about Volodya Dubinin, for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize. Based on it, a film of the same name by Lev Golubev was released in 1962, and in 1985 a film by Roman Viktyuk “Long Memory” was released. In 1975, the famous composer Vladimir Shainsky wrote “Song about Volodya Dubinin” to the words of Naum Olev. Thanks to these works, the life and exploits of Volodya Dubinin became widely known throughout the country; he was included in the pantheon of pioneer heroes, whose portraits hung in every Soviet school. In 1964, in his native Kerch, a monument was erected to him in the form of a sculpture, carved and solid stone. There is also a bronze bust of Dubinin on the territory of Kerch School No. 1, where he once studied. In 1961, a village in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, founded by Komsomol builders, was named after him.

Very soon many countries of the world and, of course, Russia will be celebrating the “holiday with tears in our eyes”Victory Day.

On the pages of the blog I began to talk about the exploits of children, pioneer heroes (in the first message you can read about the exploit of Marat Kazei).

http://stat.mil.ru/index.htm
When I was at school, I read books about pioneer heroes with great interest. As pioneers, my classmates and I discussed these books and talked a lot about the exploits of our peers. Probably, then our teachers and librarians did a lot of work to instill patriotism in us.

Today, turning to the heroic pages of the history of our Fatherland, I would like my students = our children to admire the Personalities, Heroes, Great Creators.

At the age of 12, I read Lev Kassil’s story “Street of the Youngest Son”, and later watched the film of the same name (directed by Lev Golub, produced by “Belarusfilm”, 1962). The hero of the book is Volodya Dubinin, a 14-year-old pioneer who became a scout during the Great Patriotic War.

On the Crimean Peninsula there is the city of Kerch, a hero city.


Here, on August 29, 1927, a son, Volodya, was born into the family of Nikifor Semyonovich and Evdokia Timofeevna Dubinin. Nikifor Dubinin fought against the whites in a partisan detachment during the Civil War, and later became a sailor. He worked both on the Black Sea and in the Arctic, so the family managed to travel around the country.
In 1936, Volodya went to school. Volodya was interested in sports, drawing, and amateur performances. At the House of Pioneers he was involved in an aircraft modeling club and his models were always the best. For his active social work and good studies, he was sent to rest at Artek.

The Great Patriotic War broke out. His father, sailor Nikifor Semyonovich, went to the front, and Volodya, his mother and sister Valya moved temporarily to their relatives in the village of Old Karantin, located six kilometers from Kerch (inDuring the first months of the war, fascist troops were already approaching Kerch. Residents of the city were actively preparing for the underground struggle).

Volodya Dubinin also dreamed of fighting the occupiers. With the capture of Kerch, the partisans went to the Starokarantinsky underground quarries near the city. Already on November 7, 1941, an underground partisan fortress appeared in the deep depths. It was from here that the partisans made their forays.


The partisans loved 12-year-old Volodya; for them he was their common son. Volodya Dubinin went on reconnaissance missions with his friends Tolya Kovalev and Vanya Gritsenko. Young scouts provided valuable information about the location of enemy units and the number of German troops. The partisans, relying on this data, planned their military operations. Intelligence helped the detachment in December 1941 to give a worthy rebuff to the punitive forces. In the adits during the battle, Volodya Dubinin brought ammunition to the soldiers, and then replaced the seriously wounded soldier.


Volodya was short, so he could get out through very narrow manholes. Thanks to Volodya’s data, Soviet artillery suppressed the points of the German division that were rushing to Stalingrad. For this he was awarded the Order of the Red Star.


The Nazis tried to destroy the partisans: they walled up and mined all the entrances to the quarry. During these terrible days, Volodya Dubinin showed great courage and resourcefulness. The boy organized a group of young pioneer scouts. The guys climbed to the surface through secret passages and collected the information the partisans needed. One day Volodya learned that the Germans had decided to flood the quarries with water. The partisans managed to build dams from stone.


The young intelligence officer helped track down signal saboteurs, was on duty on rooftops during air raid raids, and helped build bomb shelters. A serious test for Volodya was the day when a fascist bomb hit his home school. He saw books and teaching aids burning, and on that day he understood with particular force what war was...


http://popovskaya-musey.blogspot.ru/

At the end of December 1941, paratroopers liberated Kerch. The partisans knew about this, but they could not reach the surface, there were mines all around. Military units began clearing mine passages. And here again the pioneers came to the aid of the elders. Volodya Dubinin climbed to the surface through a familiar hole and showed the sappers where the mines were installed.


On the eve of 1942, the command assigned the task of scout Dubinin to get to the Adzhimushkai quarries and contact the partisan detachment based there.


http://vseprootpusk.ru/kerch

http://ru.visitua.info/

But when Volodya went to carry out the order, he came across... Soviet soldiers. These were naval landing soldiers who liberated Kerch during the Kerch-Feodosia operation.

Artist V.A. Print.
Landing in Feodosia
http://www.zorich.ru/index.asp

The joy of Volodya and his comrades knew no bounds. But the Nazis surrounded the Starokarantinsky quarries with a network of minefields, and the partisans could not leave them. The adults were physically unable to leave where Volodya was leaving.

And then Volodya volunteered to be a guide for the sappers. The first day of demining was successful, but on January 4, 1942, at about 10 a.m., a powerful explosion occurred at the entrance to the quarries. Four sappers and Volodya Dubinin were blown up by a mine.

The dead sappers and Volodya were buried in a mass partisan grave in the Youth Park of Kerch.

Posthumously, Vladimir Dubinin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

The city of Kerch still faced fierce fighting, a second occupation and the long-awaited final liberation on April 11, 1944.

In 1973, Kerch was awarded the title “Hero City”.

In the battles for Kerch, thousands of Soviet soldiers showed courage and heroism, but Volodya Dubinin’s feat was not lost among them.

One of the streets of his native city is named after him, and on July 12, 1964, a monument to the young partisan was erected - the work of sculptor L.S. Smerchinsky. On it Volodya is depicted leaving the quarry on a reconnaissance mission.

http://deti.mail.ru/

Sources:

Made and sent by Anatoly Kaidalov.
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As soon as the war with the Nazis began, Volodya’s father, Nikifor Stepanovich Dubinin, a communist, participant in the civil war, captain of the ship, went to the navy.
In vain he begged his father to take him with him. The father sternly answered that on such difficult days there would be enough work to do at home.
But Volodya did not calm down on this. For several days in a row, we did not meet a little dog at the entrances of various city institutions, which was patiently waiting for someone, restlessly looking at the front door. The door opened, a distressed boy of about fourteen appeared and, whistling slightly at the dog, sadly reported to it:
- And they didn’t take it... They don’t take it.
The father turned out to be right. The case was also found at home, in Kerch.
Volodya became the leader of the Timurites; Many families of front-line soldiers soon began to consider a big-eyed, round-faced boy with a red tie as their person. However, sometimes Volodya still took off his tie. He did this when he was dissatisfied with himself and did not finish the work he started.
And the front kept getting closer. The reports sounded more and more alarming. At the end of summer, the Nazis launched a frantic attack on the Crimean Peninsula. Hitler's aircraft mercilessly bombed the city. The school where Volodya studied was burned by a fascist bomb.
The Dubinin family moved to Volodin's uncle, an old military friend - Ivan Zakharovich Gritsenko, who lived in the village of Old Karantin near the quarries.
Volodya was familiar with these places. More than once during the summer holidays, together with his cousin Vanya Gritsenko, he played here in the war of the Red partisans with the White Guards. And somehow Volodya accidentally fell into one of the abandoned quarries. He shouted to Vanya. How amazed he was when, deep underground, in the darkness of a stone gallery, he suddenly saw a half-erased inscription carved on a stone: “Here in 1919 the red partisans Nikifor Dubinin and Ivan Gritsenko lived and fought for Soviet power.”
So the guys discovered underground a reminder of the military glory of their fathers.
Finding himself now back in Old Quarantine, Volodya Dubinin noticed that cars and carts loaded with heavy flat boxes were constantly driving up to the entrance to the quarries, which were then carried underground. Vanya Gritsenko was already privy to the secret of the quarries, but did not reveal it to Volodya for a long time. Nevertheless, Volodya finally managed to extract from his friend that deep underground the communists of the city were creating a secret fortress, organizing a partisan detachment in case the Nazis captured Kerch. Volodya was offended that such an important matter was being hidden from him, and rushed to Ivan Zakharovich Gritsenko. For a long time he begged his uncle to take him into the partisan detachment.
The commander of the detachment, former sailor Alexander Fedorovich Zyabrev, understood well what trials the people would face in the quarries if the Nazis captured Kerch. Therefore, Zyabrev took into the detachment only those people in whose strength and courage he was confident. But Volodya apparently took a liking to him, and Uncle Gritsenko must have told the commander a lot of good things about his nephew. Zyabrev believed the old partisan and enrolled the boy in the detachment.
And the battles were approaching. The sea near Kerch was already reflecting their glow. The Nazis approached the city. And then the partisans descended into the impenetrable darkness of the quarries. There, by the light of torches, the legendary underground partisan fortress began its life.
The detachment spent fifty days and fifty nights underground. The pioneer Volodya Dubinin spent fifty days and fifty nights with the partisans.
In the first bold attack, the partisans, taking the enemy by surprise, destroyed the headquarters and military warehouses of the Nazis.
The Nazis felt like they were on a volcano, which was ready to spew disastrous fire from its crater every minute. Hitler's command gave the order to immediately destroy the underground partisan detachment. One after another, the partisans repelled all attempts by the Nazis to penetrate into the depths of the dungeons. The Nazis threw bombs and mines into the quarries and tried to poison the partisans with asphyxiating gases. But the underground fortress remained impregnable. Then the Nazis decided to wall up the quarries and bury the brave souls alive. All exits, all cracks were filled with concrete from the outside and mined. But the underground fortress did not give up. A detachment of partisans went to a depth of sixty meters.
The Nazis had to withdraw an entire regiment from the front, armed with artillery, searchlights and sound detectors, in order to guard all the exits from the quarries day and night. More than once the German command offered the partisans to surrender. But the defenders of the underground fortress, separated from all living things by an impenetrable thickness of stone, losing track of days and nights in the twilight, lived according to a precise work and combat schedule. They didn't give up. And from the depths of the underground fortress, at any moment the invaders were threatened with just popular revenge.
In one of the first battles on the surface, the commander of the detachment, Zyabrev, was killed. The detachment was headed by the former chief of partisan headquarters, communist Lazarev.
And the Nazis cordoned off the entire area, surrounded it with barbed wire, and mined all the approaches to the quarries. By order of the fascist command, not a single soul dared to appear in this area.
But the partisans needed to establish contact with the surface in order to know exactly what was happening above the underground fortress. It was then that Volodya and his friends, who had long been asking to be sent upstairs, had to give in to reconnaissance.
Volodya Dubinin was appointed commander of a small group of young intelligence officers. And Lazarev, reluctantly, drowning out his anxiety for the boys, was forced to allow them to come to the surface. Through narrow secret cracks, which were known only to the children, the pioneers Volodya Dubinin, Vanya Gritsenko and Tolya Kovalev climbed up. They found out and looked out for everything that the partisan command needed to know, and then, unnoticed by anyone, they returned underground again.
But soon the Nazis discovered these narrow openings, walled them up, filled them with stones, and filled them with concrete. There was probably only one last gap left, a very narrow one... Only the flexible, resourceful Volodya, like a lizard, could get out through this hole. And now he went on reconnaissance alone. And every time he returned to the partisans with information that was very important to them.
One day, having gone out on reconnaissance, he could not restrain himself and crept up to the windows of Uncle Gritsenko’s house... Volodya really missed his mother.
He saw her tired, exhausted face through the window. He wanted to call her, to say at least one word to her. But he remembered the rules of the scouts and understood what an important task the partisans who remained underground had entrusted to him. And, swallowing tears, Volodya quietly crawled away from the fence.
Another time, when Volodya was returning from reconnaissance to his detachment, it turned out that the Nazis had somehow discovered a loophole through which he had gotten out a few hours earlier. The boy crawled for a long time along the mined stones, sometimes slipping a few steps away from the enemy sentries. But in the end I found another secret loophole, which I kept in mind in reserve, just in case.
It somehow happened that, having climbed to the surface, Volodya was able to discover the terrible plan of the Nazis... They pulled hoses from the sea - thick pipes, set up powerful pumps and, apparently, were preparing to flood the quarries with water in order to drown the partisans underground.
Volodya was strictly forbidden by the commander to return to the quarries before dark. But then, risking his life, the little scout violated this prohibition. Miraculously, he managed to crawl in broad daylight under the very noses of the fascist sentries back to his hole. He rushed down the steep underground galleries and managed to warn the partisans of the danger that threatened them. The partisans immediately began to build dams in underground passages. Everyone free from duty and guards immediately went to the upper tiers of the quarries. The Nazis were already operating above the partisans’ heads, securing pipes and tightening hoses. In complete silence, so as not to attract the attention of the enemy, the partisans erected walls of shell rock, blocking the underground corridors with them.
And on time! The stone partition was not yet finished when water poured out from above, through one of the trunks that had been walled up by the Nazis, deafeningly seething. It flooded the upper gallery and streamed out through the cracks of the not yet cemented wall. Holding miners' lamps and torches high above their heads, knee-deep, and in some places chest-deep, in the bubbling water, the partisans sealed holes in underground dams. Work underground continued until the morning. The water no longer penetrated into the lower galleries, but since the Nazis could release water through other pits every minute, the partisans continued to erect waterproof stone barriers in all dangerous areas of the upper galleries.
In the end, all these corridors were tightly sealed with stone and covered with cement. The squad was saved. And all the partisans understood that they owed their salvation to the ingenuity and fearlessness of the little scout.
But staying underground any longer was already very dangerous. The Nazis, of course, did not calm down after their unsuccessful attempt to drown the partisans. They tried to take the underground fortress by storm, but the partisans managed to repel all attacks. And now the partisans decided to break through an exit in remote areas of the quarries in order to break out to the surface.
Meanwhile, the Nazis managed to blow up the compartment where drinking water was located underground in the baths. The partisans were already in danger of dying from thirst... They decided to cut a passage through the shell rock in one of the galleries located far from the former main entrance to the quarry, get to the surface and go to the partisans in the forests of Old Crimea. But for this it was necessary, first of all, to thoroughly reconnoiter whether there were any fascists in the area where it was supposed to break through a rescue exit.
Volodya Dubinin was entrusted with an important task: he had to get up, take a good look at the area where the partisans were supposed to leave, and then contact the partisans of the Adzhimushkai quarries, located on the other side of Kerch.
On the eve of the new year, 1942, Volodya carefully climbed out through his secret loophole to the surface. He could not believe his eyes when he unexpectedly saw the desired saviors - the sailors of the Soviet Fleet - moving towards him.
He forgot everything at that moment: the rules of movement for scouts, all the instructions of the commander, and the necessary order in addressing his superiors. He ran straight at the chest of the tall sailor walking in front with a machine gun on his shoulder.
- Uncle, uncle! Comrade commander, oh, hurray!.. May I address you? - he muttered, tightly grasping the lapels of the commander’s pea coat.
The foreman looked at him a little dumbfounded, trying to tear Volodin’s hands away from his pea coat. Huge eyes full of crazy joy looked out from the boy’s incredibly grimy, smoky face.
- Stop! What are you doing?.. Wait... Well? Where are you from, such a black spirit, did you jump out? - the foreman asked embarrassedly. - Come on, unhook, what are you really doing!.. Well, who am I telling?
Volodya let go of the commander, mastered the excitement and delight that was already raging in him uncontrollably, jumped back a step, stretched out, putting his hand to his hat:
- May I address you, Comrade Sergeant Major? The commander of the reconnaissance group of the Old Quarantine partisan detachment, Vladimir Dubinin, arrived at your location... that is, no... You yourself arrived... Uncle, are you from the Black Sea Fleet? And the fascists have already been kicked out, yes! Oh, hooray, hooray!
Five minutes later, the foreman already knew all the details about the old-Quarantine partisans and about the underground fortress in which ninety daredevils were walled up.
“So, now it will be necessary to rescue your people,” the foreman decided, after carefully listening to the little scout’s entire story.
- No no! - Volodya became worried. - You don’t go there right away. Everything around there is mined. Two of our guys were blown up, they were just about to get out... We need to clear the mines there first. I'll show you, uncle, where the way is. Just tell me, comrade commander, have the fascists been kicked out of here already? Are we already in the city too?
- Ours, dear, ours, since yesterday. The landing was on Feodosia and Kerch. The storm just happened at the wrong time, otherwise the matter would have been finished the day before yesterday...
And underground, too, they still knew nothing about deliverance. The long-awaited good news was brought to the partisans by Volodya Dubinin, who rolled head over heels along the steep underground passages to the headquarters of the partisan fortress. Black from soot, half-blind from weeks of darkness, thirsty for light, water and fresh air, people climbed to the surface and fell into the arms of soldiers and sailors who were clearing the entrances of the quarries.
It was here that Volodya met his mother. She, poor thing, no longer hoped to see her son...
On the top of Mithridates, swayed by the fresh January north, a scarlet flag fluttered. The liberated city was returning to life...
The winners who rescued Kerch - tall soldiers in quilted jackets and raincoats thrown over their shoulders, sailors in well-fitted pea coats and tarpaulin landing boots turned down below the knees - walked through the streets of Kerch, greeted everywhere with smiles, accompanied everywhere by crowds of admiring boys.
The residents of Old Quarantine and Kamyshburun spent whole days pilgrimaging to the partisan quarries. Everyone was eager to quickly and closely see the heroes of the underground fortress, which never surrendered to the Nazis.
On the same day, Volodya, a fearless scout, about whose attacks the partisans who had risen to the surface had already told the boys of Old Quarantine and Kamysh-Burun, sat in a large trough and splashed all over the room in Uncle Gritsenko’s house. Evdokia Timofeevna decided to give him a bath and wash him properly.
It was awkward for the dashing scout to climb naked into the trough and, like a little child, endure everything that his mother was now doing to him. And in such cases there was nothing to expect mercy from her. She fluffed a fluffy white cap of sizzling foam on Volodya’s long-uncut head. With a hard, rough loofah, soaked in scalding soapy liquid, the mother furiously scrubbed her son’s emaciated shoulders and elongated back with sharply visible vertebrae. Volodya has grown and lost weight since she hasn’t seen him.
- Ooh-oh-oh, mom! “The soap is all over my eyes,” Volodya groaned and spat. - Even my dad in Murmansk on the Krasin never tore me like that... But he...
- Be patient, be patient, partisans! - the inexorable Evdokia Timofeevna repeated and operated mercilessly, so that Volodya’s head shook from side to side.
Then, combed, dressed in everything clean, he sat at the table and respectably drank tea with his mother.
And at that time a detachment of Red Army soldiers appeared on the street outside the window. They carried long sticks with circles at the end. They had telephone headphones on over their hats. Volodya immediately jumped up and fell against the glass, knocking on it with his knuckles. An elderly Red Army soldier walking ahead of the detachment heard a knock and turned to the window: at first he didn’t recognize him, but then he smiled and saluted Volodya.
“Mom...” Volodya became worried, looking with his eyes for where he put his hat, “Mom, the sappers came to us.” The passages in the quarry will now be cleared of mines. This one who saluted me is a friend of mine. On the first day I showed him how we were liberated, where to clear the road. I promised them today, Mom. I remember all the bumps around there by heart!
- They’ll manage without you, Vovochka. The commissioner told you yesterday not to meddle there. And the commander did not order.
- No, mom, I used every pebble there. We need to help people. I simply have to... Am I a pioneer or who? They've been transporting it for a whole week. You understand, mom! I can't sit quietly when I can help. And we need to bring the food upstairs as soon as possible. The people need the village. The Germans ate everything up to a crumb.
He took his coat off the wall, got dressed, and reached for his earflap hat, which was lying on the chair. The mother stood in the doorway, holding the doorframe:
- Don’t go, Volodenka, I beg you! I'm afraid of something... After all, you weren't told to. The hour is uneven, you will stumble or hurt...
She saw through the window how he overtook the sappers, ran up to the elder, saluted and walked next to him, small, determined, trying to keep pace.
“I’ll bake him soda crumpets for dinner,” she thought. “He probably hasn’t eaten for a long time, but he loves it with passion!”
She went to the stove, kneaded flour and water and soon plunged headlong into familiar chores, which had now become sweet again for her, since she knew that Volodya would come to dinner, see her favorite donuts and rush to hug her with joy.
A long, double, rumbling blow from under what seemed to her to be the floor of the room seemed to lift the entire house for a moment, and then slammed it heavily back into the ground. A corner of glass covered with paper fell out of the window and faintly clanged on the windowsill...
Several stones clicked on the roof, flew outside the window and crashed with force near the house. Frightened voices were heard. The street outside the window was filled with running people. Evdokia Timofeevna saw that they were all in a hurry, overtaking each other, towards the quarries... to where her Volodya had just gone.
She stood for some time as if petrified. It was as if that blow had knocked her down on the spot. Then she took one step, slanted and unsteady, she wanted to take a second, no longer able to cope with her legs, she almost missed the stool, sank heavily onto it and dropped the towel on the floor.
She should have gone outside to find out what had happened so loudly, but she didn’t have the strength to get up.
She sat like that for a very long time. And with every minute, the hope that was still flickering somewhere was extinguishing and extinguishing in her.
It was getting dark in the room. Outside the window the gray, unpleasant twilight was freezing.
And then there was a knock on the door. She didn’t hear her voice, but there, in the hallway, they heard it. The door opened.
Three people entered the room. Their faces were black from soot that had ingrained their skin.
Evdokia Timofeevna immediately recognized Commander Lazarev, Commissar Kotlo and another one in naval uniform, whom Volodya had introduced her to the day before as his partisan teacher.
They entered, and all three took off their hats at the same time...
In Kamysh-Burun Park, in the main flower garden, where children always play, there is a not very tall monument to the mass grave of partisans.
And on a board made of Crimean marble, mounted on a stone pedestal, it is written:
“The partisans of the Patriotic War who died in the fight against the Nazi occupiers are buried here: Alexander Zyabrev, Fyodor Shustrov, Ivan Gavril, Vazhenin Vlas. Iv., Makarov Nik., Bondarenko Nik., Dubinin Volodya.”
And under Mount Mithridates in Kerch, from the old staircase, a straight sunny street is clearly visible, which starts from the mountainside, from the foot of the stairs, and runs spaciously into the distance.
Wide Lenin Street meets this street and passes it through itself.
Sometimes Evdokia Timofeevna Dubinina and Valya come to this street, accompanied by Kerch pioneers. Pioneers often visit her. They look at Volodya’s portrait for a long time, quietly ask their mother and sister about it, re-read the simple, courageous letter that Nikifor Semyonovich wrote home after learning about the death of his son.
Soon after this, Nikifor Semyonovich died at the front. The father laid down his head for the same great and just cause to which his son selflessly gave his life.
The mother takes out from the table a yellowed front-line newspaper with an order from the command of the Crimean Front dated March 1, 1942 printed in it.
“On behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for the exemplary fulfillment of command assignments on the front of the fight against the German invaders and the valor and courage shown at the same time, award... the Order of the Red Banner... Vladimir Nikiforovich Dubinin.”
Then the pioneers ask Evdokia Timofeevna and Valya to go with them to Volodin Street.
“This is my youngest’s street,” Evdokia Timofeevna tells the pioneers, slowly walking down the steps of the old staircase to the street named after her son.
“Volodya is our street,” Valentina quietly adds in such cases.
On holidays, when music plays on all the streets, colorful flags are raised on ships in the port and white-winged models fly over Mithridates, drums beat loudly and a pioneer trumpet sings briskly over the stairs made of gray shell stone. Boys and girls in three-pointed red ties - pioneers from the school named after Volodya Dubinin, pioneers of neighboring squads - descend the steep flights of stairs, walking in step, row after row.
Their friendly, light step reverberates loudly on the limestone slabs and fills the entire street.
The wind of two seas plays in the folds of the scarlet banner. The pioneers walk along a wide sunlit street, where under the lantern of each house it is written:
Volodya Dubinin Street
And in the center of Kerch, in a park on the street named after the young hero, on July 12, 1964, the grand opening of the monument to the glorious pioneer took place.
The figure of a brave pioneer scout is carved from a florite block.
The film “Street of the Youngest Son” also became a monument to Volodya. It was filmed in the places where the events took place, right in the quarries, where in the darkness of the underground passages lay old military weapons, corroded by time and rust. They also filmed on the streets where Volodya Dubinin went to school.
The name of the young pioneer hero Volodya Dubinin is included in the Book of Honor of the All-Union Pioneer Organization named after. V.I. Lenin.

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Recognition - BK-MTGC.


In the summer of 1941, immediately after the start of the war, the residents of Kerch began to prepare for the arrival of the Nazis - the peninsula was an important strategic site. The Starokarantinsky quarries, where the grandfather and father of Volodya Dubinin, a pioneer hero who forever remained fourteen, once worked, were ideally suited for storing food and ammunition.

Partisan and son of a partisan


The limestone deposit in the village of Old Karantin, or Kamysh Burun, has been mined since ancient times, and under the tsarist regime, stone mining was carried out there since 1860. Even during the civil war, Kerch quarries sheltered Red Army partisans, and among them were Nikifor Dubinin and his cousin Ivan Gritsenko. Less than a quarter of a century will pass, and their children will become heroic defenders of the Kerch quarries.


Volodya Dubinin was born on August 29, 1927. From early childhood, he listened to his father's stories about the military past, grew up as a smart boy, loved to read and take photographs, and was fond of aircraft modeling. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the father was called to the front, and the mother, Evdokia Timofeevna, and her children moved from Kerch to the village of Old Karantin, to live with her relatives.


Soon after the start of the war, two partisan detachments were created in Kerch - Starokarantinsky and Adzhimushkaysky, which were engaged in hiding food and weapons supplies in the quarries in case of occupation by Nazi troops. By autumn, the Germans controlled most of the Kerch Peninsula, and the quarries found themselves behind enemy lines.


Volodya, who by that time had turned fourteen, began to ask the commander of the old quarantine partisan detachment to take him in - and he agreed. The boy turned out to be very useful - short, dexterous, agile and quick-witted, and also well-versed in the passages of quarries, he became the beloved “son of the regiment,” which numbered just under a hundred partisans.

Assault on the quarries and siege

On November 13, 1941, the Starokarantino detachment carried out its first combat operation. The partisans attacked the headquarters of the German troops located near the quarries. Volodya Dubinin brought information about his whereabouts. The Nazis were bombarded with grenades, destroying part of the enemy unit. During the attack, the detachment commander, Alexander Zyabrev, died heroically. The partisans again took refuge in the underground corridors.


In the following days, the Germans attacked the entrances to the quarries, and on November 20 and 21, fighting took place inside. But the enemy’s attempts to destroy the partisans and seize ammunition were unsuccessful, also thanks to the talent of intelligence officer Volodya Dubinin. The pioneer learned that the Nazis were planning to flood the quarries literally a few hours before the operation - this was enough for the Old Quarantine partisans to build a dam system and avoid death. Attempts to poison the quarry defenders with asphyxiating gas also did not yield results. Then the Germans filled all the exits known to them with concrete, mined the area around the quarry and surrounded it with barbed wire. Soviet soldiers were actually walled up in their shelter.
Now only Volodya could go out - only a very narrow hole was accessible. The boy continued to carry out the tasks of his commander and obtain important information for the detachment - his friends Tolya Kovalev and Vanya Gritsenko helped him in this.


The territory of the Kerch Peninsula was liberated during the Kerch-Feodosia operation, which lasted several days - from December 28, 1941 to January 2, 1942. The partisans learned that the siege had been lifted, thanks to the same Volodya Dubinin - having climbed out of the quarries outside to carry out their the next task, he was met by Soviet paratroopers.
Further work was carried out by sappers - it was necessary to neutralize the mines left by the Nazis around the fortifications. The boy volunteered to help here too - he knew the quarries like no one else. But on January 4 there was an explosion - several sappers died during mine clearance, and with them Volodya Dubinin.

Memory


The boy was buried along with other dead partisans in a mass grave several kilometers from the quarry. The pioneer hero, like other Old Quarantine partisans, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The quarries also became an arena of military operations during the war - in 1943 - 1944. The front line passed through Kerch four times during the war.


The name of Volodya Dubinin was familiar to almost everyone in the Soviet Union - streets and settlements were named after him, literary and musical works were dedicated to him. Lev Kassil wrote the novel “Street of the Youngest Son” - in memory of the partisan pioneer.
Currently, the Starokarantinsky quarries are officially closed to the public and become the object of study only by enthusiastic speleologists, who discover sometimes eerie evidence of ancient events in the endless tunnels and passages of the quarries.

During the Great Patriotic War, the city of Kerch became the scene of brutal and bloody battles. The front line passed through it four times, and the fighting was so fierce that less than 15 percent of the city's buildings survived.

The closer the advancing Nazis were to Kerch, the more actively the city’s leadership prepared for guerrilla warfare in the event of its occupation. The bases of the partisan detachments were to become the Adzhimushkay and Starokarantinsky quarries, which were real fortresses.

In accordance with the decision of the OK VKP(b) dated July 4, 1941, two partisan detachments were created in Kerch - in the Adzhimushkay and Starokarantinsky quarries.

During the Great Patriotic War in the occupied territory of the city of Kerch (November-December 1941, May 1942 - April 1944), the partisan movement was formed in two stages, determined by the time frame of the occupation of the city - from November to December 1941 and from September 1943 to April 1944 . At the first stage the movement was organized, at the second it developed spontaneously.

Our story about the events that happened at the first stage...

The young hero Volodya Dubinin was born on August 29, 1927 in the family of a sailor and former Red partisan Nikifor Semenovich Dubinin. From early childhood he was active and inquisitive, loved to read and take photographs, and was passionate about aircraft modeling. Volodya's family had many stories about the fight against the White Guards and about the exploits performed by the Red Army.

Volodya's father, Nikifor Dubinin, fought against the whites in a partisan detachment during the Civil War, and later became a sailor. He worked both on the Black Sea and in the Arctic, so the family managed to travel around the country.

When the war began, Nikifor Dubinin was drafted into the army. Evdokia Timofeevna with Volodya and his sister moved to her relatives in the Old Quarantine area.

Once at home, Volodya found a medal “For Labor Valor” and pinned it on his shirt, remarking: “Beautiful.” Sister Valya, who was two years older than Volodya, reasoned:

But this is not your reward. You have to deserve such a medal. And you are still small!

Volodya blushed, took off his medal and answered:

You'll see what I'll become.


Volodya and his friends learned about the partisan detachment in the Starokarantinsky quarries*. The boys began to ask adults to take them into partisans. After some hesitation, detachment commander Alexander Zyabrev gave the go-ahead. Boys who were able to exit quarries through narrow crevices were indispensable as scouts.

The active actions of the underground workers of the Old Quarantine began to bring a lot of trouble to the German invaders, so the Nazis began to besiege the catacombs. The Nazis diligently blocked all the entrances they found, filling them with cement, and it was here that the daily exploits of Volodya Dubinin and his friends came in handy for adults.


Children climbed into narrow cracks and brought their command valuable information about the enemy from outside. Moreover, Volodya was the smallest in physical parameters, and the time came when only he could leave the quarries. The rest of the guys worked as a “cover group”, distracting the German soldiers at the entrances from Volodya Dubinin’s attempts to get out. In exactly the same way, the group met the guy at the appointed place when he returned back.

The responsibilities of the young partisans included not only reconnaissance. Children brought ammunition to adults, helped the wounded and performed other tasks of the commander.

There were almost legends about Volodya Dubinin himself and his exploits. They told how the boy skillfully “led the nose” of a German patrol, slipping past them, or how he could accurately remember the number of several enemy units located in different places.

In December 1941, the Nazis decided to flood the Starokarantinsky quarries and put an end to the partisans. Volodya, who was in reconnaissance, found out about this when there were only a few hours left before the start of the punitive action.

Risking his life during the day, practically in full view of German patrols, Volodya managed to penetrate the catacombs and warn the partisans of the danger. The commander raised the alarm, and people began hastily building dams in order to thwart the plans of the Nazis.

It was a race against death. At some point, the water in the quarries rose almost to the waist. Nevertheless, in two days the partisans managed to create a system of dams that prevented the Nazis from destroying the detachment.

The feat of Volodya Dubinin in this heroic biographical fact can hardly be overestimated, because many lives were saved who could continue to fight the enemy.


On the eve of the new year, 1942, the command set the task for scout Dubinin to get to the Adzhimushkai quarries and contact the partisan detachment based there.

But when Volodya went to carry out the order, he came across... Soviet soldiers. These were naval landing soldiers who liberated Kerch during the Kerch-Feodosia operation.

The joy of Volodya and his comrades knew no bounds. But the Nazis surrounded the Starokarantinsky quarries with a network of minefields, and the partisans could not leave them. The adults were physically unable to leave where Volodya was leaving.

And then Volodya volunteered to be a guide for the sappers. The first day of demining was successful, but on January 4, 1942, at about 10 a.m., a powerful explosion occurred at the entrance to the quarries. Four sappers and Volodya Dubinin were blown up by a mine.

The dead sappers and Volodya were buried in a mass partisan grave in the Youth Park of Kerch. Posthumously, Vladimir Nikiforovich Dubinin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.


In 1949, the Soviet children's writer Lev Kassil wrote the story “Street of the Youngest Son” about Volodya Dubinin, for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize. Based on it, a film of the same name by Lev Golubev was released in 1962, and in 1985 a film by Roman Viktyuk “Long Memory” was released.

In 1975, the famous composer Vladimir Shainsky wrote “Song about Volodya Dubinin” to the words of Naum Olev. Thanks to these works, the life and exploits of Volodya Dubinin became widely known throughout the country; he was included in the pantheon of pioneer heroes, whose portraits hung in every Soviet school.

In 1964, in his native Kerch, a monument was erected to him in the form of a sculpture, carved and solid stone. There is also a bronze bust of Dubinin on the territory of Kerch School No. 1, where he once studied. In 1961, a village in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, founded by Komsomol builders, was named after him.


* The Starokarantino quarries, where limestone was mined in the pre-war years, consist of three levels, and the total length of the tunnels is about 40 kilometers. Currently, you can only get into them through the only surviving entrance, located in the area of ​​the Telecenter stop.

Sources for this article:

Magazine "Historical Heritage of Crimea", No. 19, 2007.