Today is a difficult time, a time of sorrow. We grieve for the victims in Egypt and France and Syria, but to this grief was added grief for Svetlana Vasilyevna Zharnikova. I think that all those who cherish the theme of Hyperborea, the theme of the Slavic-Aryan community, will join this grief. To all this, our people, the entire world community, were literally blown up by the topic of the downed Russian plane in the skies over Syria.

And against such a background, I think it would be appropriate to place patriotic material about the fate of the defender of the Brest Fortress Petr Gavrilov.

As you remember, I have already mentioned this name in connection with the materials about Arkady Ivanovich Malakhov. The fact is that the pictures that were taken in the Drovyany gorge were taken by Nikolai Gavrilov, the son of Pyotr Mikhailovich.

Nikolai himself was a talented artist and an advanced student of Arkady

Ivanovich. He was deeply interested in the occult and magic, often practiced prolonged fasting. To do this, he left for some village to conduct this course away from people. Unfortunately, one of these trips ended tragically

Nicholas was gone.

I am publishing this material as a continuation of the theme about Arkady Ivanovich Malakhov, Nikolai Gavrilov and his father-defender of the Brest Fortress, Hero of the Soviet Union, Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov.

Peter Gavrilov - the last defender of the Brest Fortress

Major Pyotr Gavrilov, a baptized Tatar, received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1956 for leading the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress. There is a monument in Brest to Gavrilov, but not in Kazan. On the 30th anniversary of the Victory, in 1975, the announcer said not to the Central Television of the USSR: "Only a Russian person could command the defense of the Brest Fortress, go through all the circles of hell and remain faithful to the military oath." To which Pyotr Gavrilov modestly declared: "I am not Russian, I am a Tatar." After that, he was not allowed to enter the Central Television of the USSR. Pyotr Gavrilov died in 1979.

The soldier's path

At first, the fate of Peter Gavrilov took shape, like that of many of his contemporaries. He was born on June 30, 1900 in the village of Alverdino, which is now the Pestrechinsky district. Later, the young guy left for Kazan, where he got a job as a worker at the Alafuzov factory. The onset of the revolution abruptly changed his life - Peter Gavrilov enrolled in a Muslim regiment and from that moment on firmly linked himself with the army. As part of the second Red Army of the Eastern Front, in the civil war, he fought with the White Guard General Kolchak, then went to study in Moscow - at the military academy. When the war with Finland broke out, Pyotr Gavrilov again went to the front.

Until recently, the Soviet command did not want to admit the reality of the threat of military action from Nazi Germany. Many years of experience as a career soldier helped him to feel and realize the threat of a new war. Two months before the start of the war, Gavrilov's regiment was transferred to the Brest Fortress. Here he brought both his wife, Ekaterina Grigorievna, and his son Kolya. Already during the service in the Brest Fortress, Gavrilov was accused of alarmism, a party meeting was scheduled, but ... came on June 22.

Defense of the Brest Fortress and captivity

After the Germans attacked the fortress, he led a group of fighters from the 1st battalion of his regiment and small scattered units of the 333rd and 125th rifle regiments, at the head of which he fought on the rampart at the North Gate of the Kobrin fortification; then he headed the garrison of the Eastern Fort, where from June 24 all the defenders of the Kobrin fortification were concentrated. In total, Gavrilov had about 400 people with two anti-aircraft guns, several 45-mm cannons and a four-barreled anti-aircraft machine gun. After the general assault on June 30, undertaken by the Germans and ending with the capture of the Eastern Fort, Gavrilov with the remnants of his group (12 people with four machine guns) took refuge in the casemates. Left alone, on July 23, seriously wounded, he was taken prisoner.

According to the description of doctor Voronovich who treated him in the hospital,

"... the captive major was in full command uniform, but all his clothes turned into rags, his face was covered with powder soot and dust and overgrown with a beard. He was wounded, was in an unconscious state and looked emaciated to the extreme. It was in the full sense the words “skeleton covered with skin.” The extent to which emaciation had reached could be judged by the fact that the prisoner could not even make a swallowing movement: he did not have enough strength for this, and the doctors had to apply artificial nutrition to save his life. But German soldiers , who took him prisoner and brought him to the camp, told the doctors that this man, in whose body life was barely glimmering, just an hour ago, when they caught him in one of the casemates of the fortress, alone took a fight with them, threw grenades, fired a pistol and killed and wounded several Nazis. "

After his release, he was reinstated in the army and his former rank (but not in the party). In the fall of 1945, he was the head of a camp for Japanese prisoners of war in Siberia. In 1946-1947. lived in his homeland, then, according to official Soviet data, he moved to Krasnodar. In Krasnodar, he settled after Stalin's death and his release [source?] At st. Svetlaya 103 (renamed into Gavrilov St. in 1980); there in 1955 he finds his family, lost on the first day of the war. After the publication of S. Smirnov's book "Brest Fortress" in 1956, he was reinstated in the party and was awarded the Order of Lenin and was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The streets in Kazan, Brest, Krasnodar and Pestretsy bear the name of the hero.

Form start

Forgotten caponier of the last defender of the Brest Fortress - Major Gavrilov

Forgotten caponier of the last defender of the Brest Fortress - Major Gavrilov

For the first time in the history of this “fantastic place”, Realny Brest publishes a 3D scanning video, which Andrey Puzin, a leading engineer at the Brestkommunproekt Unitary Enterprise, helped to make, already known to many on our website.

Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov before the war

Even many residents of "Heroivka" (GOBK street) do not know that if you walk to the right of the Northern Gate along the bypass channel, then a few hundred meters away you will stumble upon a lone caponier made of fortress brick, riddled with shells and bullets and carrying a secret the last battle of the last defender of the Brest Fortress. You can also get into the caponier from the side of the fortress, where a large passage with a semicircular vault made of dark red fortress bricks is made in the earthen rampart. Austrian expert Dieter Bogner (project "Brest-2019"), who visited there not so long ago, called Gavrilov's caponier "a fantastic place" ...

Dieter Bogner

Here, on the 32nd day of the war in July, the terrible 41st gave his last battle, the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division, the head of the defense of the famous Eastern Fort, Major Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov. The guides of the Museum of the Defense of the Brest Fortress, stopping near his bust in the museum hall, present him as the last participant heroic defense citadel.

Bust of P.M. Gavrilov in the Museum of the Defense of the Brest Fortress

Right there, the exposition presents his village bast shoes, in which, as an 18-year-old peasant boy, he volunteered for the Red Army back in 1918 ...

Let's start our story from February 1942, when on one of the front sectors in the Orel region, our troops smashed the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht. Analyzing the captured staff documents, our officers drew attention to the "Battle report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk", in which day after day the Nazis meticulously recorded the course of the battles for the Brest Fortress. Their headquarters officers then wrote: “The stunning attack on the fortress, in which the brave defender sits, costs a lot of blood. This simple truth was proved once again during the capture of the Brest Fortress. The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought extremely persistently and stubbornly, they showed excellent infantry training and proved remarkable will to resist. "

Eastern fort today

photo by Alexander Shulgach

One of the most important centers of defense was in the Eastern Fort fortress, about the battles for which it is written as follows:

"June 26. The Eastern Fort remained a nest of resistance. It was impossible to approach here with infantry means, since excellent rifle and machine-gun fire from deep trenches and from the horseshoe-shaped courtyard mowed down everyone who approached.

27th of June. From one prisoner we learned that about 20 commanders and 370 fighters with enough ammunition and food. There is not enough water, but it is taken from the dug holes. There are also women and children in the fort. The soul of resistance is supposedly one major and one commissar.

June 28. The shelling of the Eastern Fort from tanks and assault guns continued, but there was no sign of success ...

June 29. From 0800 onwards, aircraft were dropping many 500-kilogram bombs. The results could not be seen ...

30 June. An offensive was being prepared with gasoline, oil and fat. All this was rolled in barrels and bottles into the fort trenches, and there it had to be set on fire with hand grenades and incendiary bullets. "

Stormtroopers stunned by the resistance of the immortal garrison

Only after the enemy subjected the Eastern Fort to an unusually fierce bombing, when a bomb weighing 1,800 kilograms was dropped from one of the planes, which was nicknamed "Satan." This bomb, the release of which required a super-powerful bomber, as the Nazis themselves write, "shook the entire city of Brest with its detonation." Only after that did the enemy manage to break into the fort and take possession of it. But, no matter how the Nazis searched the casemates and shelters, they did not manage to find the leaders of the fort's defense anywhere.

... The eastern fort consists of two high earthen ramparts in the form of horseshoes. The shafts were located one inside the other, and the inner shaft, for the convenience of defense, was slightly higher than the outer one. Between them there was a space four to five meters wide, forming a narrow courtyard, the walls of which were lined with bricks. From the courtyard one could enter the brick casemates located in the earthen mass of the ramparts. And in the very center of the inner horseshoe, a two-story building of barracks rose.

... Together with all our prisoners of war doctors, the doctor NI Voronovich treated the wounded soldiers and commanders in the hospital of the prisoner of war camp, which the Germans built in the Yuzhny town. It was July 23, 1941, that is, on the 32nd day of the war, the Nazis brought a major captured in the fortress to the camp hospital. The prisoner was in full command uniform, but it turned into rags, his face was overgrown with a beard. He was unconscious and was like a skeleton covered with skin. Doctors had to use artificial nutrition to save his life.

Writer Sergei Smirnov, who revealed to the world the heroism and courage of the defenders of the citadel over the Bug

Writer Sergei Smirnov spent 10 years of his life collecting materials for his later Lenin Prize book "The Brest Fortress", having spent them traveling, searching, speaking on the All-Union Radio.

It turned out that Peter Mikhailovich Gavrilov was born in 1900, a native of the Kazan Tatars, served in the Red Army since 1918. According to the writer, he got there as a dark, illiterate guy, but he brought with him iron tenacity, the ability to persistently overcome difficulties. He took part in battles against Kolchak, Denikin, against white bands in the Caucasus. After the civil war, he remained in the military and lived for a long time in Krasnodar, commanding various military units there. I got to study at the Frunze Academy in Moscow. After graduating in 1939, he was appointed commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment, with which he experienced heavy battles in the Soviet-Finnish war, and two years later he came to serve in the Brest Fortress.

Gavrilov's caponier is inaccessible from the side of the bypass channel

... The participation of Gavrilov in the defense of the Brest Fortress is as follows. Hearing the first explosions at dawn on June 22, 1941 (the family lived outside the fortress), the regimental commander dressed quickly, said goodbye to his wife and son, and ran to the fortress citadel, where the regiment's headquarters was located, with a pistol in his hand. There he gathered soldiers to lead them from the fortress to the line of defense assigned to the regiment. He gathered two or three dozen people and led them in dashes to the Three-Arched Gate across the bridge to the exit from the fortress, but a battle was going on at the North Gate. The Germans took the fortress in the ring by 9.00.

For some time the fighters held their defenses on the ramparts, and then they were forced to retreat to the casemates of the eastern "horseshoe", where about 400 fighters from different units and one anti-aircraft battery gathered. Gavrilov, as a senior in rank, took command over them. Thus began the defense of the fort. Day by day the artillery shelling intensified, the bombing became more and more brutal. The food supplies ran out, there was no water, one after another soldiers perished.

A rare person knows the entrance to the caponier from the side of the Kobrin fortification

On June 29, the Nazis presented the defenders of the Eastern Fort with an ultimatum - within an hour to extradite Gavrilov and lay down their arms. Otherwise, the German command threatened to demolish the fortification from the face of the earth along with its stubborn garrison. By order of Gavrilov, women and children who were left without food and water were sent captive.

But none of the fighters gave up. On that day and the next morning, in hand-to-hand fighting, the resistance of the defenders of the Eastern Fort was finally broken, and those who survived were captured. The submachine gunners ransacked one casemate after another - they were looking for Gavrilov, but they were not found anywhere.

Long corridor promises a lot of unknown

The major was alone with a border guard fighter, and they, fortunately, managed to find a safe haven, to dig a passage through the thickness of the earthen rampart. They spent several days there. The hunger and thirst became more and more painful. Gavrilov had already decided that it was time to leave, when suddenly Degtyarev's machine gun crackled over his head, on the crest of the rampart.

He called out to the machine gunner, who responded. It was night. But when they crawled to the exit from the fort, they saw that fires were burning very close by, around which were sitting fascist soldiers who were waiting for the morning to “clear the casemates.

Gavrilov commanded in a whisper: "Fire!" - they threw grenades and the fire went out. We decided to run in different directions so that at least one of them could be saved.

The regiment commander crawled on his bellies to the northwest towards the outer rampart of the fortress. The night was impenetrably dark, and he almost bumped into a brick wall of one of the casemates of the outer wall of the fortress, groped for the door and went inside. It was a caponier, where the stables of his regimental artillerymen were before the war. He got out and carefully crawled over the rampart to the bank of the bypass channel. And suddenly from there, out of the darkness, came a German speech, and he made out the outlines of tents on the other side of the bypass channel. It was the camp of some German unit.

He silently climbed back to his bank and crawled to the rampart. There was a small door, and entering it, he found himself in a narrow corner caponier with two loopholes looking in different directions. The corridor stretched from the casemate into the depths of the earthen rampart. He walked along this corridor and again found himself in the same stable and decided that it would be best to hide in a small corner casemate. From here he could shoot back, keeping a large section of the channel in sight.

He hastily began to carry the manure lying at the entrance to the stable, and dump it in the corner of the casemate. He buried himself in a pile of manure and dumped himself outside, making a small observation slot and placing the remaining five grenades and two pistols with full ammunition at hand.

Gavrilov spent three days without food, and at night he found compound feed for horses - a mixture of some grains, chaff, straw. This was his only food. For five days everything went well: during the day he ate compound feed, and at night he drank water from the bypass canal. But on the sixth day, a sharp pain in the stomach began, he held back his groans so as not to betray himself, and then a strange half-oblivion set in, and he lost track of time.

As Sergei Smirnov writes, apparently, he was given out by groans. He suddenly woke up from the fact that very close to him voices were heard. Through my viewing slot I saw two submachine gunners standing near a pile of manure, under which he was lying. When Gavrilov saw the enemies, the forces returned to him again, and he fumbled for a German pistol and switched the safety catch.

The Germans began to scatter a pile of manure with their boots. Then he raised the automatic pistol and with difficulty pulled the trigger and he released the entire clip. A shrill scream was heard, and, clattering with their boots, the Germans ran to the exit.

Gavrilov realized that now he would accept his last battle with the enemies. He put his five grenades next to him and took his commander's TT in his hand. Soon shouts came: "Rus, surrender!" The regiment commander waited until the screams rang out very close, and one after the other he threw two grenades - into the right and left embrasures. Enemies rushed back, and he heard someone's drawn-out groans. One of the submachine gunners appeared at the door. Then he threw the last grenade there. At that moment, something flew into another loophole and hit the floor - an explosion, and Gavrilov lost consciousness.

Here he is the caponier, where Major Gavrilov gave his last battle

The emaciated major was brought to a prisoner of war camp in the Southern town, where a German general arrived with officers to look at the hero of the defense.

And in the spring of 1942, the camp in the Yuzhny town was disbanded, and Gavrilov, after wandering around different camps in Poland and Germany, soon found himself near the German city of Hammelsburg, where fate brought Gavrilov together with Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev.

All these years of hostile captivity Gavrilov behaved as befits. After the Victory, he passed the state check, was reinstated in the rank of major, and in the fall of 1945 he was appointed head of the Soviet camp for Japanese prisoners of war in Siberia. However, he did not have to serve in the army for long - he was dismissed and retired. Together with his second wife, Gavrilov moved to Krasnodar, where he built a small modest house on the outskirts of the city.

But he was not reinstated in the party after returning from captivity due to the loss of his party card and had to join the party anew, on a general basis.

And in January 1957, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued: for valor and courage, for an outstanding feat in the defense of the Brest Fortress, Peter Mikhailovich Gavrilov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

And at the opening of the memorial complex " Brest Fortress Hero»In 1971, Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov carried the battle banner of the 393rd separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion at the head of a column of veterans, whose fighters, together with others, defended the Eastern Fort to the last. He bequeathed to be buried in Brest, and his will was fulfilled in 1979, when he was buried with military honors in the garrison cemetery and a beautiful granite monument was erected to him. A street in Brest is named after him.

In January (26) next year, it will be 35 years from the date of his death (01/26/1979).

This is how Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov will remain in the memory of who saw him in the memorial "Brest Fortress-Hero"

What can I say about this? On the Eastern Fort, the defense of which he was holding, excursions are conducted only by special order, and at the entrance to Gavrilov's caponier, where every brick breathes the terrible 41st, there is not even a memorial plaque about an unprecedented battle in history that struck even the Nazis. And from the side of the bypass channel, there is not even a bridge through which people could get into this Holy place to bow to the legendary defender of the Brest Fortress. And this, I think, does not honor either the city authorities or the memorial “Brest Hero-Fortress”, in the opening of which he took part. This is how the slogan “Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten” is embodied in our life ...

This is how Major Gavrilov met the battle in the fortress

The picture shows Arkady Ivanovich Malakhov, granddaughter and grandchildren of Peter Gavrilov and your humble servant. The pictures were taken by Nikolai Gavrilov in the Drovyany gorge.

Gavrilov Pyotr Mikhailovich (1900-1979)

Soviet officer, major, hero of the defense of the Brest Fortress, Hero of the Soviet Union (1957).
Biography
Born on June 17 (30), 1900 in the village of Alvidino, Laishevsky district, Kazan province (now Pestrechinsky district of the Republic of Tatarstan). Kryashen by nationality.
The father died before his birth (according to other sources, when he was 1 year old).
In his early youth he worked as a laborer, at the age of 15 he went to Kazan and entered the plant as a laborer.
Participated in the establishment of Soviet power in Kazan. In the spring of 1918 he volunteered for the Red Army, fought on the Eastern Front against the troops of Kolchak, then against the troops of Denikin and the rebels in the North Caucasus. After the end of the Civil War, he remained in the army. In 1922 he joined the CPSU (b).
In September 1925 he graduated from the Vladikavkaz infantry school; in the Caucasus, he married and adopted an orphan boy. In 1939 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy.
With the rank of major, he was appointed commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment.
Member of the Soviet-Finnish war. At the end of the war, his regiment was transferred to Western Belarus, and in May 1941 - to Brest.
Defense of the Brest Fortress and captivity
After the Germans attacked the fortress, he led a group of fighters from the 1st battalion of his regiment and small scattered units of the 333rd and 125th rifle regiments, at the head of which he fought on the rampart at the North Gate of the Kobrin fortification; then he headed the garrison of the Eastern Fort, where from June 24 all the defenders of the Kobrin fortification were concentrated. In total, Gavrilov had about 400 people with two anti-aircraft guns, several 45-mm cannons and a four-barreled anti-aircraft machine gun. After the general assault on June 30, undertaken by the Germans and ending with the capture of the Eastern Fort, Gavrilov with the remnants of his group (12 people with four machine guns) took refuge in the casemates. Left alone, on July 23, seriously wounded, he was taken prisoner. According to the description of Doctor Voronovich, who treated him in the hospital, the captive major was in full command uniform, but all his clothes turned into rags, his face was covered with powder soot and dust and overgrown with a beard. He was injured, unconscious, and looked extremely emaciated. It was, in the full sense of the word, a skeleton covered in leather. The extent to which exhaustion had reached, could be judged by the fact that the prisoner could not even make a swallowing movement: he did not have enough strength for this, and the doctors had to use artificial nutrition to save his life. But the German soldiers, who took him prisoner and brought him to the camp, told the doctors that this man, in whose body there was barely a glimmer of life, just an hour ago, when they caught him in one of the casemates of the fortress, alone they fought, threw grenades, fired a pistol and killed and wounded several Nazis.
Contained in the camps Hammelburg and Ravensbrück until May 1945.
After the war
After his release from captivity, he was reinstated in the army in his former rank. He was not reinstated in the party due to the loss of his party card and being in captivity. Since the fall of 1945, he served as the head of a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Siberia.
He could not find his family and in 1946 he married a second time.
In 1946-47 he lived in his homeland, in the Pestrechinsky district, then moved to Krasnodar.
After the publication of Sergei Smirnov's book "Brest Fortress" in 1956, he was reinstated in the party and presented to the country's highest award.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of January 30, 1957, for exemplary fulfillment of military duty in the defense of the Brest Fortress in 1941 and the courage and heroism shown at the same time, Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 10807 ).
In 1956, he found his first wife and adopted son, whom he had not seen since the first day of the war. From 1968 to the end of his life he lived in Krasnodar at st. Svetlaya, 103 (in 1980 it was renamed into Gavrilov St.).
Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov died in Krasnodar on January 26, 1979.
Buried in Brest.
Memory
The streets in Kazan, Brest, Krasnodar and Pestretsy bear the name of the hero.
Major Gavrilov's feat was reflected in the films Immortal Garrison, 1956, Battle for Moscow (actor Romualds Antsans) and Brest Fortress (actor Alexander Korshunov).
At the end of the film "Brest Fortress", it is stated that after captivity Gavrilov was subjected to political repression. This statement by the authors of the film provoked fair reproaches from many viewers, since in fact Major Gavrilov was not prosecuted and was not imprisoned. The filmmakers answer that according to Art. 1 of the Federal Law "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression" dated 18.10.1991 No. 1761-1 political repression should be understood as any infringement of the rights of a person committed for political reasons. According to the authors of the film, the refusal to reinstate in the ranks of the CPSU (b) on the grounds of being in captivity is such an infringement, in connection with which the authors of the film insist on their statement. However, it still seems to be controversial, since: membership in the CPSU (b) did not affect the legal capacity of a citizen, and the CPSU (b) was public organization- a political party, and it seems natural for it to be guided precisely by political motives in its work.
In Kazan Victory Park on the Pantheon of the memorial complex, among others, there is a plate with the surname, name and report of the Hero of the Soviet Union Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov, indicating that the title was awarded in 1957.

July 23, 1941 the last battle of Major Gavrilov - the defender of the Brest Fortress led him alone ... Gavrilov Petr Mikhailovich (17 (30) .06.1900 - 26.01.1979) Born. in with. Alvedino of the Pestrechinsky District of the Tatar SSR After the war, he lived in the city of Krasnodar 42nd Infantry Division Commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment Major Pages of the pre-war biography Gavrilov came from Kazan Tatars, moreover, from those whose ancestors had been converted to Orthodoxy under Ivan the Terrible. They adopted Russian names and surnames along with faith, but retained their language and many customs. His father was a poor peasant from a poor village near Kazan. In the year Peter was born, his father died. Peter studied at the baptized Tatar school in Kazan. Peter spent his childhood years in poverty. As a teenager, he worked for beys. A hard life from childhood brought up in him a patient, strong-willed character, accustomed to the struggle with the misfortunes and hardships of a harsh peasant life. At the age of 15, Peter went on foot to Kazan, where he got a job as a laborer at the Alafuzov factory. He took part in the October armed uprising. A strong character came in handy when in 1918 he was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army. He got there as a dark, illiterate guy, but he brought with him an iron tenacity, the ability to overcome difficulties - qualities so necessary for a military man. Pyotr Gavrilov enrolled in a Muslim regiment, and from that moment on, he firmly connected himself with the army. As part of the 2nd Red Army of the Eastern Front, he participated in the Civil War - in battles against Kolchak, Denikin, in battles with white bandits in the mountains of the North Caucasus. The strong-willed properties of his character, courage and courage, his remarkable organizational abilities were more and more revealed. In 1922, Gavrilov joined the ranks of the Communist Party. After the civil war, he remained in the military. His post-war service took place in the North Caucasus. There he got married. He and his wife had no children, and they took an orphan boy from the orphanage. Gavrilov adopted him, and little Kolya grew up in the family like his own son - Ekaterina Grigorievna tenderly took care of him. Then Peter lived for a long time in Krasnodar, where he commanded various military units. He graduated from the command courses and entered the Military academy named after Frunze to Moscow. It was very difficult to study - the lack of education hindered. But the same adamant Gavrilov's stubbornness helped. In the photograph on Gavrilov's chest, the jubilee medal "XX Years of the Red Army" is clearly visible. In accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 22, 1938, servicemen were awarded with such medals for length of service and for military distinctions during the years of the civil war. Perhaps this picture was taken in 1938. And this is how the certificate for the medal "XX Years of the Red Army" looked like. In 1939, Pyotr Mikhailovich left the academy as a major and was appointed commander of the 44th rifle regiment. A few months later, in the frosty winter of 1939, during the days of the Finnish campaign, the 44th Infantry Regiment under the command of Gavrilov showed itself excellently in heavy battles on the Karelian Isthmus. In the autumn exercises of 1940, which took place in the border areas, the 44th regiment under the command of Gavrilov received high marks and came out on top in the 42nd rifle division. In the fortress After the Finnish war, the entire 42nd division was transferred to Western Belarus, to the Bereza-Kartuzskaya area, and two months before the war, Gavrilov's regiment was transferred to the Brest fortress. In defense, Major Pyotr Gavrilov was the only (!) Regimental commander who took part in the defense of the Brest Fortress. There was not a single officer above him in terms of position and rank in the defense. Hearing the first explosions at dawn on June 22, Gavrilov immediately realized that a war had begun. Quickly dressed, he said goodbye to his wife and son, ordering them to go to the nearest basement, and with a pistol in his hand ran to the Citadel, where the regiment's headquarters was located and the battle banner stood: he had to be rescued first. Gavrilov managed to cross the bridge over Mukhavets, which had already been fired on by German saboteurs. He fled among the explosions in the courtyard of the citadel, past the building of the 333rd western sector ring barracks: the headquarters was located there on the second floor. But when he got here, the second floor was already dilapidated and engulfed in flames. Some of the soldiers, recognizing the regimental commander, reported to him that one of the staff officers had carried the regimental banner. Then the major began to gather his men in order to lead them from the fortress to the designated line of defense. It was not easy to do this: in the pre-dawn darkness, half-naked people rushed around the yard, ran in different directions, hurrying to cover. It was almost impossible to distinguish between friends and foes in this chaos. Somehow he gathered 20-30 people and led them in dashes to the Three-Arched Gate and again across the Mukhavetsky bridge to the main exit from the fortress. The Germans closed the ring around the fortress. Here, at the exit, Gavrilov met with Captain Kasatkin, who commanded the 18th Separate Signal Battalion in the same 42nd Division. The battalion was stationed a few kilometers away, and Kasatkin, who lived in the fortress, came to his family on Sunday, and was now cut off from his fighters. On the ramparts and in front of the gates, scattered groups of fighters fought with the advancing machine gunners. Gavrilov, with the help of Kasatkin, began to organize the defense of the sector. Directly under fire, in a battle situation, a company was formed, the command of which was assigned by the major to one of the lieutenants who were here. Gavrilov immediately assigned a combat mission to the company and organized the delivery of cartridges from the nearest warehouse. All day on June 22, Gavrilov's detachment held its positions, repulsing enemy attacks. Even the artillery of the detachment operated in the battles - two anti-aircraft guns stationed near the "horseshoe" of the Eastern Fort. In the morning, the anti-aircraft gunners now and then had to engage in battle with German tanks that broke into the fortress through the main gate, and each time they drove away the enemy vehicles. A young lieutenant in command of the artillerymen was seriously wounded during a firefight. But he refused to leave the guns. When one of the tanks managed to slip through the gate, a fire duel began between him and the anti-aircraft gunners. The tank, maneuvering on the road, fluently fired at anti-aircraft guns, and one cannon was soon damaged. Then, gathering his last strength, the pale, bloodless lieutenant stood up to the gun and himself fired directly. He needed only two or three shots - the tank was knocked out, and the tankers trying to escape were shot from the rifles by the soldiers. But the lieutenant's forces were also exhausted. He fell right there, at the gun, and the gunners, picking him up, saw that he was dead. Gavrilov immediately ordered Kasatkin to write a posthumous submission to this lieutenant for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, like all the documents of the headquarters, this performance was destroyed later, when the Germans burst into the fort, and the name of the hero, the lieutenant, forgotten by the participants in the defense, remains unknown to this day. The Germans dragged the wrecked tank in tow, and then their planes flew in, and another bombing of the Eastern Fort began. It was then that one of the bombs hit the trench, where the supply of shells for anti-aircraft guns was stored, and this small warehouse flew into the air. The remaining gun could no longer fire. On June 23, the situation became more complicated: the enemy cut off the company fighting in the Western Fort from Gavrilov's detachment and approached the road. On June 24, a soldier came running and reported to the major that in the neighborhood, in the casemates of the eastern "horseshoe", several hundred people from different regiments had gathered. Gavrilov and Kasatkin hurried there. So, at noon on June 24th, they got to the Eastern Reduit (Eastern Fort). There, under pressure from the enemy, the remnants of two other companies, which had thinned out in these battles, were forced to withdraw from the northern part of the ramparts. On June 24, a part of the 393rd artillery battalion (in the building that stood in the center of the "horseshoe"), a transport company of the 333rd rifle regiment, a training battery of the 98th artillery battalion, soldiers of other units were located in the Eastern Fort (Kobrin fortification). Here, in the shelter, were the families of the commanders. In total, about 400 people gathered. On the night of the outbreak of the war, only one battery remained in the barracks of the 393rd artillery battalion, two anti-aircraft guns of which stood not far from the fort, immediately behind its outer rampart. Some senior lieutenant commanded the battery - it was he who raised the alarm to his soldiers. But an hour later, this commander was killed, and the anti-aircraft gunners were led by the battalion's communications chief, Lieutenant Domienko, and Lieutenant Kolomiets, who had come running here from the 125th regiment. Warehouses were opened, people were armed with rifles, machine guns, grenades, and on the second floor of the barracks a four-barreled anti-aircraft machine gun was installed, which could hold the entrance to the central courtyard of the "horseshoe" under fire. Gavrilov, as a senior in rank, took command and began to form his own detachment. In addition to the company that fought on the north rampart, at the gate, two more were created. One Gavrilov instructed to take up the defenses on the other side of the road, in the western "horseshoe", the second lay on the northeastern ramparts of the fortress. Now Gavrilov's detachment defended itself as if inside a triangle, the tops of which were the northern entrance gates of the fortress and two horseshoe-shaped fortifications. In the Eastern Fort, Gavrilov placed his command post and a detachment reserve with it. The headquarters was also located here, the head of which was Captain Kasatkin. The political instructor of the 333rd regiment, Skripnik, became Gavrilov's deputy for political affairs. He immediately began to take into account the communists and Komsomol members, organized the recording of the reports of the SovInformburo, which were received by the radio operator in the division's barracks. Gavrilov also entrusted him with taking care of the wounded and women with children who had come running here from the neighboring command staff houses. Women and children were placed in the safest shelter - in the strong casemates of the outer shaft. By order of the major, a "hospital" was also organized there - heaps of straw piled in a corner, on which the wounded were laid. The military assistant Abakumova became the “chief doctor” of this “hospital”, and the wives of the commanders became her volunteer assistants. Now the entire detachment of Gavrilov was concentrated in the Eastern Fort, and the fort itself was surrounded by an enemy ring. The Germans began a siege, but all their attempts to break into the central courtyard of the "horseshoe" were fruitless. The soldiers were vigilantly on duty at the four-barreled machine gun in the barracks. The submachine gunners were deliberately allowed closer to the middle of the sloping courtyard. And when they were already in a disorderly crowd, screaming as they climbed into the last rush to the barracks, the machine gunners opened dagger fire point-blank from all four barrels. The yard was swept out like a lead broom. Under the terrible fire of this machine gun, only a few of the Nazis managed to escape back. The courtyard of the fort was littered with corpses in green uniforms. Tanks approached here several times. Then Gavrilov called for volunteers, and those with bundles of grenades in their hands crawled along the foot of the rampart towards the cars. After one tank was knocked out in the yard, the German tankers no longer dared to call in here and only fired from a distance. But the shelling from tanks and guns did not bring success to the enemy. And the Germans began more and more often to send their planes against this small earthen "horseshoe", where our soldiers were so desperately defending themselves. The shelling intensified day by day, and the bombing became more and more brutal. The fort ran out of food supplies, there was no water, people were out of order. By order of Gavrilov, women and children were taken prisoner. The enemy was pressing. From time to time, submachine gunners burst into the crest of the outer rampart and threw grenades from there into the horseshoe-shaped courtyard. With difficulty, the Germans knocked them back. Then smoke attacks began, and the enemy even launched tear gas bombs. Caustic clubs covered the entire courtyard, filled the casemates. Fortunately, gas masks were found in the warehouses, and people, sometimes without taking off their masks for hours, continued to shoot back and fight back with grenades. And then came Sunday, June 29, and the Nazis presented the defenders of the Eastern Fort with an ultimatum - within an hour to extradite Gavrilov and his deputy for political affairs and lay down their arms. Otherwise, the German command threatened to demolish the fortification from the face of the earth along with its stubborn garrison. An alarming hour-long lull set in. Then Gavrilov called the soldiers and commanders for an open party meeting. In a cramped semi-dark casemate not only communists gathered - everyone came here. Only the machine gunners and observers on duty remained at their posts in case surprise attack enemy. Gavrilov explained the situation, said that he could no longer count on outside help, and asked the question: - What are we going to do? All at once noisy, and the major already on the faces became clear the answer of his comrades: - We will fight to the end! It was not an ordinary meeting, it was their last meeting, excited and unanimous. And when Skripnik announced admission to the party, people rushed to look for paper. Short, hot statements were written on some scraps lying in the casemates, on pieces of old newspapers, even on the back of German leaflets calling for surrender. And there and then dozens of non-party people were accepted into the ranks of the party. They did not even have time to sing "Internationale" - the time was up, and explosions thundered in the fort. The enemy went into a decisive attack. All took their places at the embrasures. But first there were planes. They flew low, one by one, and the first dropped a rocket over the fort, pointing the others. Bombs rained down in a hail, and this time the largest. Heavy explosions rumbled incessantly around, the massive vaults of the casemates were shaking over the heads of the people. In places, landslides occurred, and the soldiers died, covered with the earthy mass of the settled rampart. This went on for a long time, but no one could tell how much time had passed - the nerves of the people were too tense. Immediately after the last explosions of the bombs, shouts of submachine gunners burst into the outer shaft. In the central courtyard "horseshoes" clapped grenades - enemy infantry rushed there in a crowd. The bursts of the four-barreled machine gun were no longer heard - it was destroyed during the bombing. On this day, June 29, and the next morning, June 30, in hand-to-hand fighting, the resistance of the defenders of the Eastern Fort was finally broken, and those who survived were captured. A small group of fighters led by Gavrilov continued to fight in the Eastern Fort until July 12 (See notes). The submachine gunners ransacked one casemate after another - they were looking for Gavrilov. The officers persistently interrogated the prisoners about their commander, but no one knew anything for sure about him. Some saw how the major, at the end of the battle, ran into the casemate, from where a shot immediately rang out. "The major shot himself," they said. Others claimed that he blew himself up with a bunch of grenades. Be that as it may, it was not possible to find Gavrilov, and the Germans decided that he had committed suicide. But the major did not blow himself up and did not shoot himself. He was caught by the Germans in a dark casemate inside the rampart, where recent times was his command post. The major was alone with a border guard soldier, who performed the duties of aide-de-camp and commander's assistant in the defense. They were cut off from the rest of the garrison and, running from one room to another, threw their last grenades at the advancing Nazis and fired back with the last cartridges. But it soon became obvious that the resistance of the garrison had been broken and the Germans had already taken possession of almost the entire fort. Gavrilov and the border guard had very little ammunition left, and they decided to try to hide, so that later, when the Germans left the fort, they could get out of the fortress and go to the northeast, to Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where, as they hoped, our partisans were operating. Fortunately, they managed to find a safe haven. At the very beginning of the battles for the fort, the soldiers, on the orders of Gavrilov, tried to dig a passage through the thickness of the rampart. A hole was punched in the brick wall of the casemate, and several soldiers took turns digging a small tunnel into the shaft. The work had to be stopped soon - the rampart turned out to be sandy, and the sand was crumbling all the time, blocking the passage. But there was a hole in the wall and a deep hole going into the depths of the rampart. Gavrilov and the border guard climbed into this hole, while the voices of the Nazis were already very close by, ransacking the neighboring premises. Finding themselves in this narrow hole, the major and the border guard began to dig their way with their hands in different directions from the passage. The sand easily gave in, and they gradually began to move forward on the other side of the brick wall of the casemate, moving farther and farther from the hole punched in it. Gavrilov dug to the left, and the border guard to the right; they worked with feverish speed and, like moles, threw the dug sand behind them, filling the path behind them. About half an hour passed before the Nazis entered the casemate, and during this time the commander and the soldier managed to deepen each two or three meters away from the hole punched in the bricks. Through the wall, the major could clearly hear the Germans talking as they searched the casemate. He hid himself, trying not to betray himself with a single movement. Apparently, the machine gunners noticed a hole in the wall - they stood near it for several minutes, conferring about something. Then one of them gave a queue there. The Nazis were silent, listening, and, making sure that no one was there, went to inspect the other casemates. Gavrilov spent several days in his sandy hole. Not a single ray of light penetrated here, and he did not even know whether it was day or night now in the wild. The hunger and thirst became more and more painful. No matter how hard he tried to stretch the two crackers that ended up in his pocket, they soon ran out. He learned to calm his thirst a little by putting his tongue to the bricks of the casemate wall. The bricks were cold, and it seemed to him that underground moisture had settled on them. Sleep helped to forget about hunger and thirst, but he slept in fits and starts, fearing to give himself away in a dream with a careless movement or groan. The enemies were still in the fort - their voices were heard now further, now closer, and once or twice the soldiers entered this casemate. He did not know if his fellow border guard was alive, separated from him by a layer of sand several meters thick. He was afraid to call him even in a whisper - the Nazis could be nearby. With the slightest noise, he could ruin everything. Now it was only necessary to wait for the soldiers to leave. Only this was salvation and the opportunity to continue the struggle again. Tormented by hunger and thirst in this underground hole, he never for a minute forgot about the struggle and more than once carefully felt in his pocket the few remaining grenades and a pistol with the last clip. The voices of the Germans were heard less and less, and, finally, everything around grew quiet. Gavrilov had already decided that it was time to leave, when suddenly a machine gun spoke over his head, on the crest of the rampart, and by the sound he unmistakably recognized Degtyarev's light machine gun. Who fired from it - ours or the Germans? He lay there for several hours thinking about it painfully. And the machine gun from time to time sent out a short, stingy burst. It was felt that the machine gunner was saving ammunition, and this gave Gavrilov some vague hopes. Why would the Germans save ammunition? Finally he made up his mind and called out to the border guard in a whisper. He responded. They crawled out into the dark dungeon and first of all drank from a well dug here of dirty, musty water. Then, with grenades at the ready, they cautiously looked out into the narrow courtyard. It was night. Someone's low voices were coming from above. It was Russian speech. On the shaft were 12 soldiers with three light machine guns. Like Gavrilov, they managed to hide in one of the casemates when the fort was captured, and after the submachine gunners left, they went out and again took up defenses. During the day they hid in the casemate, and at night they fired at single enemy soldiers who appeared nearby. The Nazis believed that there was no one left in the fort, and until they had time to discover that it was from there that machine-gun bursts were heard, especially since there was still a firefight around. then renewed firing, interspersed with the explosions of mines and shells, came from the Central Island. Gavrilov decided to try to bring this group to Belovezhskaya Pushcha ... But for this it was necessary not to reveal oneself yet. Many enemy troops were stationed around the fortress, and it was impossible to get out of the ramparts even at night. During the day, only an observer was left on the rampart, and at night everyone went upstairs and, if an opportunity presented itself, fired. Several days passed in this way. The fighting did not subside, groups of German soldiers continued to appear nearby, and it was still impossible to leave the fortress. The worst thing was that the defenders of the fort had nothing to eat. The small supply of crackers that the soldiers had had ended, and hunger was making itself felt more and more acutely. People were losing their last strength. Gavrilov was already thinking about making a desperate attempt to break through, but sudden events disrupted all his plans. On July 14, the observer did not notice how a group of Germans came to the fort for some reason during the day. Here they found Soviet soldiers. Gavrilov was dozing in the corner of the casemate when shouts were heard nearby in the courtyard: "Rus, surrender!" - and explosions of grenades rumbled. There were few submachine gunners, and almost all of them were immediately killed, but a few still managed to leave, and an hour later the "horseshoe" was again surrounded. The first attacks were repulsed. But the Nazis dragged guns and mortars here, and soon among the few defenders of the fort there were wounded and killed. (Judging by the logic of things, 9 soldiers were killed, since by nightfall there were only three left with Gavrilov and nothing was said about the rest - D.V.). This was followed by an attack simultaneously from all sides, and the enemy overpowered them in number - the submachine gunners climbed the rampart and threw grenades at the courtyard. And again I had to hide in the same hole. Only now the three of them climbed into it - Gavrilov, a border guard and another fighter. Fortunately, at this time night had already fallen (from 14th to 15th July - D.V.) and the Nazis did not dare to search the casemates in the dark. But Gavrilov understood that with the onset of morning they would ransack the fort from top to bottom and this time, perhaps, they would find their refuge. It was necessary to do something now at night, without delay. They conferred and cautiously crept out into the casemate. There was no one here. There were no Nazis in the courtyard either. But when they crawled to the exit from the fort, they saw that very close bonfires were burning, around which soldiers were sitting. It was necessary to break through with a fight. It was decided that, at Gavrilov's command, everyone would throw one grenade at the Germans sitting by the fires, and all three would immediately rush to run in different directions: the border guard - to the south, to the commanders' houses, the fighter - to the east, to the outer rampart, and Gavrilov - to west, towards the road leading from the North Gate to Central Island. Its direction was the most dangerous, since the Nazis often walked and drove along this road. They hugged and agreed that the one who was lucky enough to stay alive would make his way to the cherished Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Then Gavrilov commanded in a whisper: "Fire!" - and they threw grenades. Gavrilov did not remember how he ran the line of posts. All that remained in my memory were the roar of grenade explosions, the frightened screams of the soldiers, the shooting that flared up around us, the whistle of bullets overhead and the deep darkness of the night, which immediately thickened before our eyes after the bright light of the bonfires. He came to his senses when he crossed the road, which was fortunately deserted at that moment. Only then did he pause for a second and catch his breath. And immediately a machine-gun fire whizzed over his head. Our machine gunner was shooting from the pillbox of the Western Fort. Attracted by shouts and shooting, he began to beat in long bursts, apparently aiming at the fires. The major fell on his face against the wall of some dilapidated house, so as not to fall under the bullets. But the machine gunner unwittingly saved him: the Nazis, who were running after the major, came under fire. Gavrilov heard them, screaming, ran back. After 15 minutes, everything was quiet. Then Gavrilov, clinging to the ground, crawled towards the outer rampart of the fortress, gradually moving away from the road. The night was pitch-black, and he almost bumped into a wall. It was Brick wall one of the casemates of the outer wall of the fortress. He groped for the door and went inside. For an hour he walked around the empty room, feeling the mucky walls, until he finally figured out where he was. Here before the war were the stables of his regimental artillerymen. He realized that he had got to the north-western part of the fortress, and this made him happy - from here it was closer to get to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. He got out and carefully crawled over the rampart to the bank of the bypass channel. In the east, the sky was already brightening, dawn was breaking. First of all, he lay down on his stomach and drank standing water from the canal for a long time. Then he entered the canal and moved to the other side. And suddenly from there, out of the darkness, came the German speech. Gavrilov froze in place, peering ahead. Gradually he began to make out the dark outlines of the tents on the other side. Then a match flashed there, and a cigarette glowed with a crimson flame. Directly opposite him, along the canal, the camp of some German unit was spread. He silently climbed back to his bank, and crawled to the rampart. There was a small door, and entering it, he found himself in a narrow corner casemate with two loopholes looking in different directions. The corridor stretched from the casemate into the depths of the rampart. Walking down the corridor, the major again found himself in the same stable. It was noticeably getting light. It was necessary to find a safe refuge for the day, and Gavrilov decided that it was best to take refuge in a small corner casemate. Its walls were thick, and two loopholes going in different directions could come in handy if the Nazis found him - he could shoot back from them, keeping a large section of the canal in his field of vision. He examined this casemate again. The major was embarrassed by the fact that there was absolutely nowhere to hide, and as soon as the Germans looked through the door, he would have been immediately discovered. Then he remembered that at the very door of the casemate, on the bank of the canal, heaps of dung were dumped - it was carried out here when the stables were being cleaned. He hastily began to haul this dung in armfuls and dump it into a corner. Before dawn broke, the hideout was ready. Gavrilov buried himself in this pile of dung and piled himself outside, making a small gap for observation and placing the remaining five grenades and two pistols at hand, each with a full clip. The whole next day, July 15th, he lay there. On the night of July 16, he again went to the bank of the canal and got drunk. On the other side the German tents were still dark and the voices of the soldiers were heard. But he decided to wait until they left, especially since the shooting in the fortress, as it seemed to him, gradually subsided; Apparently, the enemy suppressed one by one the last centers of resistance. Gavrilov spent three days without food. Then the hunger became so acute that it was impossible to endure any longer. And he thought that somewhere near the stables there must be a tseikhhaus where fodder is stored - barley or oats could remain there. On July 18, the major found some hard lumps piled up in one of the corners of the casemate. It was a compound feed for horses - a mixture of grains, chaff and straw. In any case, it satisfied the hunger and even seemed tasty. Now he was provided with "food" and prepared to wait as long as necessary until he could run to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. For five days everything went well - he ate compound feed, and at night he drank water from the canal. But on the sixth day, a sharp pain in the stomach began, which intensified with every hour, causing unbearable suffering. All that day and all night, biting his lip, he refrained from groaning so as not to betray himself, and then a strange half-oblivion set in, and he lost track of time. When he regained consciousness, he felt a terrible weakness - he could hardly move his hands, but first of all he mechanically fumbled for pistols and grenades next to him. On July 23, 1941, Major Gavrilov took his last battle in a caponier outside the northern gates of the fortress. Apparently, he was given away by groans. He suddenly woke up from the fact that very close voices were heard. Through the viewing slot, he saw two fascists standing near the pile of manure under which he was lying. And, strangely enough, as soon as Gavrilov saw the enemies, his strength returned to him and he forgot about his illness. (By the way, many defenders of the fortress spoke about this phenomenon of suddenly returning strength. Read, for example, A. Makhnach's story “Together with adults "). The major fumbled for a German pistol and pulled the safety catch. The Germans heard a metallic click and began to scatter the manure with their feet. Then Gavrilov raised his pistol and with difficulty pulled the trigger. The pistol was automatic - a loud burst was heard. The major unwittingly released the entire clip. With a shrill scream, boots knocking, the Germans ran to the exit. Gaining his strength, Gavrilov stood up and scattered the manure that covered him. He realized that he would now take his last battle with the enemies, and prepared to meet death, as a soldier and a communist should, in the fight. Peter put his five grenades next to him and took a pistol in his hand - his commander's TT. The Germans did not keep themselves waiting long. Not more than five minutes passed, and German machine guns hit the embrasures of the casemate. But the shelling from the outside could not hit him - the loopholes were directed so that only a rebound bullet had to be feared. Then shouts came: "Rus, surrender!" He guessed that the soldiers were making their way to the casemate along the foot of the rampart. Gavrilov waited until the screams were heard very close, and one after the other he threw two grenades - into the right and left embrasures. The enemies rushed back. Major heard someone moaning - the grenades were clearly not in vain. Half an hour later, the attack was repeated, and he, after prudently waiting, threw two more grenades. And again the Nazis retreated, but he had only one, the last grenade and a pistol. The enemy changed tactics. Gavrilov was expecting an attack from the embrasures, but a machine gun fire thundered behind him - one of the machine gunners appeared in the doorway. Then he threw the last grenade there. The soldier screamed and fell. Another soldier thrust his machine gun into the embrasure, and the major fired twice at him. The muzzle of the machine disappeared. At that moment, something flew into another loophole and hit the floor - the flame of an explosion flashed, and the major lost consciousness. It was July 23, 1941, on the 32nd (!) Day of the war. Continuation of the story can be read here.

Major Pyotr Gavrilov is the last (according to official data) defender of the Brest Fortress, who was undeservedly persecuted for many years and received the Gold Star of the Hero only 12 years after the Victory. This year marks the 115th anniversary of his birth. The story of the hero's life was studied by the correspondent of "AiF-Kazan"

Petr Gavrilov Photo: AiF /

Inconvenient commander

Pyotr Gavrilov was born in Tatarstan, in the village of Alvidino. Grew up without a father. Their family - mother Alexandra Efimovna, brother Sergei lived in a semi-dugout. Mother had to do day-to-day work, wash other people's clothes. At the age of 8, Peter was sent to school. But he finished only 4 classes - he had to feed his family. At the age of 14, Peter left for Kazan.

Was a janitor, loader, worker. In the Civil War, he volunteered for the Red Army. And I felt a craving for the military profession. After the Civil War, he entered the command courses, served in the North Caucasus. Graduated from the Military Academy, got married. He and his wife had no children; they adopted an orphan boy. A few months before the start of the war, Gavrilov was transferred to the Brest Fortress.

The garrison authorities considered him an inconvenient commander. Meticulous, corrosive, he did not give a descent to himself or others. In conversations with the soldiers of the regiment commander, he repeatedly said that the war was not far off, Hitler did not need anything to break the peace treaty with the USSR. Gavrilov was accused of spreading anxiety. On June 27, 1941, his case was to be considered at a party meeting ...

Peter Gavrilov with his wife Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

Hearing the first explosions at dawn on June 22, the major immediately understood: the war had begun. He said goodbye to his wife and son, told them to go to the basement. He began to gather his soldiers to lead them from the fortress to the line of defense. But the battle was already going on at the main exit. By 9 am the Germans took the fortress in a ring.

Pyotr Gavrilov was the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment. For more than a month, he led the defense of the Eastern Fort, which the Nazis were able to take only after brutal bombing.

“The Eastern Fort remained a nest of resistance,” wrote a German staff officer from Brest on June 26, 1941. "You can't get here, excellent rifle and machine-gun fire mowed down everyone who approached." The Nazis knew that “there are about 20 commanders and 370 soldiers, women and children in the fort. And the soul of resistance is supposedly one major and one commissar. "

On June 29, the Germans presented the defenders of the Eastern Fort with an ultimatum - to extradite Gavrilov and lay down their arms. Otherwise, the fort will be razed to the ground along with its stubborn garrison. But none of the fighters gave up. By order of Gavrilov, women and children were taken prisoner. Hand-to-hand fighting began, the resistance of the defenders of the Eastern Fort was broken. The survivors were captured. The Germans ransacked the casemates of the fortress in search of Gavrilov.

Peter Gavrilov with his grandson Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

The writer Sergei Smirnov in his book "Brest Fortress" cites the story of a doctor in a camp hospital, where on the 32nd day of the war the Germans brought a major captured in the fortress. “The prisoner was in a commander's uniform, but it turned into rags. He was injured, emaciated so that he could not even swallow, the doctors had to apply artificial nutrition. But the Germans said that this man, just an hour ago, single-handedly took battle in one of the casemates, and killed several Nazis. It was clear that only out of respect for his bravery, the prisoner was left alive. " This major was Pyotr Gavrilov, one of the most experienced commanders of the fortress, who went through the Civil and Finnish wars.

After being captured on the 32nd day of the war, Gavrilov went through several concentration camps, in one of which he met General Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev. In May 1945, the defender of Brest was released from captivity by units of the Red Army. Due to the lost party card, Gavrilov was expelled from the party, but reinstated in the military rank. There is evidence that in the fall of 1945 he was appointed head of the Soviet camp for Japanese prisoners of war in Siberia. There Gavrilov received several commendations in the service, in particular, for preventing an epidemic of typhus among prisoners of war.

Pyotr Gavrilov at a meeting with schoolchildren from the village of Pestretsy. 1965 Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

Soon Peter Mikhailovich returned to Tatarstan. In his native village he was greeted with caution. The harvest was in progress, but the former prisoner was not hired to work. They were afraid to entrust equipment, horses, threw potatoes after them ... Gavrilov was very worried, tried to improve relations with his fellow villagers. But unsuccessfully. In search of work, he went to the regional center, got a job at a pottery factory. A year later he left for Krasnodar and got married a second time. He considered his first wife Ekaterina Grigorievna dead.

Held no evil

In 1955, a series of programs “In Search of the Heroes of the Brest Fortress” was broadcast on the radio. Their author S. Smirnov published a book in which he spoke about the feat of the commander of the Eastern Fort. After that, Gavrilov was reinstated in the party, he received the Gold Star of the Hero. In the 50s, during one of his visits to Brest, Pyotr Mikhailovich learned that his first wife Yekaterina Grigorievna and son Nikolai, whom he had not seen from the first day of the war and considered dead, were alive. The son served in the army. And Ekaterina Grigorievna was paralyzed and lived in a nursing home. Pyotr Mikhailovich and his second wife took Ekaterina Grigorievna to their place in Krasnodar and looked after her until her death. Gavrilov did not forget his homeland either.

A memorial sign in the village of Alvidino, where Peter Gavrilov was born and raised.Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

He often came to Alvidino, corresponded with fellow countrymen, did not hold any grudge against them. I understood that society, the system imposed a stereotype on people: prisoners are necessarily traitors to their homeland.

Pyotr Mikhailovich bequeathed to bury himself in the garrison cemetery of the Brest Fortress. His relatives are gone in Alvidino today. It is known that his adopted son is alive, there is a grandson, but they do not maintain ties with the homeland of their father and grandfather.

There is Gavrilov Street in Kazan, but many Kazan residents do not know who he is. The 115th anniversary of the hero passed unnoticed. This date was celebrated in the village of Alvidino, Pestrechinsky district, where Gavrilov was born and lived until the age of 14. His museum was opened there 5 years ago.

Gavrilov was a Kryashen by nationality, therefore part of the exposition is devoted to the culture of this people. The major's personal belongings are also kept in the museum: uniform, watches, correspondence with fellow villagers, documents, photos. In the center of the exposition is the earth from the Brest Fortress, the melted bricks of the fort, in which Gavrilov fought his last battle. They were brought to Tatarstan by employees of the Brest Fortress Museum. On the occasion of the 115th anniversary of Gavrilov, the museum received as a gift a book by German historians translated by R. Aliyev with archival materials about the storming of the citadel. It also contains stories of German soldiers about Gavrilov.

House-Museum of Peter Gavrilov in the village of Alvidino Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

by the way

Who is the first Hero of the Soviet Union from Tatarstan?

The Book of Heroes, which was published in the Republic of Tatarstan 15 years ago, spoke of 378 Heroes of the Soviet Union. But these were not only the natives of Tataria, those who lived, studied or worked here in different years, but also just Tatars from all over the country. There were 186 of our countrymen there, but there are award lists for another 190 countrymen nominated for the title of Hero, 60 of them were presented posthumously for the award.

The first Hero of the Soviet Union from Tatarstan was Major Fyodor Batalov (August 9, 1941). The battalion he commanded, during the battles in the Gomel region, broke the enemy's resistance, occupied the station, settlements... The battalion commander did not manage to receive the award, he died on August 17, 1941.

The youngest Hero of the Soviet Union in Kazan and the Republic of Tatarstan is Boris Kuznetsov. He distinguished himself during the crossing of the Dnieper and in the battles on the bridgehead on the right bank in 1943. Wounded twice, he remained in the ranks, roused the fighters to the attack.

The only twice Hero of the Soviet Union in the republic is pilot Nikolai Stolyarov. On account of his 186 sorties, during which 52 tanks, 24 artillery batteries, more than 200 vehicles with cargo, up to 1000 fascist soldiers and officers were destroyed.

We would like to thank Leysan Shaikhutdinova, researcher of the museum P. Gavrilov for help in preparing the material.

Major Pyotr Gavrilov is the last (according to official data) defender of the Brest Fortress, who has been undeservedly persecuted for many years

Defender of the Brest Fortress Hero of the Soviet Union Pyotr Gavrilov © / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum / AiF

Major Pyotr Gavrilov is the last (according to official data) defender of the Brest Fortress, who was undeservedly persecuted for many years and received the Gold Star of the Hero only 12 years after the Victory. 2015 marked the 115th anniversary of his birth. The story of the hero's life was studied by the correspondent of "AiF-Kazan"Petr Gavrilov Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

Inconvenient commander

Pyotr Gavrilov was born in Tatarstan, in the village of Alvidino. Grew up without a father. Their family - mother Alexandra Efimovna, brother Sergei lived in a semi-dugout. Mother had to do daily work, wash other people's clothes. At the age of 8, Peter was sent to school. But he finished only 4 classes - he had to feed his family. At the age of 14, Peter left for Kazan.

Gavrilov came from the Kazan Tatars, and from those whose ancestors had been converted to Orthodoxy under Ivan the Terrible. They adopted Russian names and surnames along with faith, but retained their language and many customs. A poor peasant from a poor village near Kazan was his father. Peter Gavrilov's childhood passed in poverty and darkness. A hard, difficult life from an early age brought up in him a patient, strong-willed character, accustomed to the struggle with the misfortunes and hardships of a harsh peasant life. Was a janitor, loader, worker.

This solid a strong character came in handy when in 1918 he joined the Red Army. He got there as a dark, illiterate guy, but he brought with him an iron stubbornness, the ability to persistently overcome difficulties - qualities so necessary for a military man.
In the spring of 1918 he volunteered for the Red Army, fought on the Eastern Front against the troops of Kolchak, then against the troops of Denikin and the rebels in the North Caucasus. After the end of the Civil War, he remained in the army. In 1922 he joined the RCP (b). After the Civil War he entered the command courses, served in the North Caucasus. Graduated from the Military Academy, got married. He and his wife had no children; they adopted an orphan boy. A few months before the start of the war, Gavrilov was transferred to the Brest Fortress.

With the rank of major, he was appointed commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment. Member of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. At the end of the war, his regiment was transferred to Western Belarus, and since May 1941 it has been deployed in Brest.

The garrison authorities considered him an inconvenient commander. Meticulous, corrosive, he did not give a descent to himself or others. In conversations with the soldiers of the regiment commander, he repeatedly said that the war was not far off, Hitler did not need to break the peace treaty with the USSR. Gavrilov was accused of spreading anxiety. On June 27, 1941, his case was to be considered at a party meeting ...
Peter Gavrilov with his wife Photo: AiF / Photo from the Museum of Peter Gavrilov

Hearing the first explosions at dawn on June 22, the major immediately understood: the war had begun. He said goodbye to his wife and son, told them to go to the basement. He began to gather his soldiers to lead them from the fortress to the line of defense. But the battle was already going on at the main exit. By 9 am the Germans took the fortress in a ring.

Pyotr Gavrilov was the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment. For more than a month, he led the defense of the Eastern Fort, which the Nazis were able to take only after brutal bombing.

“The Eastern Fort remained a nest of resistance,” wrote a German staff officer from Brest on June 26, 1941. "You can't get here, excellent rifle and machine-gun fire mowed down everyone who approached." The Nazis knew that “there are about 20 commanders and 370 soldiers, women and children in the fort. And the soul of resistance is supposedly one major and one commissar. "

On that day and the next morning, in hand-to-hand fighting, the resistance of the defenders of the Eastern Fort was finally broken, and those who survived were captured. The submachine gunners ransacked one casemate after another - they were looking for Gavrilov. The officers persistently interrogated the prisoners about their commander, but no one knew for sure about him. Some saw how the major, at the end of the battle, ran into the casemate, from where a shot immediately rang out. "The major shot himself," they said. Others claimed that he blew himself up with a bunch of grenades. Be that as it may, it was not possible to find Gavrilov, and the Germans concluded that he had committed suicide.Gavrilov did not blow himself up and did not shoot himself. He was caught by submachine gunners in a dark casemate inside the rampart, where his command post was recently located. The major was alone with a border guard soldier, who during all days of the defense acted as aide-de-camp and commander's assistant. They were cut off from the rest of the garrison and, running from one room to another, threw their last grenades at the advancing Nazis and fired back with the last cartridges. But it soon became obvious that the resistance of the garrison had been broken, and the Germans had already taken possession of almost the entire fort. Gavrilov and the border guard had very little ammunition left, and the commander and the soldier decided to try to hide, so that later, when the Germans left the fort, they could get out of the fortress and go to the northeast, to Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where, as they hoped, probably already our partisans are acting.

Fortunately, they managed to find a safe haven. Somehow, at the very beginning of the battles for the fort, its defenders, by order of the major, tried to dig a passage through the thickness of the rampart. A hole was punched in the brick wall of the casemate, and several soldiers took turns digging a small tunnel into the shaft. The work had to be stopped soon - the rampart turned out to be sandy, and the sand was crumbling all the time, blocking the passage. But there was a hole in the wall and a deep hole going into the depths of the rampart. Gavrilov and the border guard climbed into this hole, while the voices of the Nazis were already very close by, ransacking the neighboring premises.

Finding themselves in a narrow passage, once dug by fighters, the major and the border guard began to dig their way with their hands to the right and left of this passage. The loose sand easily gave in, and they gradually began to move forward on the other side of the brick wall of the casemate, moving farther and farther from the hole punched in it, with Gavrilov digging to the left, and the border guard to the right. They worked with feverish speed and, like moles, threw the dug sand behind them, filling the path behind them. About half an hour passed before the enemy soldiers entered the casemate, and during this time the commander and the soldier managed to leave each two or three meters away from the hole punched in the bricks.

Through the wall Gavrilov clearly heard the Germans talking while searching the casemate. He hid himself, trying not to betray himself with a single movement. Apparently, the machine gunners noticed a hole in the wall - they stood near it for several minutes, conferring about something. Then one of them gave a queue there. The Nazis were silent, listening, and, making sure that no one was there, went to inspect the other casemates.
An inscription made by an unknown defender of the Brest Fortress on July 20, 1941.

Gavrilov spent several days in his sandy hole. Not a single ray of light penetrated here, and he did not even know whether it was day or night now at liberty. The hunger and thirst became more and more painful. No matter how hard he tried to stretch the two crackers that ended up in his pocket, they soon ran out. He learned to calm his thirst a little by putting his tongue to the bricks of the casemate wall. The bricks were cold, and it seemed to him that underground moisture had settled on them. Sleep helped to forget about hunger and thirst, but he slept in fits and starts, fearing to give himself away in a dream with a careless movement or groan. The enemies were still in the fort - their voices were heard now further, now closer, and once or twice the soldiers entered this casemate.

He did not know if his fellow border guard was alive, separated from him by a layer of sand several meters thick. He was afraid to call him even in a whisper - the Nazis could be nearby. By the slightest carelessness, he could ruin everything. Now it was only important to wait for the soldiers to leave. Only this was salvation and the opportunity to continue the struggle again. Tormented by hunger and thirst in this underground hole, he never for a minute forgot about the struggle and more than once carefully felt in his pocket the few remaining grenades and a pistol with the last clip.

The voices of the Germans were heard less and less, and finally everything around seemed to be quiet. Gavrilov had already decided that it was time to leave, when suddenly a machine gun crackled over his head, on the crest of the rampart. And by the sound of the shots, he unmistakably determined that it was Degtyarev's light machine gun. Who fired from it - ours or the Germans? He lay there for several hours thinking about it painfully. And the machine gun from time to time sent out a short, stingy burst. It was felt that the machine gunner was saving ammunition, and this gave Gavrilov some vague hopes. Why would the Germans conserve ammunition?

Finally he made up his mind and called out to the border guard in a whisper. He responded. They crawled out into the dark casemate and, first of all, drank from a well dug here of dirty, musty water. Then, with grenades at the ready, they cautiously looked out into the narrow courtyard. It was night. Someone's low voices came from above. It was Russian speech. On the shaft were twelve soldiers with three light machine guns. Like Gavrilov, they managed to hide in one of the casemates when the fort was captured, and after the submachine gunners left, they went out and again took up defensive positions. During the day they hid in a casemate, and at night they fired at single enemy soldiers who appeared nearby.

The Nazis believed that there was no one left in the fort, and until they had time to discover that it was from there that machine-gun bursts were heard, especially since there was still a firefight around everywhere. There was also a machine gun hitting from the pillbox of the Western Fort, firing in the area of ​​the commanders' houses, and then fading, then renewed firing, interspersed with the explosions of mines and shells, came from the Central Island.

Gavrilov decided to try to bring this group to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. But for this it was necessary not to reveal oneself yet. Many enemy troops still stood around the fortress, and now it was impossible to get out of the ramparts even at night. During the day, only an observer was left on the rampart, and at night everyone went upstairs and, if an opportunity presented itself, fired. Several days passed in this way. The fighting did not subside, groups of German soldiers continued to appear nearby, and it was still impossible to leave the fortress. And the worst thing was that the defenders of the fort had nothing to eat. The small supply of crackers that the fighters had had run out, and hunger made itself felt more and more acutely.

People were losing their last strength. Gavrilov was already thinking about making a desperate attempt to break through, but sudden events disrupted all his plans. The observer did not notice how a group of submachine gunners for some reason came to the fort during the day. Here they found Soviet soldiers. Gavrilov was dozing in the corner of the casemate when shouts were heard nearby in the courtyard: "Rus, surrender!" - and explosions of grenades rumbled. There were few submachine gunners, and almost all of them were immediately killed, but several soldiers managed to escape, and an hour later the "horseshoe" was again surrounded. The first attacks were repulsed. But the Nazis dragged guns and mortars here, and soon among the few defenders of the fort there were wounded and killed. And then there was an attack simultaneously from all sides, and the enemy overcame in numbers - the submachine gunners climbed the rampart and threw grenades at the courtyard.

And again I had to hide in the same hole. Only now the three of them climbed into it - Gavrilov, a border guard and another fighter. Fortunately, at this time, night had already fallen, and the Nazis did not dare to search the casemates in the dark. But Gavrilov understood that with the onset of morning they would ransack the fort from top to bottom and this time, perhaps, they would find their refuge. It was necessary to do something now at night, without delay. They conferred and cautiously crept out into the casemate. There was no one here. There were no Nazis in the courtyard either. But when they crawled to the exit from the fort, they saw that very close bonfires were burning, around which soldiers were sitting.

It was necessary to break through with a fight. It was decided that, at Gavrilov's command, everyone would throw one grenade at the Germans sitting by the fires, and all three would immediately rush to run in different directions: the border guard - to the south, to the commanders' houses, the fighter - to the east, to the outer rampart, and Gavrilov - to the west , towards the road leading from the north gate to the Central Island. Its direction was the most dangerous, since the Nazis often walked and drove along this road. They hugged and agreed that the one who was lucky enough to stay alive would make his way to the cherished Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Then Gavrilov commanded in a whisper: "Fire!" - and they threw grenades.

Gavrilov did not remember how he ran the line of posts. All that remained in my memory were the roar of grenade explosions, the frightened screams of the soldiers, the shooting that flared up all around, the whistle of bullets overhead and the deep darkness of the night, which immediately thickened before our eyes after the bright light of the bonfires. He came to his senses when he crossed the road, which was fortunately deserted at that moment. Only then did he pause for a second and catch his breath. And immediately a machine-gun fire whizzed over his head. It was fired by an unknown Soviet machine gunner from the Western Fort pillbox. Attracted by shouts and shooting, he began to beat in long bursts, apparently aiming at the fires. Gavrilov had to fall face down against the wall of some dilapidated house so as not to fall under his bullets. But the machine gunner unwittingly saved him: the fascists who were running after the major came under fire, - Gavrilov heard them, shouting something, ran back.

A quarter of an hour passed, and everything was quiet. Then Gavrilov, clinging to the ground, crawled towards the outer rampart of the fortress, gradually moving away from the road. The night was pitch-black, and he almost bumped into a wall. It was a brick wall of one of the casemates of the outer rampart of the fortress. He groped for the door and went inside.

For an hour he walked around the empty room, feeling the mucky walls, until he finally figured out where he was. Here before the war were the stables of his regimental artillerymen. Now he realized that he had got to the north-western part of the fortress, and this made him happy - from here it was closer to get to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. He got out and carefully crawled over the rampart to the bank of the bypass channel. In the east, the sky was already brightening, dawn was breaking. First of all, he lay down on his stomach and drank standing water from the canal for a long time. Then he entered the canal and moved to the other side. And suddenly from there, out of the darkness, came the German speech. Gavrilov froze in place, peering ahead.

Gradually he began to make out the dark outlines of the tents on the other side. Then a match flashed there, and a cigarette glowed with a crimson flame. Directly opposite him, along the canal, the camp of some German unit was spread. He silently climbed back to his bank, and crawled to the rampart. There was a small door, and entering it, he found himself in a narrow corner casemate with two loopholes looking in different directions. The corridor stretched from the casemate into the depths of the rampart. He walked along this corridor and again found himself in the premises of the same stable.

It was noticeably getting light. It was necessary to find a safe haven for the day, and Gavrilov, on reflection, decided that it would be best to hide in a small corner casemate. Its walls were thick, and two loopholes going in different directions could come in handy if the Nazis found him - he could shoot back from them, keeping a large section of the canal in his field of vision. He again examined this casemate, and only one circumstance confused him - there was nowhere to hide, and as soon as the Germans looked through the door, he would have been immediately discovered.

And then he remembered that at the very door of the casemate, on the bank of the canal, heaps of manure were dumped - they carried it here when they cleaned the stables. He hastily began to haul this dung in armfuls and dump it in the corner of the casemate. Before dawn broke, his hideout was ready. He buried himself in this pile of dung and dumped himself outside, making a small observation slot, and placing the remaining five grenades and two pistols, each with a full clip, close at hand. The next day he lay there.

At night he again went to the bank of the canal and got drunk. On the other side the German tents were still dark and the voices of the soldiers were heard. But he decided to wait until they left, especially since the shooting in the fortress, as it seemed to him, gradually subsided; Apparently, the enemy suppressed one by one the last centers of resistance. Gavrilov spent three days without food. Then the hunger became so acute that it was impossible to endure any longer. And he thought that somewhere near the stables there must be a tseikhhaus where fodder is stored - barley or oats could remain there. For a long time he fumbled around the stable until his hands felt some hard lumps piled up in one of the corners of the casemate.

It was a compound feed for horses - a mixture of some grains, chaff, straw ... In any case, it quenched the hunger and even seemed delicious. Now he was provided with food and was ready to wait as long as necessary until he could run to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. For five days everything went well - he ate compound feed, and at night he drank water from the canal. But on the sixth day, a sharp pain in the stomach began, which intensified with every hour, causing unbearable suffering. All that day and all night, biting his lip, he refrained from groaning so as not to betray himself, and then a strange half-oblivion set in, and he lost track of time. When he came to, he felt a terrible weakness - he could hardly move his hands, but, first of all, mechanically he fumbled for pistols and grenades next to him.

Apparently, he was given away by groans. He suddenly woke up from the fact that very close to him voices were heard. Through his viewing slot, he saw two submachine gunners standing here, inside the casemate, near a pile of manure, under which he lay. And, strange to say, as soon as Gavrilov saw his enemies, his strength returned to him again, and he forgot about his illness. He fumbled for a German pistol and pulled the safety catch. The Germans seemed to hear his movement and began to scatter the dung with their feet. Then he raised the pistol and with difficulty pulled the trigger. The pistol was automatic - there was a loud burst - he involuntarily released the entire clip. A shrill scream was heard, and, clattering with their boots, the Germans ran to the exit.

Gathering all his strength, he got up and scattered the dung that covered him. Gavrilov realized that now he would accept his last battle with the enemies, and prepared to meet death, as a soldier should, - to meet her in the struggle. He put his five grenades next to him and took a pistol in his hand - his commander's TT. The Germans did not keep themselves waiting long. It took no more than five minutes, and German machine guns hit the embrasures of the casemate. But the shelling from the outside could not hit him - the loopholes were directed so that only a rebound bullet had to be feared.

Then shouts came: "Rus, surrender!" He guessed that the soldiers at this time were approaching the casemate, carefully making their way along the foot of the rampart. Gavrilov waited until the screams rang out very close, and one after the other he threw two grenades - into the right and left embrasures. The enemies rushed back, and he heard someone's drawn-out groans - the grenades were clearly not in vain. Half an hour later, the attack was repeated, and again, after prudently waiting, he threw two more grenades. And again the Nazis retreated, but he had only one, the last grenade and a pistol.

The enemy changed tactics. Gavrilov was expecting an attack from the embrasures, but a machine gun fire thundered behind him - one of the machine gunners appeared in the doorway. Then he threw the last grenade there. The soldier screamed and fell. Another soldier thrust his machine gun into the embrasure, and the major, raising his pistol, fired twice at him. The muzzle of the machine gun disappeared. At that moment, something flew into another loophole and hit the floor - the flame of an explosion flashed, and Gavrilov lost consciousness ...

The first thing that Gavrilov saw when he came to was the bayonet of the German sentry who was on duty at the door of the room. He realized that he was in captivity, and from the bitter consciousness of this he again fainted. When he finally woke up, they really brought him some kind of dinner. But he could not swallow, and this food was useless. Saving his life, doctors began to use artificial nutrition.

As soon as Gavrilov's thoughts became clear, he first thought about his documents. Did he manage to destroy them? Or did they fall into the hands of the Nazis, and then the enemies know who he is? Gavrilov recalled that there, in the casemate, already half-delirious, at the moments when consciousness returned to him, he kept thinking about destroying his documents. But whether he did it, I could not remember. As soon as his strength returned to him so that he could move his hand, Gavrilov immediately felt the breast pocket of his tunic. There were no documents with him. And he decided that he would give a fictitious name just in case. During the interrogation, he did so, but from the reaction of the SS man who interrogated Gavrilov, he realized that the Germans had his documents.

After interrogation, the soldiers brought the beaten Gavrilov to the hospital. He was not interrogated again. But the major understood that they would take him on as soon as he recovered a little. It was necessary to try to somehow, at least for a short time, disappear from the field of view of the camp administration, so that the Germans would forget about him for a while. Our doctors Petrov Yu.V. helped to do this. and Makhovenko I.K., who treated Gavrilov. They said that the captive major had contracted typhus, and they transferred him to a typhoid barrack, where the Germans were afraid to show themselves. He spent several weeks there, and during this time the doctors managed to treat him. And when he began to walk, the same Petrov and Makhovenko arranged for him to work in one of the camp kitchens. This meant life for him: even in the conditions of the beggarly camp food near the kitchen, one could feed and recuperate.
"Defenders of the Brest Fortress". Krivonogov P.A.

The writer Sergei Smirnov in his book "Brest Fortress" cites the story of a doctor in a camp hospital, where on the 32nd day of the war the Germans brought a major captured in the fortress. “The prisoner was in a commander's uniform, but it turned into rags. He was injured, emaciated so that he could not even swallow, the doctors had to apply artificial nutrition. But the Germans said that this man, just an hour ago, single-handedly took battle in one of the casemates, and killed several Nazis. It was clear that only out of respect for his bravery, the prisoner was left alive. " This major was Pyotr Gavrilov, one of the most experienced commanders of the fortress, who went through the Civil and Finnish wars.

Many prisoners in the camp knew about the feat of Major Gavrilov. They treated him with respect and often asked questions: "What do you think about the situation at the fronts?", "Will the Red Army withstand the onslaught of the Nazis?" and so on. And each time he used this to talk with people, to prove to them that the enemy's successes are only temporary, and that the victory of the Soviet Union in this war is beyond doubt. These conversations raised the spirit of the prisoners, strengthened their faith in the future, helped them more steadfastly endure the hardships and hardships of camp life.

This continued until the spring of 1942. Then the Southern town was disbanded, and Gavrilov, after wandering in different camps in Poland and Germany, soon found himself near the German city of Hammelsburg. Here the Nazis set up a large officers' camp, where thousands of our captive commanders were kept. In Hammelsburg, fate brought Gavrilov together with another wonderful hero of the Great Patriotic War, our largest military engineer, Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev.

Balanda in the camp was given once a day. This means, in the general's opinion, the war will end only in three years. For Gavrilov, this period seemed too long then. And only then he was convinced how prophetic Karbyshev's words were: the war ended about three years after this conversation, but the general himself did not have to live to see victory: he was brutally destroyed by the Nazis in the Mauthausen death camp - the SS men poured water on him in the cold while he did not turn into a block of ice.

Many times there, in Hammelsburg, Gavrilov thought about escaping from captivity. But the camp was deep in Germany and was carefully guarded. In addition, Gavrilov was ill all the time: he was constantly knocked down by severe malaria, and the consequences of injury and concussion were acutely felt - the major was half deaf and almost could not own right hand... The escape was never carried out, and only on the eve of the victory was he released. Gavrilov easily passed the state check, was reinstated in the rank of major and in the fall of 1945 received a new appointment.

It looked somewhat unexpected. This man, who had just endured the terrible, exterminating regime of Hitler's camps and experienced all the inhuman abuse of the enemy by the people who fell into his power, was now appointed head of the Soviet camp for Japanese prisoners of war in Siberia. It would seem that a person could become hardened there, in captivity, and now to some extent take out everything that he has experienced on the direct allies of the enemy. However, Gavrilov here, too, was able, with exceptional humanity, to organize the matter of keeping prisoners in the camp in an exemplary manner. He prevented an epidemic of typhus among the Japanese, eliminated abuses by Japanese officers, through whom captured soldiers were supplied.
Peter Gavrilov with his grandsonPhoto: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

Soon Peter Mikhailovich returned to Tatarstan. In his native village he was greeted with caution. The harvest was in progress, but the former prisoner was not hired to work. They were afraid to entrust equipment, horses, threw potatoes after them ... Gavrilov was very worried, tried to improve relations with his fellow villagers. But unsuccessfully. In search of work, he went to the regional center, got a job at a pottery factory. A year later he left for Krasnodar and got married a second time. He considered his first wife Ekaterina Grigorievna dead.
Pyotr Gavrilov at a meeting with schoolchildren from the village of Pestretsy. 1965 Photo: AiF / Photo from the Peter Gavrilov Museum

Held no evil

In 1955, a series of programs “In Search of the Heroes of the Brest Fortress” was broadcast on the radio. Their author S. Smirnov published a book in which he spoke about the feat of the commander of the Eastern Fort. After that, Gavrilov was reinstated in the party, he received the Gold Star of the Hero. In the 50s, during one of his visits to Brest, Pyotr Mikhailovich learned that his first wife Yekaterina Grigorievna and son Nikolai, whom he had not seen from the first day of the war and considered dead, were alive. The son served in the army. And Ekaterina Grigorievna was paralyzed and lived in a nursing home. Pyotr Mikhailovich and his second wife took Ekaterina Grigorievna to their place in Krasnodar and looked after her until her death. Gavrilov did not forget his homeland either.Memorable sign in the village of Alvidino, where Petr Gavrilov was born and raised.Photo: AiF / Photo from the Petr Gavrilov Museum

He often came to Alvidino, corresponded with fellow countrymen, did not hold any grudge against them. I understood that society, the system imposed a stereotype on people: prisoners are necessarily traitors to their homeland.

Pyotr Mikhailovich bequeathed to bury himself in the garrison cemetery of the Brest Fortress.

Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov died in Krasnodar on January 26, 1979. He was buried with military honors at the garrison memorial cemetery in Brest.
A gravestone at the Garrison Cemetery in Brest.

His relatives are gone in Alvidino today. It is known that his adopted son is alive, there is a grandson, but they do not maintain ties with the homeland of their father and grandfather.

There is Gavrilov Street in Kazan, but many Kazan residents do not know who he is. The 115th anniversary of the hero passed unnoticed. This date was celebrated in the village of Alvidino, Pestrechinsky district, where Gavrilov was born and lived until the age of 14. His museum was opened there 5 years ago.

Gavrilov was a Kryashen by nationality, therefore part of the exposition is devoted to the culture of this people. The major's personal belongings are also kept in the museum: uniform, watches, correspondence with fellow villagers, documents, photos. In the center of the exposition is the earth from the Brest Fortress, the melted bricks of the fort, in which Gavrilov fought his last battle. They were brought to Tatarstan by employees of the Brest Fortress Museum. On the occasion of the 115th anniversary of Gavrilov, the museum received as a gift a book by German historians translated by R. Aliyev with archival materials about the storming of the citadel. It also contains stories of German soldiers about Gavrilov.
House-Museum of Peter Gavrilov in the village of Alvidino Photo: AiF / Photo from the Museum of Peter Gavrilov

Personal memoirs of P. M. Gavrilov were published twice in Krasnodar: in 1975 and 1980.

Memorial plaque in Kazan Victory Park

Major Gavrilov's feat was shown in a number of films:

Film "Immortal Garrison" 1956.
Film "Battle for Moscow" in 1985 (the role of Gavrilov was played by Romualds Ancans).
The film "Brest Fortress" in 2010 (the role of Gavrilov was played by Alexander Korshunov).
Major Gavrilov performed by Alexander Korshunov in the film "Brest Fortress"

Smirnov S. Brest Fortress. M. 2000.
Smirnov S. S. Stories about unknown heroes... M., 1985.