Shershneva, Rimma Ivanovna

Rimma Ivanovna ^{[2] [3]} (according to other sources - Vasilyevna ^{[4] [5]} ) Shershneva (according to some sources - Sherstneva ^[6] ) was born in 1925 in Dobrush , in a forester’s family, moved with her family in 1933 to Minsk , in 1941 she graduated from 9 classes of secondary school No. 25 of the city of Minsk.

With the outbreak of World War II , she was evacuated with her mother and two younger sisters to the village of Totskoye, Chkalovsk Region , where she graduated from school by the summer of 1942. While still at school, she sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Komsomol with a request to send her to the front, and on the second day after leaving school she left for Moscow for preparatory courses for radio operators . At the courses, Rimma Shershneva learned shooting, topography , pyrotechnics , learned to jump with a parachute and mastered the walkie-talkie.

At the end of the course, she was enrolled in the Komsomol-youth partisan detachment named after Nikolai Gastello , which was sent to the village of Kosachevo, Smolensk region , located near the front line. On the night of August 20, 1942, the detachment crossed the front line and began to advance towards Belarus . By the end of September 1942, the detachment, having traveled over the rear of German troops over a thousand kilometers, reached the Belarusian Polesie .

In the second half of October 1942, Rimma Shershneva fell ill and, after two weeks of illness, was assigned a liaison group of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League of Belarus, led by K. T. Mazurov . The main task of the partisan was to ensure communication between underground groups and the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Belarus. In the course of carrying out her main activity, Rimma Shershneva also distributed leaflets, held meetings with young people, read the bulletins of the Sovinformburo to the locals and collected intelligence.

In November 1942 she was enrolled in the partisan brigade of Rozov of the Minsk partisan formation. On November 24, 1942, the brigade attacked a garrison of enemy troops occupying the village of Lomovichi . Rimma Shershneva, in violation of the order of the brigade commander to remain at the base ^[7], followed the formation and took part in the attack. During the street battle, the partisans were stopped by machine-gun fire from a bunker with a circular bombardment located at the intersection. A fighter A. Bondarchuk with a grenade in his hand tried to approach the bunker, but was killed by a machine gun burst. Immediately after this, Rimma Shershneva quickly ran to the body of the fighter and, picking up a grenade, crawled to the embrasure and threw a grenade there. In the future, descriptions vary: according to the memoirs of V. K. Yakovenko , who was not a direct witness to the events, the grenade hit the target, but a second before the machine-gun fire hit the partisan ^[6] . According to the recollections of eyewitnesses of the events, a minute after the throw of a grenade (apparently, which did not hit the calculation of the machine gun), Rimma Shershneva, rising, rushed to the embrasure ^[8] .

I ran to the bunker, climbed on it. I look - our Rimma hung lifelessly on an enemy machine gun, covering a deadly rectangle of embrasure. I carefully dragged her upstairs to the bunker dome. I look, still breathing ... ^[8]

The wounded partisan in the wagon was transported to the nearest village of Staroseki. Ibrahim Druyan , a surgeon of the Minsk partisan formation, was called to Rimma Shershnova, but the wound was still fatal, and on the tenth day after the wound the partisan died of blood loss ^[7] .

Rimma Shershneva was buried on December 7, 1942 in the village Zhivun of the Lyuban district of the Minsk region ^[9] . Subsequently, the remains of Rimma Shershnova were reburied at the memorial complex to Soviet activists, soldiers and partisans in Luban ^[10] .

Posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner (November 24, 1942). The feat of the partisan on March 21, 1943 was reported by the Soviet Information Bureau ^[11] .

• In the homeland of Rimma Shershnova in the town of Dobrush, the street was named after her.
• The name of R. Shershneva is the Minsk gymnasium No. 25 (the former school No. 25, where the partisan studied). In the gymnasium, annually on December 6 is the day of memory of Rimma Shershnova ^[12] .
• A street in the village of Totsky, Orenburg Region, is named after Rimma Shershnyova
• In the village of Lomovichi , Gomel region, a monument to Rimma Shershneva was erected.

• Kovalenko A. She is still seventeen // Women of Glory. - M .: Mof Victory-1945, 1995.