Nine sons. Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova: “All the sons are coming, but mine are still gone and gone. Know the Soviet people that you are the descendants of fearless warriors! Know, Soviet people, that the blood of great heroes flows in you, Who gave their lives for their Motherland without thinking about blessings! Zn

The Timashevsk Museum of the Stepanov family is the only one in Russia memorial museum telling about the life of a simple Russian peasant family.

Not a single person who visited the museum will remain indifferent to the tragic fate of the Russian mother Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova, who laid on the altar of the Motherland the most precious thing she had - the lives of her nine sons.

In November 1970, the museum building was built. The opening took place on May 9, 1972. In a short time, the museum staff, headed by the first director Angelina Pavlovna Pisareva, built an exposition. On the ground floor at that time there were moving exhibitions from the funds of the Krasnodar Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve, works by local and Moscow artists. On the second floor, they told about the Stepanov family: photographs of the brothers, letters from the front, musical instruments.

In 1973, the Moscow artist Alexander Myzin presented the museum with the Mother panel depicting Epistinia Feodorovna and her sons. It became the central exhibit in the museum, telling about the feat of the Stepanov family.

In 1975, the museum became a branch of the Krasnodar State Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve. The museum team is replenished with new employees: the museum is headed by T.V. Burdyna.

Krasnodar artists under the direction of A.A. Begaeva designed the exposition "The greatness of the feat of arms of the Stepanov family", the opening of which took place on May 9, 1975.

The number of visitors increased, the popularity of the museum grew. Many wanted to know how the family lived before the war.

Now the museum is a whole museum complex, including: the museum of the Stepanov family in Timashevsk, the memorial house-museum on the farm on May 1, the monument "Mother" and memorial Complex in Art. Dneprovskaya, where Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova is buried.

Stepanov family

Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova (1874 - 1969).

The name of this Kuban woman is known all over the world. Her maternal feat- in a halo of glory and immortality. Equating her feat with a military one, the Motherland awarded Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova with a military order.

Born in Ukraine, but from childhood she lived in the Kuban. She had a rare name - Epistinia. Translated from Greek - "knowing". Together with her parents, driven by poverty, she came to the North Caucasus. Here she married a peasant boy, Mikhail Stepanov. There were 15 children in their family. Even before the revolution, four were mowed down by illness and hunger. And only after October revolution Happiness came to the Stepanov family. They were not passive contemplators of social change, but, like real fighters, they were always at the forefront.

The head of the family, Mikhail Nikolaevich, carried out the instructions of the Revolutionary Committee. Among the first, the family entered into a partnership for the joint cultivation of the land, and then into the May 1st collective farm, which later began to bear the name of the leader of the Bulgarian people, Georgy Dimitrov.

In 1918, the White Guards brutally murdered their eldest son Alexander. He was then seventeen.

The loss of Epistinia Fedorovna was hard to bear. In the thirty-third, my husband, Mikhail Nikolaevich, died. A grain grower, a kind artisan, whose hands knew the craft of a cooper and a blacksmith, a carpenter and a tinsmith, died. He was a plowman and a soldier of the revolution.

The children of Epistinia Feodorovna grew up friendly, hard-working, cheerful. They were loved in the village. All of them went through the school of Komsomol hardening, seven of them became communists.

But the war was already knocking at the door of the mother's house. In 1939, in the battles at Khalkin Gol, in fraternal Mongolia, Fyodor died while fulfilling his international duty.

During the Great Patriotic War, the sons Pavel, Vasily, Ivan, Ilya, Philip died on the fronts, in partisan detachments, in a fascist concentration camp. The youngest, Alexander, was awarded the title of Hero for the courage and military prowess shown during the crossing of the Dnieper in 1943. Soviet Union. Posthumously. The mother also received a “funeral” for her son Nikolai. But in August 1945 he returned from the hospital, was ill for a long time, and died of his wounds.

Epistinia Fyodorovna Stepanova had a strong, courageous, heroic heart. Marshal of the Soviet Union A.A. Grechko and General of the Army A.A. Epishev wrote to her in 1966: “You raised and raised nine sons, you blessed the nine people most dear to you for feats of arms in the name of the Soviet Motherland. With their military deeds, they brought the day of our Great Victory over enemies, glorified their names.

You, a soldier's mother, are called by the soldiers their mother. They send you the filial warmth of their hearts, before you, a simple Russian woman, they kneel."

In recent years, Epistinia Fedorovna, a personal pensioner of federal significance, lived in Rostov-on-Don, in the family of her only daughter, teacher Valentina Mikhailovna Korzhova.

On February 7, 1969, Epistinia Feodorovna died. She was 94 years old. The soldier's mother was buried in the village of Dneprovskaya in the Timashevsky district of the Krasnodar Territory with full military honors.

On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes

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Class hour "History Lesson" Dedicated to the memory of Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna...

The name of this Kuban woman is known to the whole world. Not a single person will remain indifferent to the tragic fate of the Russian mother Epistinia Feodorovna Stepanova, who laid the most precious thing on the altar of the Motherland,...

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The module "History of the family in the history of the Great Patriotic War" was developed for 10 hours and is aimed at getting acquainted with the history of the native city. Modular work is organized by forming universal ...

Know the Soviet people that you are the descendants of fearless warriors!
Know, Soviet people, that the blood of great heroes flows in you,
Those who gave their lives for their Motherland, without thinking about the benefits!
Know and honor the Soviet people the exploits of grandfathers and fathers!

Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova (1874-1969) - a Russian woman, whose nine sons died defending the Soviet Motherland, holder of the orders "Mother Heroine" and World War I degree.

In the big arms of a weary mother. Her last son was dying.

The field winds gently stroked. The silver linen of his gray hair. Gymnastics with an open collar. Dull spots on it.

from severe wounds. In the wet plough, Oh his blood fell like fire.

- I didn’t cherish you, son, Didn't I take care of you, dear? .. clear eyes, Those curls are white She gave her heroic strength. I thought the holidays would come together in life ... You were my last joy!

Now your eyes are closed White light in eyelashes Was not nice. - Seeing her sad tear, They surrounded the mother among the fields. Nine troubles that broke the Russian heart, Nine sons who fell in battle.

The tanks were cold, they were torn apart by thunder, The horses of the occasion stepped in. ... The mother stood up in the village on the main square. And petrified forever...

Epistinia Fyodorovna Stepanova(1874-1969) - a Russian woman, whose nine sons died in the war, holder of the orders "Mother Heroine" and the Patriotic War of the 1st degree.
(1901–1918) - shot by the White Guards in retaliation for helping the Stepanov family in the Red Army;
Stepanov, Nikolai Mikhailovich(1903–1963) - returned from the Great Patriotic War disabled, died of wounds;
Stepanov, Vasily Mikhailovich(1908–1943) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. He was buried in a mass grave in the village of Sursko-Mikhailovka in the Dnepropetrovsk region;
Stepanov, Philip M.(1910-1945) - died in the Forelkruz camp, near Paderborn;
Stepanov, Fedor Mikhailovich(1912–1939) - having shown heroism and courage, he died in battles with the Japanese near the Khalkhin Gol River;
Stepanov, Ivan Mikhailovich(1915–1943) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. He was buried in a mass grave in the village of Drachkovo, Smolevichi district, Minsk region;
Stepanov, Ilya Mikhailovich(1917-1943) - died on July 14, 1943 in the battle on the Kyrskaya Bulge, was buried in a mass grave in the village of Afonasov, Kaluga region;
Stepanov, Pavel Mikhailovich(1919–1941) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War;
Stepanov, Alexander Mikhailovich(1923-1943) - died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

The personification of all heroine mothers was the Kuban peasant woman Epistiniya Stepanova, who laid on the altar of Victory the most precious thing she had - the lives of her nine sons.

Alexander, Nikolai, Vasily, Philip, Fedor, Ivan, Ilya, Pavel and the younger Alexander, all of them, except for the elder Alexander, who died in civil war, and Fedor, who fell in battle with the Japanese invaders on the Khalkhin Gol River, were called up for the Great Patriotic War. Valya's daughter stayed with her mother. And Nikolai, the only one who returned from the front, died after the war from the consequences of front-line wounds.

It fell to Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova to lead all her sons on the dashing roads of the war. Only one returned home. Nine times she went out the gate, holding on to her son's knapsack. The road from the May 1st farm in the Kuban went first through a field, and then took it a little uphill, and then a man in a soldier's overcoat was clearly visible. So Epistinia Fedorovna remembered her sons as they left.

... All the war years, the mother lived on news from her children. And the sons did not forget their mother.

“Soon we will return to our homes. I assure you that I will beat the rabid bastard for my native Kuban, for the entire Soviet people, to the last breath I will be faithful to the military oath, as long as my heart beats in my chest ... We will finish, then we will arrive. If there is happiness, ”wrote the younger Sasha, Mizinchik, as his brothers called him. He was the last of his sons to go to war.

And then there were no more letters. They were not from Pavel, Philip, Ilya, Ivan ... So, in the unknown, enduring anxiety and expectation, the year 1943 came - the year of severe trials. Sasha died in 1943. He was twenty. After graduating from a military school, junior lieutenant Alexander Stepanov fought in Ukraine. When crossing the Dnieper near the village of Selishche, all the soldiers of his unit died. Then he, the commander, the only survivor, holding a grenade in his hand, went out to meet the Nazis ... Alexander Stepanov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Ilya died on the Kursk Bulge. Near Dnepropetrovsk, partisan intelligence officer Vasily Stepanov laid down his head. Ivan's grave is on Belarusian soil. One of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, Pavel Stepanov, went missing. Philip was tortured to death in the fascist concentration camp Forelkruz ... Mother did not immediately receive a funeral. She didn’t put on a black mourning scarf, she believed that the children were alive, only they couldn’t send news. But days passed, months, and they did not respond. The mother was waiting for letters from her sons, but received notifications of their death. Each such news inflicted deep wounds on the heart ...

Marshal of the Soviet Union A. A. Grechko and Army General A. A. Epishev wrote to her in 1966:

“Nine sons were raised and brought up by you, nine people dearest to you were blessed for feats of arms in the name of the Soviet Motherland. With their military deeds, they brought closer the day of our Great Victory over enemies, glorified their names. ... You, a soldier's mother, are called by the soldiers their mother. They send you the filial warmth of their hearts, before you, a simple Russian woman, they kneel."

In the Kuban, in the village of Dneprovskaya, a museum has been opened. It bears the name of the Stepanov brothers. People also call it the Museum of the Russian Mother. After the war, the mother of all her sons gathered here. The things that are stored in it can hardly be called the museum word "exhibits". Each item speaks of maternal love and filial tenderness. Everything that the mother took care of is collected here: Vasily's violin, a notebook with Ivan's poems, a handful of earth from Sasha's grave ... Appeals to the mother are full of filial love and care:

“I think a lot about you, I live mentally with you, dear mother. I often remember my home, my family.”

The Stepanovs lived on the May 1 farm (now the Olkhovsky farm) in the Timashevsk district of the Krasnodar Territory. Epistinia Feodorovna gave birth to fifteen children. The Stepanovs survived ten children - nine sons and a daughter.

After the war, the whole country learned about the Stepanov family. A book has been written about the Russian Mother, and a museum named after her has been created. And then there's the movie. It was taken during the life of Epistinia Feodorovna, when she stepped into her ninth decade. It is shown on a small screen in a museum. The film is documentary. There are no bright directorial finds and catchy cameraman's tricks in it. His heroine is already a very middle-aged woman in a white scarf, tied neatly, in a rustic way. She speaks softly, and it seems to everyone who listens to her that only her word is addressed to him. She quietly talks about the years when children grew up nearby. She is all in that distant happy time, and her wrinkles are smoothed out, and her eyes become bright, and the hand seems to be looking for the soft-haired head of her son to caress ...

“All sons go, but mine are not and are not…”

The screen is silent, and people in the hall are crying. No one can answer the mother where the graves of Pavel, Philip, Vasily are. She has nowhere to come to cry out her pain, nowhere to plant a white-trunked birch, a symbol of the Russian land and the Russian soul. Epistinia Fedorovna lived a quiet life. She spent most of the years allotted to her in anticipation of her sons.

She died February 7, 1969. The soldier's mother was buried in the village of Dneprovskaya, Timashevsk district, Krasnodar Territory, with full military honors. People go and go to her grave. Flowers in winter and summer. Mother's name combined nine other names. All together they are the Stepanov family.

People bow their heads in front of the obelisk, on which is carved: Those who lived valiantly, crushed death, The memory of you will never die!

Epistinia Fedorovna gave birth to fifteen children:four-year-old Stesha, the first-born and the first loss, was scalded with boiling water;twin boys were born dead;five-year-old Grisha died of mumps;in 1939, Vera's daughter died.The Stepanovs survived ten children - nine sons and a daughter.

Husband - Mikhail Nikolaevich Stepanov (born in 1873) - died in 1933.

In recent years, Epistinia Fedorovna, a personal pensioner of federal significance, lived in Rostov-on-Don, in the family of her only daughter, teacher Valentina Mikhailovna Korzhova. The fate of the Stepanov family was described in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

During the Great Patriotic War, people fought at the forefront, worked in the rear, set records in industrial production and agriculture. All forces were directed only to victory. Mothers sent their husbands and sons to the front, hoping for a speedy return and victory. Years of waiting dragged on. This is a real feat of mothers. Many people know Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna, it is about her that you can read in this article. She is a special woman who gave birth to her sons who are soldiers.

Epistinia and Mikhail Stepanov

Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna was born in 1882 in Ukraine. Photos of women can be found in museums. Since childhood, she lived with her family in the Kuban. From an early age, the girl began to work as farm laborers: she went after cattle, herded birds, and harvested bread.

She met her husband Mikhail Nikolaevich Stepanov (1878 - 1933) only during the matchmaking. He worked as a foreman on a collective farm. In the future, the Stepanov family lived on the May 1 farm (Olkhovsky farm). They had 15 children, but due to childhood illnesses and high infant mortality, tragic accidents, only 9 sons and one daughter survived. They lived together, respected and helped each other. Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna is a mother-heroine, not every woman will be able to give birth to fifteen children in her entire life and raise ten of them as worthy people.

The fate of the sons of the Stepanovs

The woman shed many tears, seeing off her own children to the front. But, despite this, Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna was very strong, whose biography was published repeatedly by many Russian museums. The fate of the nine sons was different:

Alexander (1901 - 1918). He was killed by whites for helping the soldiers of the Red Army.
Nikolai (1903 - 1963). He went to the front as a volunteer in August 1941. Places of battles: North Caucasus, Ukraine. In October 1944 he received a severe shrapnel wound to his right leg. Not all of the fragments were removed, some remained. He returned from the war, Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna met him. Died from the effects of his wounds.
Vasily (1908 - 1943). Shot by the Germans in December 1943. He was buried in the village of Sursko-Mikhailovka.
Philip (1910 - 1945). He died on February 10 in a fascist prisoner of war camp.
Fedor (1912 - 1939). Killed at the Battle of the Khalkhin Gol River. He was awarded the medal "For Courage" (posthumously).
Ivan (1915 - 1943). In the autumn of 1942 he was captured and shot by the Germans. Buried in the village of Drachkovo.
Ilya (1917 - 1943). Killed in July 1943 during the Battle of Kursk. Buried in the village of Afanasovo.
Pavel (1919 - 1941). He went missing defending the Brest Fortress in the first hours of the war.
Alexander (1923 - 1943). Heroically died in 1943 near Stalingrad. Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

Waiting time

Epistinia Fedorovna gathered her sons for the front, packing their duffel bags with love and hoping for a speedy return. One by one she followed her gaze from the outskirts. The road at first was a flat field, then climbed a little up the slope. The departing person was visible for a long time, to the smallest detail. Heavy forebodings and longing with each son leaving along the road became more and more. They were left alone with their daughter Valya to wait for their sons.

Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna awaited news from the front with trepidation. The daughter supported her mother in every possible way and helped with the housework.

scary letters

Throughout the war years, she waited for news from her sons. At first, the sons wrote often, promising to return soon. And then there were no more letters. The mother languished in anticipation, worried about the fate of her sons. The occupation lasted six months. In the spring of 1943, the Krasnodar Territory was liberated. First came the delayed news from the sons. And then the funerals began to come one after another.

The mother did not put on a black scarf for a long time, she kept waiting for news from her sons, she believed that they were alive. Every time she saw the postman hurrying to the house, her mother's heart sank in alarm. What is there - joyful news or grief? And each time, receiving another notification of death, the mother's heart received a deep bleeding wound. Until the last, Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna remained strong. The family was of particular importance for a woman, so burying her sons was scary and insanely painful.

The Stepanov family became known only after the war. Epistinia Feodorovna was one of the first to receive the Order of the Mother Heroine. A biographical book was written about her and her sons, and a thematic museum was opened. The collected things of all nine sons cannot be called with the dry word "exhibits for the exhibition." After all, every item brought, every item saved is the memory of a soldier's mother. They are all imbued with love and reciprocal tenderness, respect for sons.

The museum contains everything that was saved and preserved by the mother, despite the occupation: a thin notebook of Ivan's poems, Vasily's favorite violin, a small handful of earth from Alexander's grave. The sons' response letters sent from the front line, from hospitals and the front line help to feel the atmosphere of goodwill and respect. Reading the lines of letters, you imagine the image of a son writing a letter and conveying greetings and wishes.

Movies about mother

A short film was made about Epistinia Fedorovna, which is shown every day on a small screen in the thematic museum. The film is not fiction, but a documentary, without frills. But, despite the lack of special effects and newsreel footage of military operations, the film makes its way to the most hidden corners of the soul with its emotional component. The main character is an elderly woman. Dressed simply, head covered with a white scarf. Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna simply and slowly talks about her life. This film is a monologue, there is no place for superfluous.

Begins a story about that wonderful time when sons and daughters grew up nearby. Simple words, said by a woman, penetrate into the soul. Involuntarily, you begin to empathize. A quiet monologue is addressed to each viewer. Her eyes are filled with happiness, all wrinkles are smoothed out, she seems to glow from the inside. Hands are looking for the head of a son with soft and fluffy hair to stroke and hug. Smoothly the story moves to the time when she saw off her sons. Involuntarily, you feel the same heaviness in your heart with which a mother parted with her sons. How she rejoiced at every news, as if for a few minutes returning to that happy time. And how she did not want to believe that her sons were dead.

A lump in the throat and tears in the eyes of the audience appear from the silence in the hall, when the mother begins the story of how she was told about the end of the war, and she ran to meet the soldiers. Intermittently bringing the ends of the handkerchief to her eyes, she leads a leisurely story. With what pain the last phrase is said: "All the sons go, but mine are not and are not." Everyone who watches the film, hears the mother's quiet story, believes in good things. This short film was able to convey all the feelings of the mother: happiness, pain of separation, bitterness of expectation and great pain of loss.

Portrait in the museum

When you look at a black and white photograph in a thematic museum, you see a simple woman with an amazing look that radiates calm and wisdom. The only picture was taken already in old age, but it is he who conveys all the nuances of the mother's state of mind. A calm and quiet life, filled with the expectation of sons, lived Stepanova Epistinia Fedorovna. Anxiety, anxiety and cruelty did not break her, did not harden her loving heart.

mother of all soldiers

After the war, she received a large amount of correspondence, many people sent her letters. And each person found for Epistinia Fedorovna exactly those words that resonated with the feelings of the mother. A letter from soldier Vladimir Lebedenko, in which he asked for permission to consider Epistinia Fedorovna as his mother, helped to find new strength and feel in demand. She carried faith in goodness and hope for the best throughout her life.

Last years

Epistinia Feodorovna last years lived with the family of her only daughter Valya in Rostov-on-Don. But she missed her home, where happy times passed. On the farm in which the whole hard life of a soldier's mother passed. Died 1969. With the provision of military honors, she was buried in the village of Dneprovskaya. The memorial erected at the burial site unites the entire Stepanov family.

In 1977, she was awarded the 1st degree for services to the Fatherland (posthumously). The Stepanov family continues; now, in addition to direct descendants, there are about 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

It is difficult to feel all the emotions and feelings of a mother who has outlived almost all of her children. This is a real feat of the mother-heroine, who blessed her sons for military exploits, who did not lose faith and hope. It becomes proud when you realize that there are mothers like Stepanova Epistinia. The sons, whose photos are kept in museums, undoubtedly loved and respected her.

The exposition of the museum tells about the feat of a courageous Cossack woman who lost her nine sons on the fronts of the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars. The idea of creating a unique museum arose in 1963, in 1970 it was opened in a building specially built for it, and in 1975 it became a branch of the Krasnodar Museum-Reserve named after E.D. Felitsyn.

The museum has several exhibits:

"The greatness and pain of the Stepanov family" will acquaint visitors with the lofty fate of the legendary mother and her nine sons, who laid their heads on the altar of the Motherland. In the hall there are showcases with personal belongings and photographic documents of the Stepanov family, in the center of the exposition there are nine ruby bells, like nine drops of blood on a mother's heart. The busts of the Stepanov brothers, by the sculptor Vladimir Zhdanov, placed along the wall, complement and enrich the perception.
"History and Culture of the Kuban" will acquaint visitors with the history and culture of the Kuban Cossacks from the moment of the Cossacks' resettlement to the present day. Connection with modernity, veneration of the holy traditions of the Cossacks, rituals and customs - this is not a complete list of sections of the fascinating Cossack tour of the museum hall. The exposition reflects the events of the Civil War, which resonated with pain not only in the fate of the Cossacks, but also in the Stepanov family - the eldest son, Sasha, died. The forge of the heroes' father, Mikhail Stepanov, is provided in the hall. The Stepanovs were artisans, any rural craft was arguing in their hands.
"Heroes of the Timashevskaya Land" touches not only on the history of his native city. Timashevites fought on many fronts of the Motherland, defending the Fatherland at the cost of their lives. Among them - the glorious son of the Kuban Hero of the Soviet Union - Alexander Stepanov. The sections of the exposition reflect the themes: “Timashevites during the Second World War”, “Juvenile prisoners of concentration camps”, “Home front workers”, “Women participating in the Second World War”, Roads of Victory”.
Exposition " Animal world Krasnodar Territory” — The exhibition presents stuffed animal species of our region, many of which are listed in the Red Book. This means that they are rare and endangered species that need human protection. In order to reliably protect animals and birds, you need to learn as much as possible about them and their lives.

Memorial courtyard of the Stepanov family located in a picturesque steppe corner near the village of Dneprovskaya on the May Day farm (today Olkhovsky farm), where the family lived from 1939 to 1964. The “Slavic Housing” hall is located in the administrative building of the courtyard, and visitors can get acquainted with the “Life and Life of the Stepanov Family” in the hut itself, in which the atmosphere of the pre-war years is preserved - objects of peasant life and everyday life.

| 03/08/2013 at 19:30

Stepanova E.F. - mother of nine sons who died during the Great Patriotic War
Each Russian family defended their homeland, and the Stepanov family - like a hero!
The great and tragic fate of a Russian mother who outlived her children fell to the lot of a simple Kuban peasant woman, Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova (1874-1969). Epistinia Feodorovna gave birth and raised nine sons, all nine gave their lives for their homeland.
In the late 1880s, from a village near Mariupol, in search of a better life, the family of the peasant Fyodor Rybalko moved to the free Kuban. The head of the family overstrained himself on the road and, having reached the Cossack lands in 1890, soon died. The family went around the world. Mother gave 8-year-old Pestya to work as a laborer for feeding, where the girl grew up to 16 years old. By that time, although she grew up as an orphan, Pestya flourished and became an attractive girl, whom the Kursk migrant, Mikhail Stepanov, wooed.
There were 15 children in their family. Even before the revolution, four were mowed down by illness and hunger.
In the thirty-third, my husband, Mikhail Nikolaevich, died.
The grain grower, a kind artisan, died, his hands knew the craft of a cooper and a blacksmith, a carpenter and a tinsmith.
The children of Epistinia Feodorovna grew up friendly, hard-working, cheerful.

But the war was already knocking at the door of the mother's house.

Alexander, Nikolai, Vasily, Philip, Fedor, Ivan, Ilya, Pavel and the younger Alexander - all of them, except for the elder Alexander, who died in the civil war, and Fedor, who fell in battle with the Japanese invaders on the Khalkhin Gol River, were called to Great Patriotic. Valya's daughter stayed with her mother. And Nikolai, the only one who returned from the front, died after the war from the consequences of front-line wounds.

Throughout the war years, the mother lived on news from her children. And the sons did not forget their mother. “Soon we will return to our homes. I assure you that I will beat the rabid bastard for my native Kuban, for the entire Soviet people, to the last breath I will be faithful to the military oath, as long as my heart beats in my chest ... We will finish, then we will arrive. If there is happiness, ”wrote the younger Sasha, Mizinchik, as his brothers called him. He was the last of his sons to go to war.

And then there were no more letters. They were not from Pavel, Philip, Ilya, Ivan ... So, in the unknown, enduring anxiety and expectation, the year 1943 came - the year of severe trials.

Sasha died in 1943. He was twenty. After graduating from a military school, junior lieutenant Alexander Stepanov fought in Ukraine. When crossing the Dnieper near the village of Selishche, all the soldiers of his unit died. Then he, the commander, the only survivor, holding a grenade in his hand, went out to meet the Nazis ... Alexander Stepanov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Mother did not immediately receive a funeral. She didn’t put on a black mourning scarf, she believed that the children were alive, only they couldn’t send news. But days passed, months, and they did not respond. The mother was waiting for letters from her sons, but received notifications of their death. Each such news inflicted deep wounds on the heart ...

In the Kuban, in the village of Dneprovskaya, a museum has recently been opened. It bears the name of the Stepanov brothers. People also call it the Museum of the Russian Mother. After the war, the mother of all her sons gathered here. The things that are stored in it can hardly be called the museum word "exhibits". Each item speaks of maternal love and filial tenderness. Here is collected everything that the mother took care of: Vasily's violin, a notebook with Ivan's poems, a handful of earth from Sasha's grave ... Appeals to the mother are full of filial love and care: “I think a lot about you, I live mentally with you, dear mother. I often remember my home, my family.”

After the war, the whole country learned about the Stepanov family. A book has been written about the Russian Mother, a museum named after her has been created. And then there's the movie. It was taken during the life of Epistinia Feodorovna, when she stepped into her ninth decade. It is shown on a small screen in a museum. The film is documentary. There are no bright directorial finds and catchy cameraman's tricks in it. His heroine is already a very middle-aged woman in a white scarf, tied neatly, in a rustic way. She speaks softly, and it seems to everyone who listens to her that only her word is addressed to him. She quietly talks about the years when children grew up nearby. She is all in that distant happy time, and her wrinkles are smoothed out, and her eyes become bright, and the hand, it seems, is looking for the soft-haired head of her son to caress ... Everyone who listens to her believes in good, and wants nothing didn't happen to her dear boys.

And then the mother's voice is interrupted, and then it becomes difficult to look at the screen because of the surging tears, it is difficult to listen to a woman and it is impossible to cope with excitement. Her lively voice sounds: “All the sons are coming, but mine are not and are not ...” The screen is silent, and people in the hall are crying. No one can answer the mother where the graves of Pavel, Philip, Vasily are. She has nowhere to come to cry out her pain, nowhere to plant a white-trunked birch - a symbol of the Russian land and the Russian soul. She saw only one filial grave - a monument to the younger Sasha in Ukraine.

"No matter how hard it is for you, you remember me, and all your troubles will not seem so terrible" - with these words of Epistinya Feodorovna the film ends.

There are many books in the Stepanov family museum. They stand on the shelf “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...” by Boris Vasiliev, “White Bim Black Ear” by Gavriil Troepolsky, “Hot Snow” by Yuri Bondarev ... They are open on the first page: “To the Stepanov family museum - with sorrow and soldier's memory about the fallen. Yuri Bondarev"; “I give this book in memory of the nine Stepanov brothers, who gave their lives for their Motherland in the Great Patriotic war. Their heroism was a manifestation of love for a person, a manifestation of honor, sincerity and truth. The nine sons of E.F. Stepanova will forever remain in the memory of their descendants together with their mother-heroine, the glorious daughter of her Motherland. Gavriil Troepolsky.

You look at a photograph of Epistinia Fedorovna in a museum and see a kind, tired, wise woman with a kind of enlightened look. There are no pictures of her in her youth. The one in the museum was made at an advanced age. This photograph conveys the state of the Mother's soul, which elevates her above suffering.

Epistinia Feodorovna received many letters in her life. After the war, complete strangers wrote to her. Each of those who wrote found the only true words that were so necessary for her. One of them is from a young soldier Vladimir Lebedenko. “Allow me,” he wrote, “to consider your sons as brothers, and you as a mother ... Dear Epistinia Fedorovna, you had nine sons, and now there will be even more of them.” And her heart in such lines was gaining new strength.

Epistinia Fedorovna lived a quiet life. She spent most of the years allotted to her in anticipation of her sons. People go and go to her grave. Flowers in winter and summer. Mother's name combined nine other names. All together they are the Stepanov family. People bow their heads before the obelisk, on which is carved:

living valiantly,

Death crushers

memory of you

Will never die!