We all know from school about the last days of the Great Patriotic War and the feat of the Red Army soldiers Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria, who hoisted the red Banner of Victory over the German Reichstag. For decades, official history has been that they were the first to plant a victory banner over a defeated Berlin. However, today there is another version: the soldier who first fixed the red banner over the Reichstag building was 19-year-old private Grigory Petrovich Bulatov. His nationality is Kungur Tatar. For a long time, Bulatov was not mentioned in the historical literature. And only in recent years, Russia learned about the feat of this brave boy.
Early years
Grigory Petrovich Bulatov, whose biography will be discussed in this article, was born on November 16, 1925 in the Urals. His homeland is the small village of Cherkasovo, located in the Berezovsky district of the Sverdlovsk region. The boy's parents were simple workers. Soon after the birth of their son, they settled in Kungur (Perm Territory). At the age of four, Grisha moved withparents in the town of Slobodskoy (Kirov region) and began to live in one of the houses belonging to the distillery.
At the age of 8, Bulatov went to the local school number 3. As his classmates recalled, he studied without much desire. However, it was impossible to call the boy a lazy person, since he constantly helped his parents with the housework. Gregory provided fodder for livestock, was an excellent mushroom picker and fisherman. The boy's childhood passed on the Vyatka River. He knew how to swim perfectly and repeatedly saved drowning people. He had many friends, among whom he enjoyed great authority.
Factory work, mobilization
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Bulatov Grigory Petrovich was forced to grow up immediately. His family, like many others, began to defend their homeland from fascism. The guy's father went to the front, and Grigory himself went to work at the Red Anchor plant located in Slobodskoy, which during the war years produced plywood for the needs of Soviet aviation.
In 1942, a funeral for his father came to the Bulatov family. Grisha did not want to be in the rear anymore and went to the draft board to ask to volunteer for the front. But because of his young age, and then Bulatov was only 16 years old, he was refused. It took a whole year to get your boyfriend. In June 1943, Gregory was drafted into the Red Army. Bulatov was sent to guard military warehouses located near Slobodsky in the village of Vakhrushi.
In the midst of war
Grigory Petrovich went to the front in the spring of 1944. First he was a shooter, and then an ordinary scout150th Infantry Division under the command of S. Sorokin, which is part of the First Belorussian Front. In many battles, Bulatov Grigory Petrovich distinguished himself with special courage. Briefly characterizing this stage in the life of a young guy, we can say that together with the division he reached Berlin, took part in the liberation of Warsaw and the battle of Kunersdorf. When Soviet troops broke through in the spring of 1945 to the German capital, Bulatov was 19 and a half years old.
On the approaches to the Reichstag
The assault on Berlin lasted a week. On April 28, the troops of the First Belorussian Front were on the outskirts of the Reichstag. Further, events developed so rapidly that the enemy forces could not resist the enemy. On April 29, the Moltke Bridge laid across the Spree River fell under the control of Soviet soldiers of the 150th and 191st divisions. At dawn the next day, they stormed the house in which the Ministry of the Interior was located, and opened their way to the Reichstag. It was only on the third attempt that the Germans were driven out of their stronghold.
Red Banner
Grigory Petrovich Bulatov stormed the Reichstag together with his reconnaissance group led by Captain Sorokin. It was she who managed to break through to the building first. The Soviet command promised those who could hoist the red banner over the Reichstag before anyone else, to add to the title of Heroes of the USSR. On April 30, at 2 pm, Bulatov and party organizer Viktor Provatorov were the first to break through to the building. Since they did not have a real Victory Banner, they made a flag fromred fabric under the hands. The fighters first attached a homemade banner to a window located on the second floor. The division commander, Semyon Sorokin, thought that the flag was set too low, and told the guys to go up to the roof. Fulfilling the order of the captain, Grigory Bulatov at 14:25, together with other scouts from his group, climbed onto the pediment of the Reichstag and attached a home-made banner to the harness of a bronze horse, which is part of the sculptural composition of Wilhelm I.
The victorious flag hung over Berlin for 9 hours. At the time when Grigory Petrovich Bulatov was hoisting a banner over the German parliament, battles were still going on in the city itself. Kantaria and Egorov planted the flag on the same day at 22:20. By then, the fighting for Berlin was over.
There is another version according to which Bulatov installed a red banner on the Reichstag together with his brother-soldier from Kazakhstan Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev. But according to this information, Grigory Petrovich was the first who managed to break through to the building. Supported by Koshkarbaev by the legs, he hoisted the banner at the level of the second floor. You can read about this event in the book "We stormed the Reichstag", written by Hero of the USSR I. Klochkov.
Euphoria after the Victory
On the feat of a young intelligence officer on May 5 wrote "Komsomolskaya Pravda". An article dedicated to him said: after the Germans were forced out of the Reichstag, a snub-nosed soldier from the Kirov region broke into the building. He, like a cat, climbed onto the roof, and,crouching under enemy bullets flying past, he fixed a red banner on it, announcing victory. For several days Bulatov Grigory Petrovich was a real hero. The photo of the scout and his comrades against the backdrop of the Reichstag, taken by correspondents Schneiderov and Ryumkin, was published in Pravda on May 20, 1945. In addition to Bulatov himself, the scouts of his group Pravotorov, Oreshko, Pochkovsky, Lysenko, Gibadulin, Bryukhovetsky, and also Commander Sorokin. The feat of the first standard-bearer was captured on film by documentary filmmaker Carmen. For filming, the young intelligence officer had to climb the roof again and hoist the banner over the Reichstag.
3 days after the feat, Grigory Petrovich Bulatov was summoned to Marshal Zhukov himself. The commander of the First Belorussian Front solemnly handed over to the soldier his photograph, the inscription on which confirmed the heroic deed of the guy.
Retribution for the feat
The joy of the young hero did not last long. Unexpectedly for him, Kantaria and Egorov were announced as the first soldiers who installed the victorious banner on the pediment of the parliament, who managed to climb onto the roof 8 hours after Gregory. They got the titles of Heroes of the USSR, honors, their names were forever immortalized in historical books.
Shortly after the end of the war, Grigory Petrovich Bulatov was called to the carpet to Stalin. The guy hoped that for the presentation of the award, but his expectations were not met. The leader, congratulating Grisha and shaking his hand, asked himto refuse the title of Hero of the USSR for 20 years, and during this time not to tell anyone about his feat. After that, Bulatov was sent to Beria's dacha, from where he, deliberately accused of raping a maid, went straight to prison. After spending a year and a half among criminals, Gregory was released. He returned to his native Slobodskaya only in 1949. Covered in tattoos, aged and offended by life, he kept his word given to Stalin for 20 years.
The further life of Bulatov
In 1955 Grigory Petrovich married a girl Rimma from his town. A year later, the young wife gave him a daughter, Lyudmila. Throughout the post-war period, Bulatov lived in Slobodsky and worked at a timber rafting.
2 decades after the end of the war, Bulatov ceased to be silent about his feat. He turned to various authorities, hoping that the once promised title of Hero of the USSR would still be given to him, but to no avail. No one in the country was going to rewrite official history and recall events long past. The only ones who believed Grigory Petrovich were the combatants. They gave Bulatov the nickname "Grishka-Reichstag", which stuck with him until the end of his life.
Rumors surrounding the hero's death
April 19, 1973 Grigory Petrovich was found hanged. According to the official version, he committed suicide, disappointed in life and tired of proving his feat to others. But Bulatov's countrymen say that he was killed. On the day of the death of Grishka the Reichstag, two unknown people in civilian clothes were spinning for a long time near the entrance of the factory where he worked.clothes. After they disappeared, Bulatov was never seen alive again. They buried him at the local cemetery in Slobodskoy.
Memory of Bulatov
Grigory Petrovich was talked about again after the collapse of the USSR. In 2001, the director Marina Dokhmatskaya shot the documentary film "The Soldier and the Marshal", which tells about the forgotten feat of Private Bulatov. In 2005, near the main entrance to the cemetery in the town of Slobodskoy, a granite monument to Grigory Petrovich was erected with the inscription "To the Banner of Victory." And in May 2015, the monument to Bulatov was solemnly opened in the central park of Kirov.
Local authorities of the Kirov region have repeatedly promised that they will restore historical justice and achieve the assignment of the title of Hero of the USSR to Grigory Petrovich, which he so dreamed of during his lifetime. And although it is not so easy to get to the bottom of the truth 70 years after the Victory, I want to believe in a happy outcome of this case.
