Zina Portnova was born in 1926 in Leningrad. She was an ordinary Leningrad schoolgirl, she dreamed of becoming an actress, she played in children's performances.

In June 1941, fifteen-year-old Zina, along with her younger sister Galya, was sent to live with relatives in Belarus. The life of girls has changed dramatically ...

FROM VACATION TO WAR

Leningrad, Vitebsk railway station. A graduate of a seven-year school, Zina Portnova, and seven-year-old Galya take a train to Volkovysk (Grodno region, Belarus). Summer holidays are ahead.

Belarusian relatives, uncle and aunt, live in a former manor. There is a picturesque park nearby, fountains with lions... After living in a Leningrad communal apartment, Zina and Galya think they are in heaven.

And ten days before the start of the war.

On the last evening before the war, Uncle Kolya returns from work with a temperature of thirty-nine. Households are fussing. Wife Irina makes a compress, and niece Zina puts a thermometer. Everyone falls asleep around midnight.

I wake up in the morning. There is no one in the nursery, I am alone, ”recalls Galina Martynovna. - The dead silence is broken by crying behind the wall. I fly into the next room, I see Aunt Ira with Zinochka, I ask: “Are you dead, Uncle Kolya?” And they: "Jackdaw... The war has begun!".

Aunt Ira collects things. He tears off the velvet tablecloth from the table and wraps his clothes in it. Uncle Kolya calls, commands: “To the station, in a flash!”.

A bullet fly to the station. They don't succeed. The freight train is packed to capacity, overcrowded, it is leaving. A few hours later, it will be completely bombed by German planes ...

We board the second train. Under the bombing we get to Vitebsk. Two days later, the Nazis take the city. We walk to the village of Zui near the Obol station, where we have a grandmother, Efrosinya Ivanovna, - says Galina Melnikova. - Our parents with Zinochka, Anna Isakovna and Martyn Nesterovich, at this time in Leningrad. They will learn about our fate only after two and a half years ...

OUT OF HATE TO THE FASCITS

The sisters stay in a village hut with their grandmother along with her adult son Ivan. Suspicious guests of Uncle Vanya attract the attention of Zina Portnova. It turns out they are partisans.

Zina becomes interested in the underground movement. You see, the Nazis separate us from our parents, kill civilians, mock the Soviet people ... Zinochka cannot sit idly by, she wants to avenge her broken life, - continues Galina Martynovna.

Zina Portnova joins the underground Obol Komsomol organization Young Avengers. Activists destroy the telephone connection between Polotsk and the German commandant's office in Obol, distribute reports of the Soviet Information Bureau.

Eight-year-old Galya has little idea of ​​what her sister does. But he does the job.

Zina sends me to a neighboring village and asks me to bring a basket of eggs from there and ... a magnetic mine at the bottom, - recalls Galina Melnikova. - The most curious thing is that before the war, Zina was a very modest and quiet girl. But, once in extreme conditions, it changes.

GUTEN APPETIT!

Zina Portnova's group destroys a flax mill, a power plant, and a pumping station. Undermines six cars with SS men.

On a special assignment, Portnova gets a job in the officer's canteen at the SS school at the brick factory, brings the poison into the kitchen and throws it into the cauldron of soup. The cook does not like something, and he orders Zina to eat a few spoons. She eats and she's lucky. The soup is not mixed, the poison does not have time to disperse throughout the vat.

Pioneer rushes to the village to her grandmother, drinks a jug of milk. It's a miracle she's still alive. And more than a hundred Fritz are dead.

In the summer of 1943, the Germans decide to send the girls from the village of Obol to Germany. For hard work.

I cry, I ask: “Zinochka, will they take us to Germany too?” “No,” she replies. - You and I will go to the partisans! ”- says Galina Martynovna.

No sooner said than done. In August 1943, Zina entered the partisan detachment named after K.E. Voroshilov as a scout. The platoon is based in the village of Kiseli (near the Belarusian-Lithuanian border). The sisters leave their native Obol.

TWO LETTERS TO PARENTS

Galina Melnikova admits that in the terrible and hungry years, Zina Portnova replaces her mother. Affectionate, attentive, gentle, she teaches Galya to read and write and repeats all the time: “Daw, no matter what happens, remember our address in Leningrad: Baltiyskaya, 24, Baltiyskaya, 24 ...”.

At the end of the summer of 1943, for the first time in the entire war, the sisters wrote home: “Dear mommy and daddy, Galka and I are alive, we are in a partisan detachment and together with you we are helping to beat the Nazi invaders.”

The joy of parents knows no bounds. Their children are alive! But the letter from Zina reaches the addressee with a big delay - only six months later. Literally a few days later, Anna Isakovna and Martyn Nesterovich receive another message - from the commander of the partisan brigade Nikolai Sakmarkin. It tells about the death of Zina Portnova on three pages.

REMAINED UNCONQUERED

December 1943. Snow-covered forest, haze. The guerrillas are going on a mission. Zina manages to run to Galya, who is arranged to help in the hospital.

He kisses me and says: “Galka, I'll be back in three days. Wait,” recalls Galina Martynovna.

Zina is assigned to make a sortie to the "Young Avengers" in Obol. In an underground organization, a "rat" is planted, on the denunciation of which the Germans shoot thirty activists. The partisan Portnova must find out who the traitor is and establish contact with the surviving "avengers".

Zina goes to the village of Mostishche, communicates with the locals... One of the residents, a certain Anna Khrapovitskaya, recognizes Portnova and betrays her to the Germans. The policeman grabs the young fascist thunderstorm by the arms and leads him to the Obol commandant's office. The path passes by the cemetery, at which Zina is guarded by her cover group - Ilya and Maria. Ironically, tired after a long transition, the guys at this fateful moment ... sleep.

Ilyukha and Manya could shoot the German and run away with Zinochka to the partisan detachment. But - such a fate ... - says Galina Martynovna.

Arrest. Goryany village, Gestapo dungeons. Interrogation. A girl with pigtails grabs an unattended pistol from the table and shoots at the gaping investigator. Dead body. Two more Nazis were wounded. Zina tries to escape, but they shoot her in the legs, they “knit” her and take her to the Polotsk prison.

Portnova is starved, tortured, hung upside down, but she does not betray her fellow partisans. In early January 1944, she was shot. A seventeen-year-old girl comes out to the wall completely gray-haired, but with a stubborn defiant look (this is evidenced by the stories of the surviving partisans who visited the Polotsk prison).

Galina Martynovna learns about the heroic death of her older sister much later. From the partisan detachment, she runs away to the headquarters of the brigade and demands to know where Zina is. They don't answer her.

In 1944, Galya Portnova ends up in an orphanage in the Minsk region. From there she writes home - to the same Baltic street, house 24.

The father comes for the daughter. Already at home in Leningrad, she is given a letter to read about the death of Zina.

FIGHT FOR MEMORY

- Galina Martynovna, do you often remember your sister? - Ask the correspondents of "Komsomolskaya Pravda".

Oh, guys, but I don’t forget her ... She is extraordinary.

- Zina told me if she was afraid to go on assignments?

To me - no. Maybe she wanted to relieve me of my worries?.. You see, there was such a time then that almost everyone was thinking not about fear, but about how to repulse the Nazis.

The whole life of Galina Martynovna is a struggle to preserve the memory of her sister. She carefully keeps all things related to Zina.

But now Galina Melnikova's desk is unusually empty. There is only one portrait of her sister on it. All memorabilia - photographs, newspaper clippings, documents - Galina Martynovna handed over to the Zina Portnova Museum, opened at school No. 608. Galina Melnikova regularly meets with students and talks about her older sister.

AND AT THIS TIME

Bikers from St. Petersburg bought a house in the Belarusian village of Obol, where Zina Portnova lived with her grandmother. For a crooked hut with a small plot, motorcyclists laid out two and a half thousand dollars. This was reported to Komsomolskaya Pravda by the head of the military-patriotic motorcycle club "Shtrafbat" Grigory Kudryavtsev.

The biker became interested in the fate of Zina Portnova three years ago. The famous underground fighter lived in Leningrad on Baltiyskaya Street, and died in Polotsk. Both places are associated with a motorcycle club.

Our "Shtrafbat" is located on Narva. It's a 3-4 minute walk to Baltiyskaya from there. And in Polotsk we have a “transshipment base”. When we come to Belarus, we always stop there, - explained Grigory Kudryavtsev.

The bikers found out that in the village of Obol there is a school named after Zina Portnova. We contacted the director and arranged a meeting. The motorcyclists were also shown the house where the partisan lived.

Bikers from the motorcycle club "Shtrafbat" bought the house of Zina Portnova in the Belarusian village of Obol. PHOTO: Sergey Solomatov, "Shtrafbat"

Bikers go to Obol two or three times a year. According to Grigory Kudryavtsev, people who remember Portnova are still alive in the village. Gennady Petukhov was twelve years old at the start of the war, he recalls Zina as “a cheerful wind-up girl with pigtails.”

HAVE AN OPINION

Writer, screenwriter Mikhail KURAEV:

“ In war, a person can show himself from an unexpected side. I am sure that the Leningrad schoolgirl Zina Portnova did not think that she would have to poison these reptiles. But you see, she succeeded.

I know there are different opinions. Like, what kind of girl is she who sent a hundred Germans to the next world in one fell swoop?! Ah-ah-ah, how ugly... But, in my opinion, the Nazis had to be driven out by all available means - legal and illegal. Poison, choke, burn. It was necessary to do everything to smoke out the invaders from the territory.

Can Zina Portnova become a hero in the eyes of modern youth? I would like to. But, unfortunately, today's young people, largely thanks to the media, are focused on other values. Their hero is more likely to be Ostap Bender, and not Zina Portnova.”

ON A NOTE

Zina Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on July 1, 1958. In 1962, her name was given to a new street in the Kirovsky district of Leningrad.

A lot of awards and medals and the sister of Zina Portnova Galina Martynovna. Most of all, the sign “Son of the Regiment” is dear to her.