Всем нам известно со школьной скамьи о последних days of the Great Patriotic War and the feat of the Red Army men Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantariy who hoisted the Red Banner of Victory over the German Reichstag. For decades, official history said that they were the first to establish a banner announcing the victory over defeated Berlin. However, today there is another version: a soldier, who used to fix the red flag above the Reichstag building, was 19-year-old private Grigory Petrovich Bulatov. His nationality is the Kungur Tatar. For a long time, Bulatov was not mentioned in the historical literature. And only in recent years, Russia has learned about the exploit of this brave boy.
Bulatov Grigory Petrovich, whose biographywill be considered in this article, was born on November 16, 1925 in the Urals. His homeland is a small village 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 region). At the age of four, Grisha moved with his parents to the town of Slobodskaya (Kirov region) and began living in one of the houses owned by the distillery.
At the age of 8 Bulatov went to the local school number 3.As his classmates remembered, he studied without special hunt. However, it was impossible to call the boy lazy, as he constantly helped his parents in the household. Grigory provided livestock with fodder, was an excellent mushroom picker and fisherman. Childhood of the boy passed on the river Vyatka. He was very good at swimming and repeatedly rescued sinking. Had many friends, among whom he enjoyed great authority.
With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War,was immediately grown up Bulatov Grigory Petrovich. His family, like many others, began to defend their homeland from fascism. The boy's father went to the front, and Grigory himself went to work at the Krasny Anchor factory in Slobodsky, which produced plywood for the needs of Soviet aviation during the war.
In 1942in the family of Bulatov came a funeral for his father. Grisha did not want to be in the rear anymore and went to the military enlistment office to volunteer for the front. But because of a young age, and then Bulatov was only 16 years old, he was denied. It took the boy a year to achieve it. In June 1943, Gregory was drafted into the Red Army. Bulatov was sent to guard the military warehouses located not far from Slobodskoye in the village of Vakhrushi.
Grigory Petrovich got to the front in the spring of 1944.At first he was a rifleman, and then - an ordinary scout of the 150th Infantry Division under the command of S. Sorokin, part of the First Belorussian Front. In many battles, Grigory Petrovich Bulatov distinguished himself with special courage. Briefly describing this stage in the life of the 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 the Soviet troops broke through in the spring of 1945 to the German capital, Bulatov was 19 and a half years old.
The assault on Berlin lasted a week.On April 28, the troops of the First Belorussian Front found themselves on the outskirts of the Reichstag. Further events developed so rapidly that enemy forces could not resist the enemy. On April 29, the Moltke Bridge, laid across the River Spree, came 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. The Germans were driven out of their citadel only at the third attempt.
Bulatov Grigory Petrovich stormed the Reichstagtogether with his intelligence team, which was headed by Captain Sorokin. It was she who managed to break through to the building first. The Soviet command promised those who can put a red banner over the Reichstag before all, and put them to the rank of Heroes of the USSR. April 30 at 2 pm to the building first broke Bulatov and party organizer Viktor Provatorov. Since they did not have a real Banner of Victory, they made a flag from a red cloth under their hands. The self-made banner was first attached to the window located on the second floor. The commander of the division, Semyon Sorokin, considered that the flag was set too low, and told the guys to climb to the roof. Fulfilling the order of the captain, Grigory Bulatov at 1425 hours, along with other scouts from his group, climbed the front door of the Reichstag and attached the homemade banner to the harness of the bronze horse, which is part of the sculptural composition of William I.
The victorious flag hovered over Berlin as much as 9hours. At a time when Grigory Petrovich Bulatov hoisted a banner above the German parliament, in the city itself there were still battles. Kantaria and Yegorov set the flag on the same day at 22 hours and 20 minutes. By that time, the fighting for Berlin was over.
There is one more version, according to which Bulatovestablished a red banner at the Reichstag, along with his fellow soldier from Kazakhstan Rakhimzhan Koshkarbayev. But according to this information Grigory Petrovich was the first who managed to break through to the building. Supported by Koshkarbayev for his feet, he hoisted the banner at the level of the second floor. This event can be read in the book "We stormed the Reichstag" written by Hero of the USSR I. Klochkov.
О подвиге молодого разведчика 5 мая написала "TVNZ". In an article devoted to him, it was said: after the Germans were ousted from the Reichstag, a snub-nosed soldier from the Kirov region broke through the building. He, like a cat, climbed to the roof, and, crouching under the enemy bullets flying past, fixed on it a red banner announcing the victory. A few days was a real hero Bulatov Grigory Petrovich. The photo of the scout and his comrades in the background of the Reichstag, made by correspondents Schneiderov and Ryumkin, was published in Pravda on May 20, 1945. In the picture, besides Bulatov himself, the scouts of his group of Pravotors, Oreshko, Pochkovsky, Lysenko, Gibadulin, Bryukhovetsky also commander Sorokin. The feat of the first standard-bearer was captured on the film by documentary filmmaker Carmen. For the shooting, the young scout had to climb up again on the roof and hoist the banner over the Reichstag.
Three days after the feat Grigory PetrovichBulatov was summoned to Marshal Zhukov himself. The commander of the First Belorussian Front solemnly handed his photo to the private, a donation inscription on which confirmed the heroic deed of the boy.
The joy of the young hero did not last long.Suddenly, for him, soldiers, the first to establish a victorious banner on the pediment of the parliament, announced Kantaria and Egorov, who managed to climb 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 PetrovichBulatov was called on the carpet to Stalin. The guy hoped that the awards, but his expectations were not met. The leader, congratulating Grisha and shaking his hand, asked him to give up the title of Hero of the USSR for as many as 20 years, and throughout 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 Slobodskoy only in 1949. All in tattoos, aged and resentful of life, he kept the word given to Stalin for 20 years.
In 1955, Grigory Petrovich married a girl Rimme from his town. A year later, the young wife gave him a daughter Ludmila. All post-war time Bulatov lived in Slobodskoye and worked on timber rafting.
Спустя 2 десятилетия после окончания войны Bulatov ceased to be silent about his feat. He appealed to various authorities, hoping that the title of Hero of the USSR promised to him would be given to him, but to no avail. No one in the country was going to rewrite the official history and recall the long past events. The only ones who believed Grigory Petrovich were participants in the hostilities. They gave Bulatov the nickname "Grishka-Reichstag", which was assigned to him until the end of his life.
April 19, 1973Grigory 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 Grishka-Reichstag’s death, two unknown people in civilian clothes were spinning near the entrance of the factory where he worked. After they disappeared, no one saw Bulatov alive again. He was buried at the local cemetery in Slobodskoy.
О Григории Петровиче вновь заговорили после the collapse of the USSR. In 2001, the director Marina Dokhmatskaya filmed the documentary “Soldier and Marshal”, which tells about the forgotten feat of Private Bulatov. In 2005, a granite monument to Grigory Petrovich was installed at the central entrance to the cemetery in the town of Slobodskoy with the inscription “The Standard-bearer of Victory”. And in May 2015, the Bulatov monument was solemnly opened in the central park of Kirov.
Local authorities of the Kirov region repeatedlythey promised that they would restore historical justice and achieve the assignment to Grigory Petrovich of the title Hero of the USSR, of which he had so dreamed during his lifetime. And even to get to the truth 70 years after the Victory is not so easy, I want to believe in the happy outcome of this business.
