Authors
Alexandr Popov
Published posts: 1Alexandr Popov - 45 years old, native of Vladivostok. A professional OCC soldier – he has been serving for twelve years in the 155th Guards Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet. In his free time, he is an avid Spartak fan (although in Vladivostok he doesn't really say it out loud), follows the Russian league and European cups, and occasionally plays with the guys on the beach by the sea. He enjoys reading – mainly military history, Solzhenitsyn, and sometimes modern thrillers by Marinina. With his wife Alya, he has two children – a ten-year-old daughter Masha and a seven-year-old son Artyom, who mainly send him drawings from the field featuring ships, tanks, and dad in uniform.
Dmitrij Morozov
Published posts: 1Dmitry Morozov, 56 years old, an OCC soldier. He spent his entire life teaching physics and mathematics at High School No. 42 in Ufa – generations of Bashkir and Russian boys and girls passed through his hands, many of whom now send photos of their children with the caption, "Grandpa Morozov, do you remember me?" Childless, never married – he says that three hundred children in the classrooms were enough for him, bringing him new problems to solve every year. In his free time, he read old Soviet textbooks, listened to Shostakovich symphonies, and occasionally launched model rockets at his dacha outside the city – supposedly to remind himself why he started teaching physics in the first place.
Ivan Novikov
Published posts: 1Ivan Novikov - OCC soldier, 51 years old, born in Khabarovsk. He has spent his whole life fixing cars – first in Soviet times in a workshop working on old UAZs and KamAZs, then in the nineties he switched to Japanese used cars, which poured into the region from Japan through the Vostochny port. He has no children, never married, and says that a garage, a radio with the airwaves, and the occasional beer with mechanic friends are enough for him. He lives alone in a small apartment building on the outskirts of town, where he has his own workshop on the ground floor – neighbors constantly bring him broken starters, carburetors, and alternators. He’s been on the front for over a year now, in the repair unit – supposedly, 'when something blows up under the hood of a Ural or KamAZ, it’s the same mess as at home in Khabarovsk, only instead of oil there’s mud and instead of a radio there’s a siren.'
Maxim Doncenko
Published posts: 1Maxim Doncenko - OCC soldier, 27 years old. Before mobilization, he worked as a car mechanic in one of the smaller auto repair shops on the outskirts of town – he mainly specialized in older domestic cars and trucks. He always said that he understood engines better than people, and he spent more time in the garage than at home. Now, for the second year, he has been serving in a motorized rifle unit, where his technical experience is used to repair combat vehicles and generators. 'When something bangs under the hood of a BTR, at least I know what to do,' he says with his typical Bashkir-Russian accent.
Naděžda Uljeva
Published posts: 1She has lived her entire life in the capital — worked as an accountant in one of Moscow’s enterprises and raised her only son Sergei, who became a professional soldier. When he left for the front in 2022, she sent him packages with homemade pirozhki, woolen socks, and long letters full of ordinary motherly advice — “Hold on, son, and come back.” Sergei was killed in the spring of 2023 during fighting in the east; the death notification arrived in April, and since then Nadezhda has worn a black headscarf and regularly visits his grave at Khovanskoye Cemetery, bringing fresh flowers and speaking to him out loud as if he could still hear her. Now she lives alone in a small two-room apartment in southern Moscow, occasionally meets with other mothers from the “soldiers’ mothers” groups, cooks borscht for the neighbors, and says that the greatest pain is the silence in the apartment where her son’s laughter once rang.
Nikolaj Kozlov
Published posts: 1Nikolaj Kozlov - OCC soldier, 38 years old, professional chef. For over fifteen years he cooked in one of the largest factory canteens in Omsk, specializing in borscht, pelmeni, pilaf, and anything else that could feed an entire shift at once. Together with his wife Světlá, he is raising two children – twelve-year-old Nastja and nine-year-old Děnka. When he is not in the kitchen, he enjoys grilling at their dacha outside the city or cooking at home for his family – he says that good food is the only thing that can momentarily stop time. For several months now, he has been serving in the rear, cooking for the company and occasionally lamenting that the field kitchen doesn’t have a proper pot for a proper borscht.
Polina Lukiansava
Published posts: 1Polina Lukiansheva, 41 years old, a teacher from Tomsk. She had only one son, Artem, who was called up for the 'special military operation' in 2023 at the age of 19. Artem fell in the summer of 2024 near Volchansk – there was only a brief military announcement; since then, Polina wears his small silver cross around her neck, goes to the Kirov cemetery, sits on a bench by his grave, strokes the tombstone, and whispers poems to him that she once taught in class.
Victoria Tolstaja
Published posts: 1Victoria Tolstaja, 45 years old, a mother from Novosibirsk. She has lived her entire life in Novosibirsk – she worked as a nurse in the neurology department of one of the city hospitals, raised two sons, the elder is now in the army reserve, and the younger, Andrej (“Andrjusha”), was a professional soldier. Andrej fell in October 2023 during the attacks on Avdiivka – only a brief notice arrived, and the urn with his ashes was brought by train; since then, Maria has worn his military dog tag around her neck and walks to the Zaeltsovsky cemetery, where she places fresh pinecones on his grave and talks to him about everyday things, as if he were sitting next to her.