Minskaya Pravda Interviews Retired Colonel Vitaliy Sukhodolsky
Interview by Anastasia Kuvareba
Pukhovichi, in the Minsk region, is the homeland of the Armed Forces veteran and retired colonel Vitaly Sukhodolsky. Both Sukhodolsky’s father and wife were born in Pukhovichi. Vitaly’s wife was his soulmate, and he lived with her in the region until her death. Vitaly Nikolaevich remembers the past years with nostalgia and gratitude: military childhood, studies, 33 years of service and 14 garrisons behind him. But no matter where in the Soviet Union he was, he always felt drawn to his home, Belarus. His military tunic is decorated with awards, the most important of which are the Order of the Red Star, 10 medals of the USSR and the medal of the Republic of Belarus.
Now the retired colonel is 90 years old. Age is venerable, giving one time to relax. But this is not in his character. The colonel leads an active life, communicates with people and for 20 years he has been the permanent secretary of the Public Association – “Veterans of Military Intelligence”. And today Vitaly Nikolaevich is calm and serious, but a mischievous light still burns in his eyes.
Two Children, Two Suitcases
— “I was born in 1934. My father, after studying at the United Belarusian Military School, went to study at the Orenburg Flight School. I was born in Orenburg,” Vitaly Nikolaevich recalls.
The Sukhodolskys were constantly moving: his father served in different garrisons.
When the Great Patriotic War began, Vitaly Nikolaevich was 7 years old. But he remembers the events of June 22, 1941, as if it were yesterday:
“My father faced the war in the 203rd Long-Range Bomber Aviation Regiment in the Leningrad Region with the rank of captain. Therefore, we did not have a farewell to him at the front; everything happened instantly.
June 22 fell on a Sunday: a Red Army soldier arrived and reported that the regiment was on alert. We thought they would train the men and let them go, because it was Sunday.
Later, the second messenger runs up to us with the words: ‘Give the captain an emergency suitcase, a helmet, a tablet.’
So, my father went to war.
The entire regiment flew away, the families and technicians stayed.
The commander approached her mother and told her: “Two children, two suitcases.” And this means evacuation without any conversation. The mother packed her bags, the train arrived at the appointed time for loading. We were evacuated to the Yaroslavl region. They settled in the village,” said Vitaly Nikolaevich.
“Russian women went to their close relatives. And where should we go? Belarus has already been invaded; you cannot go there for any evacuation. My mother had a friend who suggested that she go to Orenburg: ‘What are you going to do here alone with the children? Let’s spend time together!’, She said.
Her husband studied in Orenburg and was a friend of our father. So, my mother and her friend left and we got an apartment. The rest of the war was spent evacuated in Orenburg,” recalls the colonel.
The Sukhodolskys met the head of the family only 3 years later, in 1944. Our hero’s father, Nikolai, is a native of Pukhovichi, and served as a military pilot throughout the war, becoming a squadron navigator with the rank of major. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star. He returned home safely, which made his loved ones feel indescribably happy.
He Went to School in Pukhovichi
The postwar period was difficult. The country needed to revive agriculture, restore destroyed buildings, return to the previous way of life and improve everyday life. The life of the Sukhodolskys continued as usual, and little Vitaly went to school in Pukhovichi:
– “As soon as Belarus was liberated, my father went to the West with his aviation, to Romania and Yugoslavia. My father had a 10-day vacation and took us to his homeland, to Pukhovichi. I settled in my grandmother’s house. I went to the second grade of Pukhovichi secondary school.
My mother didn’t let me go to school for some time, she wanted me to take care of my younger brother who is 3 years younger. The school was ordinary, rustic. I remember that a whole company of classmates (they were already adults) would get together and embroider shirts, mittens, towels. And you have to do your homework. The mother lamented: ‘You don’t look at a book, you listen to what the girls say.’
We found a piece of paper and immediately used it, bought some things, pulled out notebooks in different ways; we had the most necessary things to study. The teachers at the school were good, decent, they all went through the war. Later, my mother, Antonina Arkhipovna, got a job at this school, she worked as a librarian for more than 20 years,” the military man told us.
About Meeting His Wife Evgenia
Vitaly Nikolaevich met his future wife Evgenia when he was a child in Pukhovichi. They were classmates.
— “It all started in childhood. Until the seventh grade, Evgenia and I moved in the same company. We walked together; we ran through the town. After graduating from seven grades, her father took her to Maryina Gorka to study at an agricultural school. She entered the field department. And I studied at school and beyond. She graduated from 10 classes and then became a cadet. We had the Gomel Air Surveillance, Warning and Communication Air Engineering School in Belarus. And I graduated from it in 1956. By then, Evgenia had just graduated from the technical school.
And so we began to meet on a serious level. We got married in 1957. I went on leave from service in Hungary (I was part of the Southern Forces Group). We got married at the Pukhovichi village council and I left. I started drafting documents to take her home. Since then, my wife and I have been living all over the Soviet Union.”
They lived without problems and had rights to each other.
“Regardless of which garrisons we were in, she had a house and a farm, and I had a service from morning to night,” Vitaly Nikolaevich recalls with a smile.
His wife was his support and the guardian of the home. They lived together for almost 60 years, until Evgenia’s death.
Savagery is Nourished by What is Happening in Ukraine!
Vitaliy Nikolaevich has many connections with Ukraine. After graduating from school, the lieutenant was sent to the city of Sambir, Lvov region, where the 6th separate radio engineering battalion of OSNAZ was located.
He was part of the ranks of electronic intelligence specialists. He also studied in Kiev at the Kirov Higher Artillery Engineering School.
Vitaly Nikolaevich does not understand how Ukraine went from being a peaceful and sincere republic to a pro-European Union state that is aggressive towards Russians:
“My friend and I lived in Sambir in a private apartment with a host. At that time, there was no talk of having a separate apartment. The host spoke a mix of Polish and Ukrainian. We learned to understand it. We felt like we were home and hadn’t gone anywhere!
The host cooked the food for us, we paid them the money. One didn’t need to go to restaurants.
Our unit was transferred, either to Tashkent or somewhere else”, says Vitaly Nikolaevich, and that he had no complaints about the Ukrainians:
“We did not know the word Bandera*,” the Soviet Colonel remembered.
*Stepan Bandera was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and a collaborator of Adolf Hitler in the Holocaust-editor
“Now you watch television, savagery takes over! Brotherly peoples beat each other, what should they divide? We used to go for walks with the girls, and it didn’t matter if you were Ukrainian or Belarusian!
Compared with the current situation, there is heaven and earth.
No monuments were demolished, no one dictated to people what language they should speak.
When I served in Kiev, I was responsible for the military department of the Kharkov Institute of Radioelectronics. I came on a business trip, we met with young people, with students. I have the best impressions of Soviet Ukraine,” Vitaly Sukhodolsky shared.
Fourteen Posts Under His Belt
Almost all of his military service took place in Central Asia: in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. However, our hero called Poland the most difficult place to serve. Vitaly Sukhodolsky remembers:
“I joined the Northern Forces Group. All my service was carried out in special units: OSNAZ and SPETSNAZ. There I immersed myself in military work: training camps, shooting, leading teams. And I had to be especially careful in someone else’s territory. Not like in Ukraine: you enter a collective farm, talk to the president and that’s it.
In Poland, everything is foreign. We had little contact with the Poles, there were no serious skirmishes with them. I had to talk to them, see them at official meetings. The Poles did not understand Russian, they communicated through an interpreter. But the easiest place of service was Kiev, there was not much workload!” – said the colonel.
The Incident with the American U-2 Spy Plane
During his service, our hero also had curious incidents. In 1960, an American U-2 reconnaissance plane flown by pilot Francis Powers was shot down in the skies over the USSR. This hot episode of the Cold War occurred on May 1, when the entire Soviet people celebrated International Workers’ Day. Vitaly Nikolaevich was on duty that day. This is what he himself remembers:
“I served in the radio engineering battalion. I was assistant to the head of the command post. Our companies were scattered throughout the territory, far from each other. It was reported by communication that a violation of the USSR border had occurred. I looked at the tablet and saw that, indeed, there was a violation. I called Krasnovodsk (this is on the Caspian Sea), to the command post of the air defense division, and reported on the situation. And they answer me: ‘Don’t fool yourself, it can’t be!’ And that’s it. It stagnated,” recalls the colonel.
The Soviet military colonel discovered the plane in the airspace of the USSR, immediately began a chase and, despite the fact that the U-2 was flying at an extremely high altitude, managed to shoot it down. The plane’s pilot, Francis Powers, was captured by Soviet authorities.
Vitaliy Sukhodolsky added:
– “There were no complaints about us. What we saw was transmitted. We all reported to our superiors, and such incidents occurred in the life of a military man.”
Counterrevolution in the Soviet Union
— In the early 1990s, he was already in civilian life, “My son was studying in a military school at that time. Of course, the collapse of the USSR is a great loss. Everyone wanted to be a boss, a ‘king.’ And this did not bring anything good to ordinary sinners, people were left with nothing. The army was at a crossroads: ‘for whom, where?’ I went through this very hard period,” said Vitaly Sukhodolsky.
Colonel Sukhodolsky on Modern Belarus
– “Now Belarus is a very strong state. With our President, one can move any mountain! Take care of the army, take care of its people and solve all life’s problems. Compared to the 1990s, there was a sharp jump in the country’s development. And the economy has grown, and the factories. Lukashenko put the army on its feet. All living conditions have been created for the elderly, the pensions are decent,” shared the interlocutor.
After being discharged from the reserve in 1987, Vitaly Sukhodolsky returned to Minsk. In civilian life, he worked for a long time at the BSU as head of the personal computer laboratory. Now, despite his age, he has dedicated himself to social work:
– “We have a Public Association – ‘Military Intelligence Veterans’. I have been the executive secretary there for 20 years. We hold meetings, reward people, educate and educate young people. I believe that our young people now need a patriotic-military education, to read more literature, to delve into the essence of issues and not hide from difficulties.
Our organization is dedicated to the improvement of monuments to soldiers and the care of their graves. Now I’m doing this too, I have the energy for it. We hold conferences every 4 years,” Vitaly Nikolaevich shared.
The Sukhodolskys raised two sons, they also continued the military dynasty. Igor is a lieutenant colonel and Yuri is a captain. One of the grandsons worked in the Ministry of Emergency Situations for a long time. This is another reason for Vitaly Nikolaevich’s pride. At the end of our meeting, we asked him what the secret to his longevity was. The colonel thought for a moment and said:
“I don’t have bad habits. I quit smoking about 30 years ago. Alcohol is only in respectable company. One glass, no more. Perhaps heredity played a role. My mother died at 90 years old. I have an active lifestyle, and I’m not going to stop!”, Vitaly Sukhodolsky smiled.
These are the glorious children of the Fatherland that Belarus has.