In the photo, you can see Andrey Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, brother of Mikhail Kalashnikov, with his wife Maria Lebedeva. The photo was taken in the Parbig area of the West Siberian Krai.
Andrey was born and spent his childhood in the village of Kurya in Altay, in the large family of peasants Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov (1883–1930) and Alexandra Frolovna Kalashnikova (1884–1957). His parents were Kuban peasants. They lived in poverty, in a small dugout at the edge of the village. They often lacked the most necessary things, for example, paper: the children learned the alphabet and numbers using birch bark. In families with many children, sons and daughters helped and supported each other, and each one knew and fulfilled their duties. The family had a tradition of praying at home and regularly visiting the church.
The one who cooked was Andrey’s sister Nyura who also did the work of a nanny. Mother sewed clothes for the children from homemade fabric using her sewing machine. For her sons and daughters, she sewed identical long shirts that substituted both blouses and trousers. However, when the boys started going to school, they began to feel ashamed of their appearance and asked for men’s clothes.
Mikhail Kalashnikov told about how his family lived before the Dekulakization: ‘In 1923, my parents married off my elder sister Gasha, five years later, Nyura, and in 1929, my elder brother Victor married, too. My parents, Alexandra Frolovna and Timofey Alexandrovich, stayed with five sons: the eldest one, Ivan, was 15, and the youngest, Nikolay, only 3. At that time, two of us went to school: Vassily and me’.
In 1930, Timofey Kalashnikov was declared a kulak and sent with his family to the small village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya in Tomsk region. Mikhail Kalashnikov’s memories about that trip have survived until now. He remembered that the family went in “gloomy” wagons. They could only leave the wagon accompanied by the commandant. Barely any light penetrated into the wagon: there was only a small window in it. My parents made a toilet in the wagon: they put a bucket in its corner and covered it up with a blanket’.
When the train arrived to the last stop, the adults and the children were placed in log huts with four-tier sleeping berths. Later, the family went in a sleigh to the Bakcharsky area where they settled down. Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov, the father, died in 1930.
Andrey Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was called up for military service in September 1942 by the military enlistment office of the Parbig area of the Tomsk region. His last place of service was field post office 2614 of military unit 494. He was an artillery man. In April 1943, he was reported missing. He was survived by his wife, Maria Lebedeva.
Andrey was born and spent his childhood in the village of Kurya in Altay, in the large family of peasants Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov (1883–1930) and Alexandra Frolovna Kalashnikova (1884–1957). His parents were Kuban peasants. They lived in poverty, in a small dugout at the edge of the village. They often lacked the most necessary things, for example, paper: the children learned the alphabet and numbers using birch bark. In families with many children, sons and daughters helped and supported each other, and each one knew and fulfilled their duties. The family had a tradition of praying at home and regularly visiting the church.
The one who cooked was Andrey’s sister Nyura who also did the work of a nanny. Mother sewed clothes for the children from homemade fabric using her sewing machine. For her sons and daughters, she sewed identical long shirts that substituted both blouses and trousers. However, when the boys started going to school, they began to feel ashamed of their appearance and asked for men’s clothes.
Mikhail Kalashnikov told about how his family lived before the Dekulakization: ‘In 1923, my parents married off my elder sister Gasha, five years later, Nyura, and in 1929, my elder brother Victor married, too. My parents, Alexandra Frolovna and Timofey Alexandrovich, stayed with five sons: the eldest one, Ivan, was 15, and the youngest, Nikolay, only 3. At that time, two of us went to school: Vassily and me’.
In 1930, Timofey Kalashnikov was declared a kulak and sent with his family to the small village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya in Tomsk region. Mikhail Kalashnikov’s memories about that trip have survived until now. He remembered that the family went in “gloomy” wagons. They could only leave the wagon accompanied by the commandant. Barely any light penetrated into the wagon: there was only a small window in it. My parents made a toilet in the wagon: they put a bucket in its corner and covered it up with a blanket’.
When the train arrived to the last stop, the adults and the children were placed in log huts with four-tier sleeping berths. Later, the family went in a sleigh to the Bakcharsky area where they settled down. Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov, the father, died in 1930.
Andrey Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was called up for military service in September 1942 by the military enlistment office of the Parbig area of the Tomsk region. His last place of service was field post office 2614 of military unit 494. He was an artillery man. In April 1943, he was reported missing. He was survived by his wife, Maria Lebedeva.
