Pavel Ivanovich Shpetny was born into a peasant family in 1913 in the village of Gden. He joined the Red Army in 1936. In 1939, he graduated from the Slutsk Infantry School. He began fighting on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War in July 1941.

Pavel Shpetny fought on the Western Front and took part in the Battle of Smolensk, the Battle of Moscow and the Battle of Stalingrad. In the Battle of Kursk, he proved himself as the commander of an anti-tank rifle platoon of the 284th Guards Rifle Regiment (95th Guards Rifle Division, 5th Guards Army, Voronezh Front).

This exhibit is a replica of the commendation certificate on awarding the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to Senior Lieutenant of the Guards Pavel Ivanovich Shpetny. The documents were donated by Arkady Feliksovich Ioselevich, the founder of the Museum of Labor and Military Glory of the 95th Poltava Guards Rifle Division, which was presented to four different orders.

The commendation certificate of Senior Lieutenant of the Guards Pavel Shpetny reads,

Andrey Ivanovich Oleynikov, a veteran of the 95th Guards Rifle Division, recalled the feat of Shpetny’s platoon as follows,

This site a few kilometers from the highway Prokhorovka — Kartashevka, where Hero of the Soviet Union Pavel Ivanovich and his fighters performed their outstanding feat, is named “Shpetny’s Field”. A memorial sign was installed there. In the village of Prelestnoye, one can see a bust of the hero, and a school in the village of Gden is named after him.