One of the Taimyr Museum of Local Lore exposition sections dedicated to the Great Patriotic War tells about the contribution of Dixon’s defenders to the failure of Hitler’s operation Wunderland.
The dioramas reproducing the attack of the fascist battleship Admiral Sheer on Dikson Island, the response of the coastal artillery and the icebreaker Semyon Dezhnyov complement the photographs, documents, personal items, orders and the battle participants’ medals. The last replenishment of this section was a capsule with earth brought from the homeland of one of the seven killed Semyon Dezhnyov ship sailors – Fahrulla Hayrullin.
Nowadays his name can be read not only on the mass grave of those remaining forever on the island, but also on the map. According to the museum, at the 40th anniversary of the battle, in August 1962, the Dixon executive committee assigned names of the Red Navy soldiers who died in the battles with the Scheer to seventeen islands in the Kara Sea. Seven islands were named after the Semyon Dezhnyov icebreaker’s sailors: Suslov, Maysyuk, Borisikhin, Ulyanov, Davydov, Karagaev and Hayrullin.
Fahrulla Hayrullin was a carrier of shells on the SKR-19, or the icebreaker Semyon Dezhnyov. In the battle on August 27, 1942, when the crew suffered losses, he became a gunner and one of the first to be killed by an enemy shell.
Former helmsman, captain of the Kruzenshtern sailing ship, Ivan Schneider, in his book Dezhnevtsy, published in 1978, wrote: “The situation was tragic on one of the main guns. The pipe server Hayrullin and the machine gunners Tonunts and Volchek, who arrived there, revived the firing point that had become silent. Again shell after shell flew at the enemy.
A new explosion next to the gun. Fahrulla Hayrullin, a Red Navy officer who was in the spot of the gunner, was mortally wounded. Losing blood and consciousness, he shouted in a weakening voice: “Brothers! Beat the bastards!”
Before the war, the eldest of the seven Khayrullins’ children, Fahrulla, left the Bashkir village of Chishma to work in Murmansk. In 1934, he turned 20, and three years later his father, the most literate person in the village, was arrested. On the way to jail, father died. Soon, only the youngest brother remained from the large and friendly family, who ended up in an orphanage.
In Murmansk, Fahrulla, called Fyodor there, served as a sailor. The younger brother did not learn about his death immediately. He also managed to fight, but survived. The memory of the deceased brother was preserved not only by him and his family, but also by the Hayrullin’s fellow villagers. That was confirmed by the head of the Taimyr municipal district culture department, Valentina Satskaya, who visited the hero’s homeland on the eve of the 65th anniversary of the Victory as part of the Torch of Remembrance campaign.
A capsule with earth was brought to Taimyr for the museum from the Bashkir village of Chishma, the birthplace of Fahrulla Hayrullin. The capsule with Dixon’s land remained in the hero’s homeland.
Read in the Artefacts: about the Portuguese bronze angel, the sacred book Oktoih, and other unique items from local museums.
Text: Valentina Vachaeva, Photo: Taimyr Museum of Local Lore
