5From the Author
Inspired and supported by that great wartime writer and poet
Konstantin Simonov, I have summoned up the courage to write
a book about the war, taking as an epigraph the verses by the
Leningrad poet Yuri Voronov, which have become seared into my
soul. I have done this not only in order that the war should not be
forgotten, but also that my tale might be of benefit to our up and
coming generation.
Progressing through the grand school of life and war, as a
rankandfile soldier who travelled the whole way from the Narva
Gate in Leningrad to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, enduring
with his comrades the entire 900 days of the siege, I wish to
share with young people my experiences during our homeland’s
most arduous years, when each of us was put to the test in terms
of courage and steadfastness. I wanted through my narrative to
open up one more page in the history of the Great War for the
Fatherland, to describe how the snipers’ movement was born and
grew to mass proportions in Leningrad and played a huge role in
the positional ‘trench warfare’ around the besieged city.
The veterans of the war are aging. Almost fifty years have
passed since the times described in the book Stars on my Rifle.
Basically it is about the beginning of the war, the first year – the