—— Red Army Sniper ——6most difficult year for the besieged city of Leningrad. I began to
gather material back in the war years: I looked into the events
and the people, noted every characteristic feature of dayto day
wartime life, collected newspaper cuttings and documents, kept
photographs and remem bered stories told by my comrades. All
this came in handy and helped me in working on the manuscript.
I am profoundly grateful to my fellow townsfolk of Tambov,
comrades in arms – veterans of the 21st (109th) Rifle Division of
the NKVD forces, especially to the former commissar of the 14th
Rifle Regiment, the late Reserve Colonel Ivan Ilyich Agashin, who
accorded me great help and constant support in the process of
writing this book.
The book is into its second edition because the material prepared
for publication by Leninizdat underwent intensive ‘trimming’. The
first version of the manuscript saw the removal of much that could
not be mentioned during that period of stagnation, or material
that was of no interest to the publishers in terms of the geography
of the events. Now the book has been significantly altered and
supplemented and errors in the first edition have been corrected.