Hotline of power engineering specialists:
On the eve of the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, volunteers of the Belgorod branch of Rosseti Centre, headed by the director of the branch, Sergey Demidov, congratulated the war veteran, one of the founders of Belgorodenergo Nikolay S. Shevtsov.
This year, Nikolay Shevtsov turned 94 years old, almost 50 of them he devoted to energy. He worked as an inspector-engineer for safety and operation, headed the service of high-voltage power lines, and then, until 1992, the service of distribution grids.
Nikolay Shevtsov met the war as a 15-year-old teenager. He recalls that the very next day they sent him to Borisovka to dig trenches. Of the 13 classmates, only three survived and returned home. And Nikolay’s brother was killed at the front near Zhitomir. He clearly remembers the difficult life in the occupation, the gallows with tortured local residents in the centre of the village of Mikoyanovka (now the settlement of Oktyabrsky in the Belgorodsky district), the cannonade of battles near Belgorod, when the sky was covered with a glow after the bombing. He remembers how he hid from the Germans so that they would not be taken to work in Germany.
“Even on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, the invaders were still talking about their victory, but no one believed them anymore,” the veteran says. “And not only powerful German equipment passed through the village, but the Germans dragged the broken, warped tanks, in the opposite direction.”
After the liberation of Belgorod in February 1943, Nikolay went to the draft board as a 17-year-old guy, but he was refused - he was still young. Then he asked permission from the military commissar to join the battalion to restore order in the liberated territory, which identified deserters, German scouts and police officers.
In 1943, he was finally drafted into the army. He served as a forwarder in a military unit near Ussuriisk. He took part in battles with Japanese troops, was awarded the medals “For Military Merit” and “For Victory over Japan”.
He served in the Far East until 1950, then returned to his homeland, finished high school and entered the Kharkov Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture. For some time, he worked at a hydroelectric power station in the Poltava region. Six years later, he returned to the Belgorod region and joined Belgorodenergo.
Deputy General Director - Director of the branch “Rosseti Centre Belgorodenergo” Sergey Demidov thanked Nikolay Shevtsov for his military and labour feat, on behalf of all power engineers he handed over material assistance and gifts made by the hands of the children of the branch’s employees.
“The power engineers sacredly honour the memory of the immortal feat of our people in the Great Patriotic War, support veterans, consider it their duty to tell the youth about the courage of the liberating soldiers who defended the freedom and independence of our country,” he stressed.
On the eve of Victory Day, the power engineers will visit all war veterans and home front workers, passing on them words of appreciation and gratitude.
