Two Heroes - one family. How milkmaids mother and daughter sensationally turned "big" milk into gold

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The author's publicistic project "The fate of women is the fate of a united Belarus" by journalist, member of the board of the Belarusian Union of Women Alina GRISHKEVICH continues in the Year of Historical Memory, which is held under the sign of preserving the national heritage and the truth about all periods of the life of the Belarusian people.

The project was launched in 2021 - the Year of National Unity, the 80th anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War and the 30th anniversary of the BUJ.

The destinies of women as links in the single history of the country, the single destiny of Belarus, which our compatriots modestly, confidently and tirelessly create. This is the main leitmotif of the project, which presents the unique destinies of different women, both simple and previously unknown, and famous. Each of them has their own way of life, sometimes very difficult, but it is connected with creativity and patriotism, which underpin the state, unite society.

This story is about a unique Polissya family in five generations along the female line from the village of Borisy, Brest region, in which two Heroes of Socialist Labor are milkmaids, mother and daughter Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk and Galina Fedorovna Skakun. The fact is exceptional not only for Belarus, but for the entire post-Soviet space.

The profession of a milkmaid passed from mother to daughter and became a landmark in their destinies, not only diligence, but also the path to success was passed down from generation to generation. The Hero of Socialist Labor in 1958 was Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk (02/22/1920 - 12/27/1984), and 30 years later - in 1988 - this highest degree of distinction for labor was awarded to her daughter Galina Fedorovna Skakun (10/10/1943 - 03/25/2022 ).

The daughter and granddaughter of Heroes, 58-year-old Yulia Dmitrievna SKAKUN, who lives in the same village and in the same house where her mother and grandmother, famous throughout the Soviet Union, lived, tells about the family dynasty and the price at which "big" MILK was given. . She herself devoted her life to her parents, preserving the memory of the Heroes, from whom she inherited dedication and hard work.

Labor is the SALT of the Belarusian land

I am sure that in the modern world, which is increasingly moving into virtual reality, the truth about working people should sound stronger and more convincing. Sowing and growing grain, milking cows and baking bread is noble and important. In the Year of Historical Memory, I would like to pay special attention to the traditional Belarusian values ​​- hard work and dedication, as well as the majestic role of a working man and his undoubted authority in society.

Modernity throws us difficult global and personal challenges. We are worried about inflation, devaluation, epidemics, threats to security and instability in the world, and less and less often, in the turmoil of everyday life, we realize the abyss of inflation of morals, spirituality in the world community with far-reaching consequences. Unfortunately, well-being and success are often no longer associated with painstaking work.

Alas, likes on FACEBOOK, visits, blogs, activity in social networks have become the measure of life. Just a statement: pseudo-popularity and pseudo-ideals are increasingly filling the minds of the young, who should be trained to work, brought up on the examples of heroism and absorb the wisdom of their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

Sometimes I wonder how little today we hear life-affirming stories about a working man - a milkmaid and a livestock breeder, a combine operator and a farmer. About those who create real benefits for all of us and thanks to whom we have bread and butter, milk and MEAT, cheese and cottage cheese on our table. We take it for granted. But in a loaf of bread and a package of milk - the work of a huge number of rural workers. Maybe we have stopped appreciating them properly, we forget to talk about them loudly and loudly, how they deserve it?

IT technologies, instant messengers, computer games and artificial intelligence are, of course, great and this is an inevitable modern reality that will certainly become cooler and more fantastic tomorrow, but ... only under the condition of a peaceful and well-fed civilized life. Therefore, we should not forget about the man of labor, who provides us with food with his daily work and plays a basic, fundamental role in the life of the state.

Interestingly, in the current age of information technology, how many girls and boys dream of becoming milkmaids, calves, tractor drivers and combine operators - those who will ensure food security? I'm not sure ... Rather, dreams of becoming IT specialists, bloggers, directors, astronauts and, of course, very rich, and certainly everything at once, are hovering in young heads.

Meanwhile, it is in working professions that the key to our prosperous future, they have many opportunities for high achievements, such as the labor, legendary for Belarus dynasty of Heroes of Socialist Labor - Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk and Galina Fedorovna Skakun. A country in which there are such families and such Heroes, all the rest can only envy.

Now everything is mechanized, robotized and manual labor is reduced to a minimum, everything is much simpler, easier for milkmaids, all livestock breeders, but it is still difficult to achieve 8,000 milk yields (the average milk yield per cow in 2021 in the country was 5.3 thousand tons). kg.). And even in the previous (20th) century, ordinary Polesye women managed to achieve such high results that glorified them throughout the Soviet Union.

So what's the secret to "big" milk? And what are they, the heroines of "big" milk?

Daughter and granddaughter Geroev Yulia Dmitrievna

...Yulia Dmitrievna meets me at the gate of that same house in Borisy. This family nest seemed to absorb the family aura and energy of five generations of the family.

The courtyard is immersed in greenery and flowers. Both the house and the gate are recognizable from black and white newspaper photos. After all, numerous photographs, including half a century ago, which depicted the Heroes of Socialist Labor, flew around all the republics of the former Soviet Union - they were then printed in all the central union newspapers.

Yulia Dmitrievna is a modest and delicate person. It feels the true village intelligence, the subtlety of the soul. She warmly talks about her hardworking and at the same time very modest family, in which work, decency and mercy have always been the main life guidelines and have been passed down from generation to generation.

The woman never left her native land, her native home in Borisy, she has been living in it since childhood.

Hero of Socialist Labor Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk

Julia remembers her grandmother and mother with great love.

She begins her story about the family along the female line with her great-grandmother, Pelageya Prokofievna, whose memories are associated with school times. She called her great-granddaughter Yulenka-zorenka. I remember that in her colloquial Belarusian speech, Ukrainian and Polish words were mixed, because the border with Ukraine and Poland is literally next to the village, about 3 km away.

Mother Pelageya Prokofievna with her daughter Lydia Ivanovna Oseyuk, who became the Hero of Socialist Labor (from right to left)

“She was kind to people, to all living things, she didn’t keep an ounce of evil in her heart and actions either towards her own or towards strangers, and she was very hardworking,” Yulia Dmitrievna recalls about her great-grandmother.

Four female generations in one photo - Pelageya Prokofievna, Galina Fedorovna Skakun with their little daughter Yulia and Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk (from right to left)

Such universal kindness, as well as work, became the main philosophy of life for all subsequent generations in the Pelageya family - these values ​​\u200b\u200bbecame the basis for the fate of her daughter Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk, granddaughter Galina Fedorovna Skakun, great-grandchildren Yulia Dmitrievna and Viktor Dmitrievich Skakun, as well as the current young generations - great-great-grandchildren Oksana and Igor, great-great-great-grandchildren of Ilya, Ulyana and Yesenia. There is a powerful connection and continuity of generations.

Grandma Lida

Julia remembers well that uniquely wonderful time of childhood, in which Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk, and for her just a grandmother, was the most important and authoritative person in the family and, of course, in the local collective farm.

Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk, Borisy October 17, 1973

The future Hero of Socialist Labor was born on February 22, 1920, from an early age she learned hard rural work. Under the supervision of her mother, Pelageya grew up strong, strong-willed, hardworking and with the understanding that only through work can something be achieved in life.

Mother Pelageya Prokofievna with her daughter Lidia Ivanovna Oseyuk (from right to left)

The heyday of Lydia Ivanovna's youth fell on the Great Patriotic War, as did marriage, and the birth of her daughter Galina, who was left without a father at 11 months old - she had to raise the child alone. The golden hands of the craftswoman Pelageya Prokofievna, who sewed well on a typewriter, saved. She sewed both her own and strangers - many in the district wore her shirts and pants - and this earned at least a little money, which saved her from hunger during the war.

Perhaps these first trials at a very young age tempered the character of the future Hero of Socialist Labor. However, during the war, and even after it, nothing foreshadowed that in an ordinary village house on the edge of the village, in the most ordinary peasant family, a biography of a person is being created who will break records in the dairy industry and will contribute to glorifying Belarus throughout the Soviet Union .

Then Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk was the most ordinary collective farmer. A beautiful worker, dark-eyed brunette, with a proud posture, a confident and direct honest look, she immediately aroused sympathy. Her confidence that she was doing everything right attracted, and around her, simple workers like her somehow immediately united.

Lidia Ivanovna worked before the war and immediately after it in a gardening brigade, and then as a milkmaid at the local Zhdanov collective farm in the Brest region, the center of which was the village of Borisy. She believed that the main thing is to work from the heart and with full dedication.

When I came to the farm in the post-war period, in 1948-1949, it was dirty there, there was no order, there was not enough feed for the cows. At first, only three cows were assigned to her, but they also need to be fed in order to get milk. There was no talk about "big" milk then, at least to milk it a little.

The woman immediately approached the question in a businesslike way. Not only did she take care of the order in the stalls where the skinny and dirty cows stood, she also began to plant pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, and potatoes for animal feed near the farm, along with other milkmaids. From their own home garden, apples, potatoes and cabbage also went to the collective farm.

Looking at her diligence, perseverance, other women followed her, strove to manage the farm just as diligently. The example of Lydia Ivanovna was very revealing, next to her it was simply a shame to loafer. Although, of course, people are different, and not everyone liked the zeal of a young milkmaid.

Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk on the farm (left)

Not everything went right away. As Lydia Ivanovna herself later recalled, she was not always sure that she would be able to milk a lot of milk in the conditions of that time - in plank sheds, which were blown by the winds and flooded with rain on cold autumn nights, and swept with snow in winter, and also without thoroughbred cows, without sufficient feed.

However, the young milkmaid, who saw the suffering and devastation of the war, really wanted to do something for the collective farm, to restore the country, which she inextricably linked with her family, mother, daughter. Lydia Ivanovna dreamed that her relatives began to live more satisfying and better. As she understood, this could only be achieved by her own labor.

Cow Glorious

Lidia Ivanovna later told her granddaughter Yulia about the secrets of “big” milk: “You need to milk not twice a day, but three or four. The more often you milk a cow, the better it will be given milk and give more milk. milked once or twice, then she will either get sick, or start up (milk will disappear), and it will turn out to be a blow instead of milk.

What is it like to milk a cow three times a day with your hands - this is from the morning dawn to the evening moon on the farm, there is no time to be at home, not to mention doing homework and raising a child.

Therefore, daughter Galina grew up in the arms of her grandmother Pelageya Prokofievna, who taught the girl life lessons of kindness and justice. She taught somehow softly, inadvertently told life stories. But, of course, the most important example was the mother of Lidia Ivanovna, to whose farm Galina constantly ran, helping, observing and learning skills. From an early age, she knew how to milk a cow, clean up near it, so that cleanliness and order were where the animals were.

One of Lydia Ivanovna's cows was called Glorious. Big, beautiful, dark motley, Dutch breed, imported from Germany after the war as a trophy. At that time, some took such thoroughbred cows to their personal farmstead, Lidia Ivanovna took them for the collective farm.

Cow Glorious began to give a lot of milk thanks to good care and feed. In general, soon the milkmaid with her highly productive cow turned into a local celebrity, they began to write about them in the newspapers, and on the Zhdanov collective farm, someone even wrote a book about this Glorious cow.

In the meantime, the milk yield in Lidia Ivanovna's group of cows gradually became larger and larger. She became interested in her experience in the district, then at the republican level.

Secrets of "big" milk

From 1950 until about 1975, she managed to get very high milk yields. If in 1955 she milked 4619 kg of milk from each of the 12 cows in the group, in 1966 this figure increased to 7659 kg (then she had 10 cows), in 1967 - 7929 kg (10 cows).

Lidia Ivanovna became famous for her 8,000 milk yields. This is a record figure not only for those times, but even now not every modern mechanized farm can boast of such results.

Records were given by selfless work. When newspapermen and television from MINSK and Moscow frequented the milkmaid, everyone wanted to find out about the secrets, whether there was some kind of love spell or magic. Journalists said that in the vastness of the Soviet Union, many milkmaids work well, but only a few achieve such high rates.

Lydia Ivanovna did not know how to cheat, and she told everything as if in spirit: it is important that the cow is clean, so that she does not catch a cold, does not get sick. In makeshift huts, which barely held on, it was difficult to provide. It is then that the flimsy premises will be replaced by brick buildings and conveyors for collecting manure. And then everything was manual.

“The secrets were simple,” Yulia Dmitrievna tells me, who remembers and knows all the details of the success of her family’s labor dynasty. “It is important to feed the cow well, not to spare her feed, so we always brought something from home to the farm. dry, not leaving a drop of milk in the udder. They milked milk to the last drop with their hands. Grandmother Lida milked highly productive cows four times a day, spared no personal time. ".

“In the summer, cows were driven from the farm to special summer camps, to water meadows to the Bug River. It is near the Polish border, within easy reach. There was a time that they went to the Poles on foot and they came here. wait out the flood. The beauty at that time was such that it was simply beyond words. We sailed in boats, among water lilies, lotuses, like in films - romance. The water meadows were very beautiful. When reclamation came, nature changed not for the better, There was no water in the wells for a year and a half. Then, of course, the roads were built, everything became easier, "Yulia Dmitrievna remembers all this from the stories of her grandmother Lida.

1958 - Hero of Socialist Labor

Working as a milkmaid was hard, but very prestigious and familiar. After all, a cow was in every household, without a nurse it is impossible to imagine the then life and life of a village person.

Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk soon became very famous thanks to her hard work. However, no one expected that her work would be appreciated so highly. Not only her 8,000th milk yield, but also the level of reward for her work became a real sensation.

On January 18, 1958, a milkmaid from the Brest region, Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk, was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for outstanding achievements in the development of animal husbandry. The work of a simple Polissya woman has become a model for many in the region, region, Byelorussian SSR and the USSR. In the then fashionable socialist competition, the achievements of the Belarusian milkmaid began to be equal.

Lydia Osiyuk, rich in events and social life, has many interesting facts. She annually participated in the All-Union Exhibition of VDNH, as a result of which she used to receive cuts for dresses, carpets and even a Moskvich car as gifts, was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Hero of Socialist Labor Lidia Ivanovna Osiyuk near the donated car "Moskvich" near the house in the village of Borisy, October 17, 1973.

A real labor leader, Lidia Ivanovna, was managed at work in such a way that many were simply amazed, and social workloads were such that they knew her not only in Belarus, but even in the leadership of the then USSR. This simple Belarusian woman often sat on the presidiums of various meetings in Moscow.

Moscow, May 26, 1989. Delegates of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR from the Brest Region (from right to left) V.A. Zalomai, G.F. Skakun, E.P. Lasuta, A.A. Zelenovsky, Z.K. Mateushuk, E.G. Bilyukevich, A.A. Viktorovich, A.M. Kozik, V.I. Boer.

Yulia Dmitrievna knows the biography of her illustrious grandmother well and talks about her in detail. He remembers such a case. When Lidia Ivanovna once went to Moscow on business, she was almost killed. In the store, she noticed how a man pulled a large wad of money from the cash register when the seller was distracted. He saw that an unfamiliar woman, and it was Lidia Ivanovna, was looking at him, and grabbed her by the throat, began to threaten her with a knife to keep silent. But she managed to report the theft to the seller, they called the police ...

Although, of course, for the most part, grandmother’s stories about distant Moscow were mostly beautiful and positive, she told me what a beautiful city it was, she always brought gifts from the union capital, and this was a very pleasant moment at a time of total shortage.

In the life of Lidia Ivanovna there were many people whom she helped: someone with an apartment, someone with medicine, someone with a forest, she even arranged fellow countrymen in the Kremlin hospital, although she herself never used it.

When her granddaughter Julia was born, and it was in 1963, the hospital in the village was made of wood. Lidia Ivanovna made sure that a new one was built, and she tried not for herself, but for all the villagers. She never boasted and did not trump, she simply helped, because it was her iron rule - to help people.

Fellow villagers recall that despite her demanding nature, she was an extremely kind and sympathetic person and never refused requests.

Galina Fedorovna Skakun

Probably, the working way of life and national traditional values ​​in this simple village family were so powerful that they made it possible to form such strong female characters and destinies.

When the first Hero of Socialist Labor appeared in the family, no one could have imagined that in the same modest village house, in these modest conditions, another golden star of agriculture was born.

In 1958, when Lidia Ivanovna became a Hero, her daughter Galina was only 15 years old. From childhood, she absorbed her mother's science. When she grew up, she tried to constantly be close to her mother Lida - both at home and at work. She comprehended the secrets of "big" milk not from stories, but live, observing what and how her mother, who was an invariable authority for her, does.

Galina grew up as a noble beauty. Dark-eyed, slender as a reed, with a good disposition, hardworking. The guys looked at her, but the girl didn’t really single out anyone among them.

You can’t get around your fate and the snowy road

... It was a winter day in 1960, when 17-year-old Galina, in an open coat, flushed from the bright winter sun and playing snowballs with her classmates, was running home from a school in her native Borisy with a briefcase.

A prominent guy in military uniform, walking with friends past a beautiful girl, said in passing: "This young lady will be my wife." Everyone started joking that, they say, you still need to serve in the army, and then think about getting married, and how many more you will meet during this time.

However, Dmitry, Galina's future husband, kept his word. After serving as a radio operator at an airfield in Poland, he returned home, not forgetting his fleeting promise, since the image of a fellow villager he met by chance remained in his heart.

When he returned from military service, he began to meet with his chosen one, and very soon he came to his mother Lidia Ivanovna and grandmother Pelageya. A serious matter - an 18-year-old young girl, the only daughter in the family of a noble milkmaid, decided to woo. “I want to marry your Galya,” Dmitry declared to his strict mother right from the doorway, not being sure of a positive answer, but with a firm conviction not to retreat in any case.

“Yes, she was only 18, she just graduated from school,” Lida’s mother, confused by such a turn of events, said only. She had not even thought about the marriage of her girl yet. But grandmother Pelageya really liked that the future son-in-law came home to the elders with such a proposal, which means that he is a person with serious intentions. Dmitry was from a large family and accustomed to respect for the elders, which the women immediately noticed.

Grandmother and mother then asked Galina: "Do you yourself want to marry him?" She answered in a childishly naive way: "If he leaves me, then I will be sorry." This was her consent. Grandmother Pelageya said: "Well, then marry him."

Galina and Dmitry Skakun

At that time, there was more than enough talk in the village - one daughter from Osiyuk, but she got married right away, but they could still wait, look for a more profitable party. The teachers said in plain text: what do you think, you are ruining her life, it’s too early for her to marry. However, it was not customary in the family to impose their will on others, even on such young girls as their Galya. The family firmly decided - to be married.

The young met for a very short time and on October 14, 1961, they signed at a local club in their own village. That day it was raining like a bucket, and it was only a joy for the guys - lovers, young, they walked wet from the club, confident that they would always go through life together in any weather. And so it happened.

The bride's dress was dazzlingly white, made of then fashionable crepe-georgette fabric. Beautifully tailored to the figure, with beautiful cuffs. This outfit was kept in the family for a long time, and then, like a happy family talisman, it was passed from hand to hand to local girls - many got married in it, at least five brides. Once, around the end of the 90s, an unfamiliar woman approached Yulia in a store and proudly said: I got married in your mother's dress.

... Immediately after the wedding, Dmitry moved to live in the house of a young wife. Since Lydia Ivanovna has always been the main one in the family, everyone listened to her - as she says, so be it, then the son-in-law took it for granted. The word of the mother-in-law, whom he considered the second mother, became law for him. With his kind, complaisant character and diligence, he perfectly fit into the new family, adopting its traditions.

Two years later, their daughter Julia was born, and six years later, their son Vitya.

From Yulia's childhood memories: when grandmother Lidia Ivanovna came from another trip from Moscow, she and her dad went to meet her in Brest at the station. It was a joyful and important event in her childhood life.

Romance of village life: morning under the trill of a nightingale

According to the memoirs of Yulia Dmitrievna, her mother Galina Fedorovna loved her work very much, she loved the people with whom she worked together.

... Galina Fyodorovna got up long before the morning sky turned red and the first roosters sang. Having washed her face with cool well water, which gave vigor, she managed the first housework, cooked breakfast for the family, filling the house with the aroma of freshly baked pancakes in freshly milked fresh milk and rushed to the farm, enjoying the overflow of nightingale trills. Life was filled with the unique freshness of the early morning and the joyful expectation of a new day.

The freshness of morning dew, the smell of freshly cut grass under the first rays of the rising sun ... The romance of village life is unity with nature and the organic existence of a person in it. All this is close and understandable to those who were born on earth and have not lost touch with it throughout their lives.

... The friendly mooing of cows replaced the picture of a nightingale morning at the beginning of the milkmaid's working day.

How difficult it was to get "big" milk - a separate topic of conversation. Milking a cow by hand or in modern milking parlors with the latest equipment is heaven and earth. Only an ignorant person can drop the words that, they say, the work of a milkmaid is simple and uncomplicated. This work is not easy, and then it was completely difficult, although it was customary for rural women, who from time immemorial took upon themselves the heavy burden of village worries.

Galina from the age of 22, since 1965, worked as a livestock breeder on the same collective farm where her mother also worked. It was a matter of course to work in such a way that my mother would not be ashamed of her. The girl herself considered it important to reach the high bar set by the hard work of her mother.

Hero of Socialist Labor Lydia Ivanovna Osiyuk and her daughter Galina are preparing for the next milking of cows at the collective farm named after Zhdanov, Brest region

Initially, Galina undertook to milk 4,500 kg of milk from each cow. She fulfilled her obligation, because, first of all, she wanted her mother to praise and appreciate her labor aspirations. “Did she think about surpassing her mother? No, of course, she simply looked up to her and did not want to lag behind,” says Yulia Dmitrievna.

“There was a case when one day a farmer came from Germany and brought his mother as a gift a heifer of a very rare Holstein-Friesian breed at that time, which is known for high milk yields. And from that gift a whole herd was then bred on the farm,” says the daughter.

In the group, Galina Fedorovna had up to 97 cows, of which about 70 were dairy cows. Work is unrelenting. Husband Dmitry Vasilievich decided to leave his job at the industrial complex and go to his wife to work as a driver on the farm.

The family tried to work conscientiously: milked cows, good food (often from a home garden), respect for animals. Very soon, the labor achievements of Galina Feodorovna became noticeable at the state level, as evidenced by the medal "For Labor Valour".

First Order at 28

Galina received her first Order of the Badge of Honor at the age of 28.

Love for work and continuity of the best family traditions are the basis of her awards.

In Soviet times, the professions of a milkmaid and a tractor driver were very respected in the countryside. How else, because these are the people who lay the foundation for food security. The socialist competition was hot, and the battles for kilograms of milk and grain unfolded in earnest. I had to put my soul into it, work hard and work out my own secrets of craftsmanship in order to get a high and noticeable result not only in my collective farm, region and - we take it above - the Soviet Union.

There are many significant events in the labor annals of Galina Fedorovna: she was awarded the gold medal of VDNKh of the USSR three times, three times - silver and 5 times - bronze.

In 1978, Galina Fedorovna at VDNKh in Moscow was awarded a Moskvich car for her regular milky rivers. In those days, buying a scarce passenger car was almost the same as buying an airplane now. And as a gift - it was doubly cool!

That amazing photo against the backdrop of a brand new car at the gate of his native house flew around the republican and union newspapers.

Two years later, in 1980, the Belarusian milkmaid became a laureate of the State Prize of the BSSR.

Awards did not fall like from a cornucopia, they were obtained by hard everyday work.

She surpassed her mother's 8,000 record by setting her own milk yield record of 8,300 kg of milk.

The second in the family Hero of Socialist Labor in 30 years

The peak of her working biography was 1988, when sensational news came in September - Galina Fedorovna Skakun was awarded the high title of Hero of Socialist Labor for her labor achievements in the development of animal husbandry. For the family, it was, of course, a great joy. It is a pity that Lidia Ivanovna passed away four years earlier, not having time to rejoice for her worthy successor in the profession, her achievements and awards.

Having received a high rank, Galina Fedorovna did not become proud, she calmly accepted the awards, continuing to work on the collective farm all the same devotedly and selflessly. Only now, more and more often, she became an honored guest at a variety of high union and republican events. Congresses, sessions, conferences, meetings with youth. All this took a huge amount of time.

Moscow, May 25, 1989 Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. People's Deputies of the USSR, HEAD of the workshop of the Brest Electro-Mechanical Plant named after the 25th Congress of the CPSU Z.K. Mateushuk (left) and machine milking operator from the Brest region G.F.Skakun

In her absence, Julia worked on the farm with her brother Victor and dad Dmitry Vasilyevich. While she traveled to plenums and exhibitions, everything lay on the reliable shoulders of her husband, and he did not consider it shameful to lend a shoulder to his beloved wife and replaced her on the farm and at home.

There is a saying that behind every great man is a great woman. But, as life shows, behind some great women there are no less great men. A strong hardworking Skakun family is an example to many.

Galina Fedorovna was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a delegate of the IV All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers. She is an Honored Worker of Agriculture of the Republic of Belarus, an Honorary Citizen of the Brest Region and an Honorary Veteran of the Brest Region.

I did not aspire to a career and warm offices

Note that both Heroes of Socialist Labor in the family were non-partisan. Galina Fedorovna was repeatedly recommended to join the ranks of the Communist Party, promising that this would open doors for many positions, but she refused: I don’t need it, it’s not mine.

In Soviet times, milkmaids-record holders enjoyed real fame and honor. Their word was heard from the high stands in Minsk and Moscow. High officials knew them by name, and therefore ordinary village women, having received the appropriate education, could well find themselves in high positions. But Galina Fedorovna, like her mother Lidia Ivanovna, did not strive for a career and simply worked conscientiously. Her warm offices did not appeal.

Beloved husband and children, grandfather's house filled with powerful family energy, the freshness of morning dew and nightingale trills, winter snowfalls and blizzards, the smell of an autumn garden with ripe fragrant apples - all this warmed her soul and filled her heart with love for the earth, for her native places.

Only twice was she persuaded to leave the Soviet Union. Going abroad was not easy then, but as a leading milkmaid, she was offered experience exchange trips abroad, which she stubbornly refused, considering time wasted away from her family, farm and nature dear to her heart.

She went once on a business trip to Czechoslovakia and once to Poland, she was satisfied, but she said that she missed all her people very much. And she flatly refused to travel anywhere else.

The story of one Kremlin photo and an asphalt road in the village

Lidia Ivanovna was a delegate to the III Congress of Collective Farmers, and Galina Fedorovna was a delegate to the IV Congress of Collective Farmers in Moscow in 1988 (a few months before she was awarded the Hero).

Юлия вспоминает историю одной фотографии из семейного фотоальбома, на которой в кремлевском зале в ряду делегатов IV съезда колхозников из разных республик СССР ее мамы нет. Тогда Галина Федоровна променяла торжественное пафосное фотографирование на то, чтобы воспользоваться моментом нахождения в Кремлевском дворце и попасть на прием к секретарю ЦК КПСС, члену Политбюро - Егору Лигачеву, который в то время еще и какую-то связанную с сельским хозяйством комиссию возглавлял. Дело было чрезвычайной важности - обратиться с просьбой проложить асфальтовую дорогу по своей родной деревне Борисы.

Егор Лигачев был весьма удивлен визитом простой белорусской колхозницы: "Как это, простая доярка из Беларуси ко мне в кабинет сама пришла, да еще просить не за себя, а за деревню?". Галина Федоровна даже не знала, как реагировать…

Meanwhile, the participants of the meeting posed in front of the camera in order to take such a rare photo with them as a souvenir to different republics of the Soviet Union.

Galina Fedorovna also got this photo. Until now, it is kept in a family photo album as a reminder of that Kremlin history. Remained in the memory of the congress and a wrist watch, which has become a family heirloom and accurately counts the rapid passage of time.

The visit to Ligachev was successful: the high Kremlin official kept his word - after about one and a half - two years, an asphalt road was laid through the village. This is the gift the villagers received thanks to the Hero of Socialist Labor.

Whether the locals remember this, I don't know. In any case, during her lifetime, Galina Fedorovna did not like to brag about this. As a modest person, she considered it commonplace to help people, as her famous mother did.

Meanwhile, household members recall that in order to resolve public issues, sausages, “kumpyachki”, and “vyandlina” often “left” from Borisov to the capitals in order to resolve public issues.

Julia is the keeper of the heroic family history

Yulia Dmitrievna was born on December 21, 1963. For as long as she can remember, she was on a farm, next to her grandmother and mother.

“If I’m not at home, then at the farm. No one forced me to go there, I just wanted to help make it easier for them,” the woman says. “I loved to wear my father’s military cap as a child and went to the farm in it. ", whose are you? It is clear that a child of about five years old in trousers and a cap was mistaken for a boy. Proudly answered - I am Lida's grandmother's granddaughter."

“In our family, the main things were honesty, diligence, perseverance and kindness, and that everything be done in good conscience. And this was manifested in literally everything,” she continues. they felt the iron support of grandmothers and mothers.

She grew up in a family with her older brother Victor, who is now a driver. We lived together in childhood, helping each other. They still live together in neighboring villages.

Grandmother and mother did not want Yulia to connect her life with agriculture, they wished that the profession was not so difficult. Therefore, she went to study in 1981 at the Grodno Trade and Economic College, although with her almost excellent school certificate (the only four were in physical education) she could enter any institute. But she has no regrets.

"I worked for 26 years in trade, nearby, in the village of Domachevo. I remember well the 90s, when the store shelves were empty. I had to literally fight to get goods sent to the store. When one refrigerator and one TV arrived, they according to the order, they were given to a school and a hospital. It was such a good time that later, in the post-Soviet period, everything improved in the country, production began to work, stores were filled with goods, "says Yulia Dmitrievna.

It’s just that her personal life didn’t work out - it somehow happened that there was no one to marry in the village ... Then, when Yulia graduated from a technical school, grandmother Lida became seriously ill, and the most important thing was to watch her worthily in her old age. Then she took care of her sick mother. Now an important part of her life is her father, who suffered a heart attack and whom she also cares for.

The brother often visits, as well as his children - son Igor, daughter Oksana and grandchildren - seven-year-old Ilya, three-year-old Ulyana and almost one-year-old Yesenia.

The great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of the Heroes of Socialist Labor are growing up as good people. Diligence and conscientiousness were passed on to great-grandchildren Igor and Oksana. Their childhood passed in the same house in Borisy, and they saw how their grandmothers live, helped in everything. Nobody particularly taught them this, but from childhood they adopted all the best qualities from their elders.

“Now many of their children are protected from everything. But when they are not removed either from joy or from trouble, when the example of the elders is obvious, then there is no need to explain it, everything is laid by itself,” says Yulia Dmitrievna.

She dreams that all her relatives would be healthy, that there would be peace in the native and beautiful Belarusian land, that the true Belarusian traditions of hard work and love for the native land would be passed on from generation to generation, creating the basis for a stable and rich Belarus.

... And I, leaving Borisov, thought: how important it would be for posterity to perpetuate the memory of the Belarusian female labor dynasty of Heroes of Socialist Labor in a book or feature film, in a monument, square or museum, so that the unique female destinies woven into labor history of Belarus.

Alina GRISHKEVICH,

photo of the author, as well as from the Skakun and BelTA family archives.