[Arthur] I keep trying to get a sense of what these people went through
[Arthur] I come to the woods alone, close my eyes,
and try to hear sirens, explosions
[Arthur] I try to imagine all they did,
to understand if I could live with it all
[Arthur] You're filming the trees
[Arthur] Imagine as many people here as trees,
and they all fall at the same time
[Arthur] One moment, all gone…
[Arthur] Someone could be lying here, a soldier could be lying there
[Arthur] Someone could be lying here or here
[Arthur] And they are
FINDING THE FALLEN
[GEO] LENINGRAD REGION, RUSSIA
[Man] There are fragments of a skull in this mound
[Man] And an arm here
[Arthur] Great. So take a stick and poke it
[VO] World War II ended almost 75 years ago. But thousands went missing
in action, lost in the woods, seas, and in swamps. Their families never
knew what happened to them. Many are still waiting for loved ones to return
from the war. And a dedicated few are still taking lost soldiers home.
[Arthur] I first came here in 2010. The battles here were truly bloody
[Arthur] Hills were taken, hills surrendered
[Arthur] The fighting was so intense that neither our troops,
nor the Germans had time to bury or carry soldiers away from the battlefield
[Arthur] It's the 5th time we've worked this site
[Arthur] And for the 5th time, we're recovering bodies
[Man] Here's the second sole
[Arthur] Why aren't you digging?
[VO] Artur Olkhovsky has searched for lost soldiers
for more than 30 years. He started on his own,
but then began to involve school students. Now,
his organization is one of the largest in Russia.
[Arthur] The first time I went on an expedition. There was an
all-Union watch of memory in 89, in the Valley of Death, Myasnoy Bor.
When I arrived, to say that I was shocked is to say nothing. Excuse
me, I dreamed of bones for 2 weeks when I saw what was happening ...
[Viktoria] I thought that all the soldiers were buried with
honor and dignity, but in reality this is not so.
[Viktoria] My first day - you know, first expedition, first day of work -
[Viktoria] I thought if I was lucky I'd find a bullet casing maybe
[Viktoria Filbert, searching group member] But we found an entire soldier
[Viktoria] All the remains, personal belongings
[Viktoria] And I was really shocked
[Viktoria] I was just… I almost cried
[Viktoria] It really comes as a shock that so many soldiers lie here,
in the woods, and not at home with their families
[VO] More than 300 thousand Soviet soldiers died in the battles for the liberation
of Leningrad. The Germans took the city into a ring in September 41st. The blockade
lasted 2.5 years. Leningrad was constantly bombed and shelled. People were dying of
hunger right on the streets. During the
blockade, more than 600 thousand civilians died.
[Arthur] This spring, we raised the place of death of 5
people, two soldiers, a woman and two children. They
were shot, right in the head, there was a hole
in the skull from a bullet. This child, the baby,
which she held in the area of her stomach, will
probably remain in my memory for a long time. This
is how it is, war - not to make a difference between
children, women, old people, adults, soldiers.
[GEO] GULF OF FINLAND
[Man] Got it
[Man 2] There's a torpedo to starboard
[Man] Let's pull it up
[Man 2] Right
[Konstantin Bogdanov, Expedition Leader, Bow to the Ships of
the Great Victory expedition] On May 9, people come to visit
the graves of soldiers who died in WWII,
they lay flowers
[Konstantin] But for the sailors who died at sea,
and were buried in their ships on the seabed, no one comes
[Konstantin] That's how this idea was conceived,
to pay tribute to these sailors, something like a vigil
[Konstantin] And then a memorial expedition developed into a search effort
[Konstantin] A team of 25 people has gathered, each
of whom in ordinary life has his own job, family, some
other hobbies, but they are ready at the right time to
gather in a certain place in order to go out in search.
[VO] Konstantin Bogdanov and his team are looking for sunken submarines. Most
of the Soviet submarines died in the Gulf of Finland. At the beginning of
the war, they successfully sank enemy ships. In response to this, the Germans
first set up minefields, and then blocked the entire bay with a boat net.
[VO] It was 80 km long and reached the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. Then it was
the largest metal structure on the planet. But Soviet submariners continued
to enter the Gulf of Finland. They understood that the enemy can be stopped
only at the cost of life. 24 Soviet submarines went missing in these waters.
[Mikhail Ivanov, Technical Scuba Diver, Member, Bow to the Ships of the Great
Victory expedition] Probably at the age of 9, in the school library, I found
a book about submariners, the Baltics. They all died heroically, and they
died in such a way that they disappeared without a trace. And when, already
at a more or less conscious age, that is, closer to 18, I began to get
involved in diving, it became for me some kind of natural continuation of these
childhood memories that I should still try to find these submarines. For
some reason, it was the chapter about Osipov that I remember most of all.
[VO] Evgeny Osipov was one of the best known Soviet Baltic
fleet submariners, he commanded the Sht-406 submarine,
and after his very first mission was awarded the Hero of
the Soviet Union medal. He sank several enemy vessels.
"Osipov is attacking a tanker while surfaced"
"Torpedo ready"
"Fire!"
[VO] In May 1943, the Sht-406 left on its third mission with 37 crewmen
aboard. Never to return. No one knew what happened to it or where to look.
[Mikhail] Our historian found some Finnish documents
that said a few days after the sub sank,
a body washed up on an island by the Finnish coast,
a submariner in a survival suit
[Mikhail] That's where he was buried
[Mikhail] There was no way to find out who it was,
but the analysis of currents, wind and submarine traffic at the time
gave a 95% chance that it was a submariner…
from Shch-406
[Mikhail] Then the pieces came together
[Mikhail] We knew where the body washed up, so we could figure out where the boat lay
[Man] Boat!
[Man 2] Boat?
[Man] Boat!
[VO] After several days of searching, the crew did find
a sunken World War 2 submarine. But it wasn’t Osipov’s.
[Mikhail] This boat is a different class
[Mikhail] It sank in 1942
[Mikhail] Well, that's it
[GEO] KLESSIN, GERMANY
[Katharina Straub, volunteer] We found one soldier. We think he might
be a Soviet soldier because of the boots he’s wearing. And the boots are
folded, the top is rolled over. The Germans don’t usually have that. He
must have died right here – there’s lots of shrapnel all over his body.
[VO] Searchers work 100 km from Berlin, near
the small village of Klessin. 1945 saw intensely
heavy fighting for the Seelow Heights. Soviet
troops advanced on Berlin. More than 12,000
German soldiers died in combat. And the Red Army
lost more than 20,000 men. Now there are fields
on these lands, but several times a year German
farmers allow search engines to work here.
[Albrecht Laue, Chairman, The Association for the Recovery of
the Fallen in Eastern Europe] For me, it began with researching
what happened to my grandfather
[Albrecht] My paternal grandfather fought in the war too,
the Eastern Front, in Russia
[Albrecht] He fought near Voronezh,
as a company commander and lieutenant
[Albrecht] He died there on September 24, 1942
[Albrecht] My interest in my grandfather's fate had a great impact on me
[Albrecht] It sparked my desire to work in this area
[Albrecht] Based on old photographs from 1945, we can
accurately localize the location using coordinate overlay.
[Albrecht] We have drawn red lines that indicate the original outlines
of the trench. On them, we can then dig deeper until
we reach the bottom of the trench. We hope that we will
be able to find the dead and missing. German soldiers,
Soviet soldiers, nationality does not matter, because we
are talking about the victims of the war and their fate.
[VO] When in 1992 Russian diggers invited their German counterparts
to join them to look for missing soldiers, Albrecht answered
the call and was one of the first to visit Russia. He later
launched his own group to recover the fallen in Eastern Europe.
[Albrecht] The state does not finance our work. So the search engines spend their
money on it. But we get support and donations from veterans who fought on Odyri, here
in Clessin or somewhere else. We are helped by former soldiers who fought in Russia.
[Albrecht] We are also supported by families
whose fathers died in Russia during the war.
[VO] And now, his crew consists of Germans, Dutch, Ukrainians, Swiss
and Russians. The grandchildren of former enemies now working together.
[Man] Friends
[Man 2] Yes, my friend
[Man 2] Only a skull so far
[Man] Strange - the head's lying separately
[Albrecht] In this case, it often happens that the remaining bones are deeper.
[Anton] The foxhole is oriented towards the Russians
[Anton] So, it's most likely a German
[Anton] Albrecht asked us on his traditional expedition
[Anton] We first came here in 2010,
and now we come 2-3 times a year
[Anton Torgashev, Organiser, Search Expedition for Soviet Soldiers
abroad] We dig up unregistered war graves or forgotten ones,
work in trenches, soldiers near the surface
[Anton] If I find one of our own, it's a very significant thing for me,
[Anton] I feel overwhelmed by emotion
[Anton] I really want to carry him out by myself, and identify this soldier,
to find some artefact, I don't know…
like a locket, a medal or something
[Anton] To find relatives and bury him
[Anton] It's the main part of the search, the soldiers' fate
[GEO] LENINGRAD REGION, RUSSIA
[VO] In four days of work in a field near Saint Petersburg the diggers have
already found 50 soldiers. But so far, they have only managed to identify a few.
[Arthur] You got lucky too
[Arthur] There's one ID capsule there?
[Masha] Yes
[Masha] Will you write it up?
[Masha] I'm shocked. Shocked
[Masha] What could be more important? What could possibly be?
[VO] Maria is excited because they found a Soviet ID. It should reveal
the soldier’s name, home town, and sometimes family contact details.
[VO] Capsules like this have to be opened carefully to
avoid damaging the slip of paper inside. If the
name is legible, they will be able to find for
soldier’s relatives, and that’s what matters most.
[Masha] We identified 2 yesterday
[Masha] They just brought a third
[Masha] All 3 lockets were found at one dig
[Masha] Yesterday's were from Altay Region
[Maria Igonina, searcher] Maybe they came together, enlisted together,
got killed there together
[Masha] Here's the third
[Arthur] It's tight
[Man] It's full
[Man] In pencil, looks great
[Man] Volkhin,
[Man] Dmitry Stepanovich. Born 1904
[Man] Rifleman
[Man] Altay Region
[Arthur] I always say the most difficult part of our job…
[Arthur] It's not enough to find a soldier, an ID locket
[Arthur] Not even to unroll and read it
[Arthur] Sometimes it takes decades to find the relatives
[GEO] OMSK, RUSSIA
[Valentina] When Dad joined the army, I was 2,
[Valentina] I was little,
and he held me in his arms
[Valentina] Then they put them in a truck and took them away
[Valentina] That's what Mum told me
[Valentina] Then a death notice came
[Valentina] It said 'missing in action', nothing else. Missing in action
[Valentina Gorbachyova, Tikhon Gorbachyov’s
daughter] At first, we kept waiting, especially once
a neighbour returned from the war
[Valentina] Mum would say, 'Maybe ours will too, maybe he's alive too'
[Valentina] But he never came
[VO] Tikhon Gorbachyov was among several fallen soldiers recently found near Smolensk.
He was identified from his ID tag and a search of
relatives on social networks began immediately.
[Valentina] My great-grandson was on the internet and saw this ad
[Valentina] Grandpa had been found
[Valentina] 78 years later
[Valentina] I'd already lost all hope
[Valentina] But you see now…
[VO] Valentina asked the diggers to bring her dad home and bury him next to her mother
[Anton Torgashev, organizer of the search for Soviet soldiers abroad] It's
no secret that the most important thing for a search engine is to finish
the job, find relatives, tell them the news that, probably, many have not
been waiting for more than 70 years that their soldier has been found.
[Anton] Today we say goodbye to Tikhon Ivanovich, the defender of our homeland. He
died in September 41st as a result of an air strike on a column of Soviet troops
[Valentina] Daddy
[Valentina] I waited for you
[Anton] I wanted to give you this folder with his ID locket and a note to your mum
[Anton] A little cylinder that contained a note
[Valentina] Thank you so much
[Anton] Let your kids, grandkids, great-grandkids read it
[Valentina] Of course, if I were younger, I would go there,
to the obelisk, I would bury it here and go there. It’s also
interesting to be there, to see where dad fought, and this
village. Now, yes, I'm happy, even though he's at home with mom
[GEO] GULF OF FINLAND
[VO] Konstantin Bogdanov’s crew is still looking for the lost submarine.
They’re using an echo-sounder to explore the seabed in the Gulf of Finland.
[Man] Another boat!
[Girl] A boat! A boat!
[Mikhail] The first divers somehow thought it was the M-96,
another boat everyone's eager to find
[Mikhail] When I dived and saw the characteristic conning tower,
and design features, it became obvious it was Osipov's
[Mikhail] Later, an open tower hatch was found,
proving the theory that a crewman left the boat
[Mikhail] So, all the pieces came together
[Mikhail] And, of course, it was an amazing feeling
[Konstantin] We found Osipov's
[Woman] Osipov's?! [Konstantin] Yes
[Woman] Hooray! [Konstantin] 406
[Man] 406?!
[Mikhail] The Shch-406 hit a German antisubmarine mine
[Mikhail] Which hit the starboard side and formed a hole there about half a
square meter. That at such a depth, about 40-50 meters, was fatal for the boat.
[Mikhail] The crew was very experienced
[Mikhail] They stayed calm, didn't panic and tried to leave the boat
[Mikhail] And at least some of them succeeded
[Mikhail] Part of the crew in the central compartment. How many
people came out of there, how many did not, we do not know.
[Mikhail] Unfortunately, neither the depth nor position of the sub
left the crew much chance of survival
[Mikhail] Actually, oddly enough,
the crewman that made it out, that died,
you could say his body brought us to that area
[Mikhail] He was like a beacon showing us where to look
[Konstantin] Every time we come to the site of a war grave,
there are seagulls following us
[Konstantin] No matter what you do, there they are
[Konstantin] Usually, it's the same number as the lost crew
[Konstantin] So, we'd announced that a boat was found
[Konstantin] And identified as the Shch-406
[Mikhail] And we were on our way back home, to the mainland, St. Petersburg
[Konstantin] A storm blew up, so we changed the route so as not to sink
[Konstantin] We ended up ashore in Primorsk
[Mikhail] It was in the morning, at about 5-6 a.m.
[Konstantin] There was a man standing on a pier who said,
[Konstantin] 'I'm Denis Osipov'
[Mikhail] And then it started to sink in… 'Osipov who?'
[Mikhail] And he also looked like him
[Mikhail] And I was just standing there in a bit of a stupor
[Mikhail] So, we introduced ourselves
[Mikhail] And indeed, he turned out to be his great-nephew
[Konstantin] He'd started his shift as a port control officer a day earlier,
and his patrol boat was just one ship away from us
[Konstantin] We were led right to him
[Denis Osipov, Evegeny Osipov’s great-nephew] I was a little boy when my mother
told me we had a relative,
[Denis] Evgeny Yakovlevich Osipov, who went missing in action with his boat
[Denis] Border guards told me there was a group of people
who looked for submarines
[Denis] Back then, I didn't know what they'd found. I knew they were looking
[Denis] And when they wound up right in front of me, I knew it was fate or something
[Denis] The storm threw these people to me for a reason
[Denis] Someone wanted it this way
[Denis] Since I was a boy, I've had this recurring dream: there's an explosion,
[Denis] I wake up, I don't get what's going on
[Denis] And I haven't had this dream since the boat was found
[GEO] LENINGRAD REGION, RUSSIA
[Arthur] It is impossible to explain in a
modern way what a blockade is. How terrible it
is, firstly, for the city, for the people who
have remained in this city. There was even a
directive that as soon as we captured the city
of Leningrad, we would flood it with the Baltic
Sea, we would level it with water. You have to
understand the people who fought for this city.
[Woman] Take a seat. Tea, coffee?
[Mikhail] I'll have coffee
[Woman] Sugar?
[Mikhail] No sugar
[Mikhail] I don't have a sweet tooth
[VO] Mikhail Zorin from Leningrad was among the
volunteers who tried to break the city blockade.
[VO] He was wounded several times but kept going back to active duty. He had
family in Leningrad and was determined to keep fighting for his loved ones.
[Mikhail] There'd been heavy fighting here
[Mikhail] The Germans kept firing, day and night, night and day
[Mikhail] Non-stop
[Mikhail] Each shell killed 1 or 2 of ours
[Mikhail] You'd talk to someone - 5 minutes later, gone
[Mikhail] Hard to get used to
[Mikhail] You're lying in a trench somewhere,
then come the planes, and the bombing starts
[Mikhail] When it's over you look around: he's gone, he's gone
[Mikhail] He's wounded, his legs were blown off
[Mikhail] And I was spared, you know. Wounded 5 times
[Mikhail] I got lucky. I was wounded in the
leg, in the neck, some other place… In the back
[Mikhail] Say, we were under heavy fire. Someone got killed
[Mikhail Zorin, Great Patriotic War veteran, took part
in the liberation Leningrad] You'd crawl underneath him
or pull him on top of you
[Mikhail] He was dead
[Mikhail] And he'd save my life
[Viktoria] I don't know what I would've done in the place of the soldiers, the nurses
[Viktoria] It's very hard, not something you can train for
[Viktoria] All the shooting, the bombs… it's all so scary
[Viktoria] I can't fully grasp it
[Viktoria] Please tell me, is it true that the soldiers did not fill in the
medallions before the battles, because they considered it to be unfortunate?
[Mikhail] They simply obligated everyone to have a medallion.
Well, not every soldier took it. If I didn’t want to, I took
it, threw it away, they’ll kill it anyway. That's the thought
was - they'll kill anyway, why do I need this medallion.
[Arthur] Let's take a photo with you. Let's do it
[Viktoria] You don't wear glasses, do you? No, I can see worse with glasses.
[Arthur] Come on, come on, tighter
[Viktoria] For me, this person is like from another planet.
It is easy to communicate with him, but nevertheless,
some sadness in his eyes, a reflection of this war. Very
rarely there is such an opportunity to communicate with
the participants of the Great Patriotic War. If there is
such an opportunity, of course it is necessary to cling
to it. You need to be able to keep the memory, because it
is the memory of our ancestors, our great-grandfathers.
[GEO] KLESSIN, GERMANY
[Albrecht] We need to prepare for the burial and get Soviet soldiers ready for transfer
[Albrecht] We wouldn't bury them now, leave them like this
[Albrecht] The ones we marked blue, we'll put them in coffins
[Albrecht] We're busy preparing the German soldiers' remains for burial
[Albrecht] These are the remains of 16 fallen soldiers
that we recovered from the trenches last year and this year here, in Klessin
7.662: this is an infantryman, Heinrich Boeff
[Albrecht] Let's put this on the side…
[Albrecht] Here or here?
[Albrecht] Left or right, doesn't matter
[Albrecht] We're lucky to have identified 4 soldiers already
[Albrecht] The rest remain unidentified for the time being
[VO] Fallen soldiers are buried in the country
where they are found, irrespective of nationality.
[VO] These multinational expeditions also have another
rule: if the Germans find a Soviet soldier,
they invite Russian diggers to recover him.
[VO] And Russians call on Germans to recover theirs.
[VO] Diggers from various countries found common
ground long ago, unlike the world’s politicians.
[Anton] In Poland, we're seen as invaders or something, same in Latvia
[Anton] They create extra roadblocks for our work, due to some political issues
[Anton] But to me, it's all...
[Anton] All soldiers need a burial
[Anton] We don't forget that the front wasn't exclusively on our territory,
it ran through Poland, Germany, Latvia. Lithuania, where we're not allowed to dig
[Anton] There are soldiers - they showed me. But we can't recover them
[Albrecht] Everyone has their prejudice, life experience,
maybe people were exposed to some negative media influence or something
[Albrecht] But when seekers from different countries work together,
it helps to understand each other's problems, to become friends
[Albrecht] Perhaps relations like ours will help prevent history from repeating itself,
for nations to live as friends and look forward to a better future than that of those
who died and suffered on these fields 70 years ago
[Lara Indra, anthropologist, Switzerland] Here we
found the remains of a soldier, but they do not
lie in one place, but are scattered at a distance
of 2 to 3 meters. It is possible that during
the fighting this soldier was torn apart by
shells. We think that this is a German, because
nearby we found German cartridges, buttons from
a German uniform, German coins were also found.
[VO] It is extremely difficult to identify the soldiers. In the Red Army, mortal
medallions were canceled in the 42nd year.
[VO] So you can only find out the name by personal
things. However, even by them it can be difficult to determine not only the name, but
even the nationality. For example, a soldier has a German overcoat, but Soviet boots.
[Anton] Seems he has no shoes anymore. I mean probably…
[Man] They took his felt boots [Anton] Right
[Anton] The 77th Guards Rifle Division, the one that took Klessin
[Anton] Judging by the ammunition he has, 'Guards' badge, Russian shot,
and lack of gear with which the Wehrmacht usually equipped their soldiers,
it must be a Red Army soldier
[Anton] I think he will be buried next year at the war memorial in the town of Lebus,
not far from here
[Anton] All the soldiers we find here are buried there
[Anton] He's not the last
[Anton] I think there'll be many more
[GEO] ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
[Denis] Recently I found a photo album with old pictures that were taken back in 1928
[Denis] In this photo is my grandpa,
this is great-grandfather, and that's Grandpa's brother,
Evgeny Yakovlevich Osipov, captain of the sub Shch-406
[Denis] The only photo where Evgeny Yakovlevich was still at the age of 15.
[Video] Hero of the Soviet Union, captain of the 3rd rank, Evgeny Osipov, is attached
to the chest by his father, order bearer, captain of the 2nd rank, Yakov Osipov.
[VO] Denis Osipov continues the seafaring dynasty aboard the Semyon
Dezhnev, an icebreaker. Meeting the searchers has changed his life.
[Denis] A remarkable encounter. Wonderful people
[Denis] They told me about everything, showed videos of the searches
[Denis] And I asked them to let me join the team
[Konstantin] So, today Osipov comes with us
as a member of our crew
[Denis] On my first expedition, my job was to help with putting on gear,
with getting out of the water
[Denis] That's tough - you need to carry oxygen tanks
[Denis] On the second expedition, I made meals in the galley
[Mikhail] Cook's the second most-important after captain. A bit of a demotion for him
[Konstantin] He turned out to be a useful fellow
who joined the team after we had found…
his great uncle's boat
[Denis] I decided to continue looking for missing boats with the guys
[Denis] My top priority is to dive to the Shch-406 site, to see it
[Denis] So I've started taking diving lessons
[Denis] Sometimes, I'm told I push myself too hard
[Denis] I risk too much
[Denis] My record depth is only 15 metres,
but I train hard…
[Denis] I want to get there ASAP
[Denis] Especially since I'm about to turn 51
[Denis] Technical diving is a serious matter, even for younger people
[Denis] So, I'm just eager to do what I so want:
to dive to the boat and take a look at it
[GEO] Rzhev, Russia
[Arthur] Misha, repeat again what is going on with you.
[Mikhail] There is a hand, it turns out, the right one, the spine goes completely
[VO] Olkhovsky's detachment moved under Rzhev.
[VO] Local residents told the search engines that there was
a plane in the forest, they had already found the engine,
and installed it - a Soviet bomber. Shot down on August 22,
1941. There were 3 people on board. So far we've found one.
[Rostislav Olkhovsky, searcher] The Pi-2 was a dive bomber. Even he developed a speed
of up to half a thousand kilometers per hour.
With such speed, he dived into the ground.
[Rostislav] The aircraft itself consisted mainly of aluminum,
and of course the engines were made of iron. And the
engines, as the heaviest, dragged everything behind them.
Therefore, we can assume that we are almost at the bottom.
[Guys] Here is the gearbox. It had three blades.
[Guys] One is stuck, we're trying to dig it out.
[Guys] Yes, we need to pull out the gearbox, then continue
on. Goes, goes. This is a victory, friends.
[Woman] What is it? [Man] This is a gas cylinder, ordinary, oxygen. Put it how you want.
[Arthur] We know the pilot's rank - senior sergeant Tomko. We know the surname of the
gunner, we know the surname of the navigator, these are all non-commissioned officers.
[Arthur] This is the pilot, senior sergeant Tomko
Nikolai Dorofeevich. A native of the Poltava region,
and only the father and mother are indicated in
the document. I think the guy didn't get married.
[Arthur] I run everything through myself. Both of my
grandfathers are missing. And at first, when I started
to travel, my grandmother was alive and asked all the
time, “Are you going to look for your grandfather?”
I tried to explain that, well, grannies, a lot of
grandfathers died and I might find my own. Then my mother
began to reproachfully say, “Why can’t you find
yours?” Firstly, this is my inner state, yes, that is,
I see my grandfather in every soldier. For me, every
soldier, firstly, he is not killed, I talk to him,
he is wounded, I talk to him, that now we will take
you out, we will save you. I am trying to convey this
to the guys so that they understand through their
hearts, so that there is no attitude as to some kind of
earthwork, because we were brought here. Each of them
is looking for their grandfather, great-grandfather.
[Ilya Yakovlev, searcher] Rzhev, it is really personal for me. My grandfather
lies somewhere here, in these places. There are no letters, no news, not even a
notice of death or missing. That is, the person simply sunk into oblivion. I really
want to find my grandfather. It's one of those... catalysts that makes me work.
[Arthur] Back in 2000, someone asked me,
[Arthur] 'How long do you think you'll keep doing this?'
[Arthur] I said, 'I'm the father of a baby boy, 6 months
[Arthur] I really hope he won't come with me on expeditions
[Arthur] So, by the time he's…'
[Arthur] Anyway, he's 18 now, and he's been travelling with me since he was 12…
[Rostislav] Well, the first time I went, I was 12
[Rostislav] I can't say I fully got what was going on
[Rostislav] But I was curious before that as Dad kept travelling somewhere
[Rostislav] He'd return unshaven, tired, but kind. That's how it was
[Rostislav] At 12, I didn't understand anything.
[Rostislav] Now, I'm starting to understand what I do
[Rostislav] This understanding doesn't come to you at once
[Rostislav] No one explained to me that these were heroes
[Rostislav] Just being there was a great act of heroism
[Rostislav] But back then, I didn't think about it much
[Rostislav] Now it's scary when you start thinking about it
[Rostislav] When we work, we have these people's fates in our hands
[Rostislav] To miss or lose something, to stop digging too soon: that's scary
[Rostislav] Today, we have the search teams to thank that…
we can bury the remains of 109 heroes of the Second World War
[Viktoria] Back in their day, they gave their lives for us. Now I try to pay my debt…
[Anton] The search movement in Russia has more than 42,000 volunteers
who give their all and spare no effort or time, go to sites and work
[Anton] In six years, we've recovered 120,000 soldiers, but many remain
[Konstantin] They say a war's not over till its last soldier's buried
[Konstantin] I don't think the last soldier of this war will ever be buried
[Konstantin] But we have a great chance to end
the underwater war in the Baltic Sea at least
[Konstantin] Why is it important? Everyone feels an inner
need to make this find and tell relatives. That their
grandfather or father died in such and such a place, he
did not go missing, he gave his life for his homeland.
[Man] For us, the task of preventing what
happened here in the days of National Socialism
will always remain urgent. The one that brought
death and destruction here 74 years ago.
[Albrecht] In Germany, May 8th is not celebrated. This is a political
issue. Some say that this is the day of liberation, victory, others
say that this is the day of defeat. And for us, the search engines,
this is a day of mourning, on which we remember the victims of the war.
[Arthur] I normally communicate with the Germans, who cherish the
memory of our soldiers in Germany, with people who understand that
the war is terrible and there is no need for war in any case. And
when you read “We can repeat” there, what can we repeat? Fill the
country with blood? What are we ready to repeat? Or show how strong
you are? Well, you can show it differently, you throw away the
cigarette, stop drinking, raise a child worthy of a citizen. Let's
prove it this way, and not that with the words "we can repeat."
[Ilya] 27 million lives have gone nowhere, roughly speaking,
just for us to live. These 27 million, they did not just
die. We must not forget the war, if you forget, then consider
that you have already contributed to start a new war.
Artur Olkhovsky 11/13/1967 - 12/22/2019