USTU Ukhtinets Search Party Came Back from Memory Watch Campaign – 2014

Ninth season of field expeditions of Ukhtinets search party is finished: on May 6 searchers of Ukhta State Technical University, twelve students and their team leader, Associate Professor at the Department of History and Culture, Vladimir Nikolayevich Bublichenko, returned from Memory Watch.

Spring expedition in 2014 took place near the Lebyazhe village of Voronezh region, where Ukhtinets arrived at the invitation of the Voronezh regional public organization Historical and Patriotic Search Association "Don". During the war, there were fierce battles of 40th and 60th Army of the Voronezh Front under the command of General N.F. Vatutin, and of 23rd Air Army.

In the first half of the Watch, Ukhtinets team together with the members of the Don Association and search party from Ulyanovsk carried out lifting of the plane shot down during the war. It did not remain uncorrupted, but judging by the artifacts found and according to the expert, Valery Petrovich Chernyshev, it was a Pe-2 plane. During the war, the Soviet Union produced about 12,000 such planes. Found engine component with a number could be the key to information about the composition of the crew and their destiny. Searchers’ findings indicate that the plane burned during the fall. The crew either escaped, leaving the burning plane with parachutes (which is the most likely), or burned in an airplane.

Later, another plane was found, and Ukhta searchers participated in its lifting.

The second half of Watch was devoted to exhumation of the fallen Soviet soldiers. Information obtained by a member of Ukhtinets search party, Andrey Gorbach from one of the locals after investigation, conducted by searchers of Don Historical and Patriotic Search Association, allowed to find a fraternal burial of Soviet soldiers near the center of the Lebyazhe village. Remains were lifted by joint efforts of Ukhtinets, Don and Dimitrovgrad searchers.

According to V.N. Bublichenko, Watch was very difficult: "The guys worked to the max, especially when lifting the aircraft when the ground was cleared on an area of ​​about 25 square meters – humus and clay." The team leader also noted that exploratory work is a collective work and interaction between units has given with good results: "We had much to learn from the local guys, and vice versa."

Finishing Watch, Ukhtinets members visited the museum of Voronezh regional public organization Historical and Patriotic Search Association "Don", where they were given a tour by leader of the association, Mikhail Mikhaylovich Segodin.