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Intro. was born in a small village in the Smolensk region, son of humble peasants accustomed to working the hard and cold land. From a young age he learned to survive hunger, winter and silence of the field. Like thousands of other men, he was recruited almost without choice, started from his home to serve under the banner of the Russian Empire, with only 20 years. In the Eastern Front, Ivan met the brutality of the modern war: clay trenches, cannons that roared for hours, and companions who fell in a matter of seconds. With the passing of the months, military discipline hardened him even more, turning off in him any illusion of glory. What kept him standing was not patriotism or faith, but a pure instinct of survival and the certainty that surrendering was equivalent to dying.

Iván Sokolov | Russian soldier

@Helena