Vasily Prokhorovich Bukhtiyarov

Vasily Prokhorovich Bukhtiyarov was born in December 1911 in the village of Foshnya in Maloarkhangelsk uyezd of Oryol governorate, now in Kolpny district of Oryol region, into a peasant family; ru.wikipedia and the list of Heroes give 29 December, warheroes.ru 28 December. As a child he moved to Donetsk region in Ukraine. He did his regular service in the Red Army in 1933–35. In 1939 he graduated from the Rutchenkovo mining technical school and worked as a shift foreman at mine no. 31 of the Rutchenkovugol trust; that year he joined the Communist Party. He was called up again in August 1941 and was at the front from then on. In June 1944 Lieutenant Bukhtiyarov commanded a battery of the 1238th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, 21st Army, Leningrad Front, in the breakthrough of the fortified lines on the Karelian Isthmus and the storming of Viipuri (Vyborg). Between 14 and 26 June 1944 his battery destroyed about 60 enemy firing points, and with his own self-propelled gun he knocked out four enemy tanks. Warheroes.ru adds an account of an ambush set by a group under his command — two tanks, five self-propelled guns and a platoon of submachine-gunners — against a German tank column; that account is narrative and is not repeated here in detail. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 24 March 1945, Lieutenant Vasily Prokhorovich Bukhtiyarov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star no. 7249. He also held the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War 2nd class. In 1945 he went into the reserve as a senior lieutenant and was later given the rank of captain. From 1945 to 1967 he worked in a corrective labour institution, and from 1967 as a fire inspector in Torez, Donetsk region. He died on 15 November 1984 and is buried in Torez. A bust stands in Kolpny, Oryol region, and a memorial museum in his name has existed since 1987 at the Spektr lyceum in Torez.