There is not a single family in Russia that has not been affected by the Great Patriotic War. Many families still keep written evidence of those terrible and heroic years — from front to front; from an adult to a child. And vice versa. Today we should remember it.

Hello, Dad! I dreamed of you again, but this time you were not at war.

In difficult battlefield conditions, it was hard to keep correspondence. Consequently, less letters from the home front were preserved, but there are more treasured front-line triangles, sent home by soldiers. However, those children's letters that have reached our time, amaze with their calm courage of their young authors.

One of the clearest examples of this is the letter by pioneer Dina from Bashkiriya to her father Ghani Bikbov to the battlefield:

"Dad, we're studying well. When a letter comes from you, we are happy. We read it with Mom. Then at school. Kids listen to it. Some kids don't get letters anymore. Their dads are dead.

Mom works hard. Not only at school.

Our city sends oil to the front line.

The teacher demands: study brilliantly and well. If I get good marks, it means a bullet for the enemy.

Boys don't believe in it. I believe. The teacher praises me."

From the letters of their sons and daughters, parents who went to the battlefield learned that their children endured privations with adults equally. They did it with stoic dignity, just like a 14-year-old boy Fyodor from besieged Leningrad:

"Dear Вad! I don't go to school anymore, I work at a factory. We have a lot of guys in the shop, we learn to work on machines. Our master, Dyadya (lit. "uncle") Sasha, says that our work will help to defend Leningrad from the damned fascists. Mom works, too, but in another shop, where they make mines.

Dear Dad!

I'm hungry all the time, and Mom's hungry all the time. They give little bread now, there is almost no meat and butter.

Dear Dad! Beat the fascists!

Your son, factory worker № 5

Fyodor Byk

Children did not only work for the victory at the factories, but also sought to fight the enemy. That's what 16-year-old Albert wrote to his father Leonid Boyarov from Omsk to wish him Happy 1943 New Year:

"Dad, happy New Year.

Smash the Nazis, so that Hitler's army no longer exists on the globe.

Dad, you know about my adventures. I visited the Far East, I wanted to get into the sea crew as a volunteer. They did not take me. They told me to grow up a year more. You are young, we do not take guys, born in 1928... Dad, I still want to write one more letter to the captain of the crew to take me. I want to the battlefield. And I beg you: write him a letter with a request."

Then, Albert Boyarov did not get to the front line. But later he became a personnel military, served the Motherland with dignity, was awarded many state decorations.

Fog, fog, gray veil. Far, far beyond the mists is the war.

Children of the Great Patriotic War sent their letters not only to their relatives and friends, but also important people became addressees for them. That is what students of railway school № 26 wrote to their teacher, Alexander Benevolensky, who defended Stalingrad.

"When you, dear Alexander Konstantinovich, without sparing the life, protect each meter of the Soviet territory, we swear to study well and brilliantly, to be disciplined, to help the front line.

Only you, dear defenders of the Motherland, can destroy the enemy, hated by the whole Soviet people."

The teacher answered them:

"Hello, my dear and forever beloved children! An hour ago, I remembered the results of the battles, my relatives and beloved ones in the dugout combat. The door opened and the postman filled the dugout with cold air. He gave me a letter with children's handwriting, excited, I opened the envelope. My comrades asked me to read your letter aloud, which I did.…

Your kind words, your wishes are very dear to us. They keep us warm.

It has been four months since me and my friends have been at the battlefield. We arrived here on the days when the enemy, gathering all his forces, tried to capture the city (с) the Enemy spared nothing. But we were able to fullfill Stalin's order and the command of the Motherland: "Not a step Back!" Remember, guys, every dog has its day and every man has his hour".

This correspondence stopped in May 1943. Alexander Benevolensky, a school teacher, died in the battles near Kharkov.

At schools, pioneer circles, in Komsomol communities and even kindergartens appeared a tradition: children sat down in a circle, and wrote letters to the front line with the same address: "Operating army. To unfamiliar fighter." Since August 1941, a lot of letters and parcels with such an address, written in a child's handwriting, had been sent to the post offices of the whole country.

In their letters, Soviet children thanked and supported unfamiliar men and women who protected them. They also asked adults to come home....

There are many letters like that. Here is one example of that time: the correspondence of children from the House of pioneers of the city of Salsk, Rostov region with soldiers of the 1st Belarussian front. One soldier asked for permission to come to the pioneers after the War in his letter. It turned out that during the War he lost his entire family, and he had nobody to write to. This friendship lasted for quite a long time, and then it stopped, because the soldier died.

We can`t forget these roads

Following the tradition of those times, today's students write letters to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Here is what a boy wrote to his long dead great-grandfather:

I`m writing you to the front line from the future, from the 21st century. I understand that you are going through many things: a bloody fight after fight when it is freezing cold. I do not know what "severe frost" is, we have warm winters now…

But you be strong, Grandpa, be strong and hold on! The main thing is to believe in victory, the Red Army will make the fascist rats come back to Berlin.

And a beautiful day will come, the Victory Day! You will return to the Motherland, you will smile your bright smile and say: "Here I am home!" And everyone will cry with happiness, and your little daughter most of all, my Grandmother, because she will see you for the first time in five years.

I'm fine, Grandpa. I understand that my happiness was brought by you and those who were close to you – grandparents of my friends. I'm told I'm a lot like you. I am going to try to be like you! Just be strong, Grandpa, be strong and hold on!»

Let us remember the Victory Day.

Tell us if you have any letters in your family from those times.