History of Tyumen streets.

She was born into a poor Lithuanian and Russian family as the second child of five children. She was baptized in the Catholic Church. At the age of fourteen she began working at the Avanti candy factory.

In the summer of 1941, when the Wehrmacht forces entered Lithuania, Marite was evacuated with other Lithuanian Komsomol members to Tyumen, where she worked at the Mechanic plant. In 1942 she went to the front.

She was trained at the saboteur school in Balakhna and fought in a partisan detachment in Belarus and Lithuania. The partisans derailed enemy trains with military equipment, blew up warehouses, raided enemy garrisons, and burned estates and farms captured by Nazi colonists. Marite was the most active fighter in the squad. She took part in sabotage, went on reconnaissance missions, and did a lot of work among the residents.

In the summer of 1943, Marite was sent to lead a group of partisans to carry out an important task. In the forest, the partisans came across a punitive detachment. During an unequal battle with the Germans on the shores of Lake Opivardo, Marite was wounded and captured. She did not reveal the location of the partisans, despite the painful torture: tearing out her nails, burning her soles with fire, etc. She was executed by hanging on July 13, 1943 in the square of the village of Dukstas.

For exemplary performance of combat missions of the command behind enemy lines, M. I. Melnikaite was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944.

Awards

• For exemplary performance of combat missions of command behind enemy lines, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated March 22, 1944, Maria Iozovna Melnikaite was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Memory

• Streets in Minsk, Tyumen and Shymkent are named after the heroine. The streets that bore her name in Lithuanian cities were renamed after the restoration of independence. A monument was erected in Zarasai in 1955 (sculptor Juozas Mikenas; currently located in Grutas Park).
• At the Mosfilm studio in 1947, with the participation of Lithuanian actors, director V. P. Stroeva shot the feature film “Marite” based on the script by F. F. Knorre, in which Donatas Banionis made his debut in a small role.
• In 1953, the opera “Marite” by Antanas Raciunas was staged at the Lithuanian Opera and Ballet Theater.

In 1958, architects designed a new avenue in Tyumen. The question arose, what to call it? The City Council decides to name the street after Hero of the Soviet Union Marita Melnikayte.

Marite Iouzovna was born on March 18, 1923 in the city of Zarasai into a poor blacksmith’s family. She had to leave school because she did not have enough money to live. The girl began to work for hire. In 1940, Lithuania became part of the USSR, and from that moment Melnikaite’s fate changed. Marite, who differed from her peers in her strong, strong-willed character, became an active Komsomol member. But the war began. Germany occupied Lithuania. Fleeing from fascist captivity, many civilians were evacuated to the deep rear of Russia. This is how Marite ended up in Tyumen.

She worked on a collective farm, in logging, and as a turner at the Mekhanik plant. In 1942, Marite wrote a statement to the military registration and enlistment office: “I want to take revenge on the enemy with my own hands, to take revenge for all the suffering that he caused to my beloved Motherland.” The request of the Lithuanian Komsomol member was granted and she was sent to courses at the intelligence department of the headquarters of the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division. After their completion in May 1943, Melnikayte and a group of comrades were thrown behind enemy lines.

Marite organized an underground Komsomol organization in Zarasai district and participated in the fighting of the Kestutis partisan detachment. The fragile 18-year-old girl was distinguished by her courage and resourcefulness. She participated in many military operations: mining the railway, setting fire to Nazi military warehouses. The punishers promised 200 thousand marks for the head of the elusive Komsomol member, but no one from the local population gave her up.

The Nazis were hunting for the fearless partisan, and one of the operations to undermine the enemy train became fatal for her. In an unequal battle, Marite lost her fighters and was caught by the police. The Nazis mocked her for five days, but did not hear her pleas for mercy. In 1943, Melnikayte was shot. She was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on March 22, 1944.

Many Tyumen residents, especially the older generation, know about the Lithuanian girl’s feat. In Soviet times, almost every school had museums dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, and meetings with veterans were organized.

Old-timers say that in 1943, when they learned about Melnikaite’s death, Tyumen residents specially came to look at the house in which she lived. It stood on the corner of Profsoyuznaya and Khokhryakova streets; during the war it housed a dormitory. In the 70s the house fell into disrepair and was demolished.

In Tyumen, several memorial signs have been erected to the brave partisan Marita. First of all, this is a high relief on the corner of Melnikaite and Republic (sculptor Gennady Vostretsov, architect Valery Ginkul). The name of the heroine is also immortalized on a stele in the park on Stankostroiteley Street, 1. There was also a memorial plaque, but... as they explained to me at the former entrance of the plant, “the machine tool manufacturer moved out of town and took the plaque with him.”

After the collapse of the USSR, the Nazis in Lithuania give a completely different interpretation of events: “Melnikaite created a gang that was particularly brutal: people’s eyes were gouged out, their bodies were mutilated... Finally, the Gestapo managed to catch and execute the gang leader.” In the city of Zarasai, the monument to Melnikaite was destroyed. The Nazis desecrated the name of the Hero of the Soviet Union and mocked the history associated with the Great Patriotic War. In the Soviet years, in the heroine’s homeland, for some reason tourists were not told that Marita was evacuated to Tyumen. But here the name of the brave girl lives in the name of the street, and she will not be erased from history.

On March 18, 1923, exactly 95 years ago, in bourgeois Lithuania, which had recently gained independence from the Russian Empire, a girl was born into a poor peasant family. She was baptized in the Catholic Church - for Lithuania was a traditionally Catholic country. And they called her Marite, or in our opinion, Maria. March 18 is the birthday of the Hero of the Soviet Union, partisan Marite Iozovna Melnikaite.

Marite Iozovna Melnikaite, Hero of the Soviet Union

When today they talk about the Baltic states in World War II, they usually remember the Baltic SS legions, which became famous for their atrocities no less than the Ukrainian Banderaites. And they often forget that there were other Balts who did not at all strive for German occupation and did not consider the Russians a “non-historical race” that deserved only extermination. Each nation of the former USSR had its heroes. One of those who, without exaggeration, saved the honor of the Lithuanian nation for world history was this girl, who was barely 20 years old.

However, Marite Melnikaite was from a mixed family. Father is Litvin, mother is Russian. Obviously, peace and harmony reigned in the family, despite the difference in national and religious traditions. Marite herself, through her Catholic baptism, received a typically Lithuanian upbringing and, as we will see later, considered herself a Lithuanian. The family lived poorly, so at the age of 14, young Marite was forced to work - she got a job at a confectionery factory with the euphonious, but completely non-Lithuanian name "Avanti".

In 1940, the Republic of Lithuania became part of the USSR. Today in Lithuania it is generally accepted that the USSR occupied this small but proud Baltic country. And then, at the end of the 1930s, communist ideas were very popular in Europe, and they did not bypass bourgeois Lithuania. So many Lithuanians greeted its annexation with “the world’s first state of workers and peasants” with enthusiasm. Among them was the poor peasant family of Iozas Melnikas, Marite's father.

In 1941, the Great Patriotic War broke out. The territory of the Lithuanian SSR was subjected to Nazi occupation. By this time, Marite had managed to join the Komsomol, so inevitable death awaited her under the occupiers. I don’t know whether the parents went overboard, or whether the Soviet authorities retreating from Lithuania evacuated the pro-Soviet element, but one way or another, Marite ended up in Tyumen. There she got two jobs at once - as a turner's apprentice at the Mekhanik machine-tool plant and as a packer at a local confectionery factory - packing chocolate for flight rations. The work, of course, was necessary for the front, one or the other, but the girl’s soul yearned for her homeland. I wanted to do something more meaningful, something that would directly cause damage to the treacherous invaders. She turns to the military registration and enlistment office with a request to accept her into the army as a volunteer.

The girl is sent to the Gorky region, where the formation of the Baltic divisions is in full swing. Yes Yes, national Baltic divisions - Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian. The soldiers of these divisions were required to be of the “titular” nationality, and the officers were required to know the language of this nationality. The national Baltic divisions were called upon not only to liberate their republics from Nazi occupation, but also, by the very fact of their existence, to put an end to Hitler’s propaganda that the USSR treated the Baltic states as a colony. But looking at young Marite, the command decided that she would be much more useful behind enemy lines than in the ranks. In the ranks, brute male strength is required. And behind enemy lines, a fragile girl with a twinkle in her eyes is both an excellent agitator and an irreplaceable intelligence officer, whom few would suspect of connections with the Soviet command. So the young Lithuanian ended up in Balakhna, where one of the many Soviet intelligence schools was stationed.

Marite Melnikaite - partisan.

Marite underwent an accelerated training course and was thrown behind enemy lines. Since May 1943, she has been the secretary of the underground Zarasai district committee of the Lithuanian Komsomol, and at the same time a fighter in the partisan detachment named after Kestutis (Grand Duke of Lithuania Keistut). The detachment acted as heroes not only on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR, but also in neighboring Belarus, derailing trains, blowing up warehouses, and smashing the rear garrisons of the occupiers. In Lithuania and Belarus, the Germans tried to establish themselves as masters, seizing farms and entire estates for themselves. It ended with a “red rooster” for them - the Keistutites did not sleep. Marite, as expected at the headquarters of the partisan movement, not only personally participated in sabotage and went on reconnaissance missions, but also conducted propaganda work among the population. They listened to her - a local native, Lithuanian by nationality and a staunch patriot of her native Lithuania, she was convincing to the Lithuanian peasants, especially since she believed in every word she said. Marite used the call signs "Ona Kuosaite" and "Marite Margite".

In the summer of 1943, Marite Melnikaite and a group of comrades-in-arms took part in undermining an enemy train near the village of Dukstas. During the retreat, on July 8, 1943, on the shore of Lake Apvardu, a small detachment (five more partisans walked with Marite) ran into punitive forces and was forced to take on an unequal battle. Only one of the partisans managed to escape. Two were killed. But the partisan DRG fought off the punitive forces all day long. Marite fired until the last bullet. Seven punishers died at her hands. When the cartridges ran out, Marite threw a grenade at the enemies. The second brave girl wanted to blow up with herself when the enemies surrounded her. But the wounded partisan’s strength failed. The German officer managed to snatch the grenade from her weakening hands.

Together with Marite, two wounded men were captured by the Nazis. They were immediately finished off, with no hope of “splitting”. And the girl was sent to the Gestapo. She was tortured for five days: her nails were pulled out, her heels were burned with fire. Marite not only did not give away the location of the detachment, but even slapped one of the punishers in the face with the words: “You are squalor, you only know how to torture!” Desperate to get information from her, the occupiers sentenced the girl to death.

When she was taken out for execution, it was scary to look at her. Having turned grey, she looked like an old woman. Marita stood all bloody, her legs were burned, her face was bruised. As they say, what holds the soul together. When the German officer read out the verdict, the quiet square heard a clear girlish voice speaking in pure Lithuanian: “Why did you come here?! What are you doing in our Lithuania, fascist dogs?! Long live Soviet Lithuania!” The line burst out, ending the life of the glorious daughter of the Lithuanian people.

In 1944, Marita Melnikaite was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for her exemplary performance of tasks behind enemy lines.

Monument to Marita Melnikaite on the street named after her

Today, streets in Tyumen, Minsk, Almaty and Chimkent are named after Marita Melnikaite. In Tyumen, where Marite lived and worked during evacuation, a high relief monument was erected in honor of the heroine on the corner of Melnikaite and Respubliki streets. In 1947, the feature film “Marite” was shot at Mosfilm, dedicated to Melnikaite and her feat. An opera by the Lithuanian composer A. Raciunas is also dedicated to Marita Melnikaite.

But in modern Lithuania they tried to forget about Marita Melnikaite. Today, in our once Baltic republics, the SS executioners are honored, and we are considered the occupiers. Well, if Lithuania does not want to remember its own heroes, all the more must we take care of their memory so that this memory does not disappear altogether.

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About Marita Melnikaite:
1) On Wikipedia.
2) on the website "Heroes of the Country"
3) on the website "Immortal Regiment of Russia"