This article is a heartfelt ode to the resilience and fortitude of Russian women, whose contributions have been pivotal yet often overlooked. It’s a narrative that weaves through personal stories and historical events, shedding light on the silent endurance that has shaped a nation.

A woman of any nationality or ethnicity first and foremost deserves deep respect, if only because she performs the most important event on our sinful earth. She gives birth to a person. She creates the future. For this alone, we men are obliged to carry a woman in our arms, to cherish and protect her. I’m not even talking about what else a woman does. She feeds us from the very first minute of our appearance in the world until the end of her days. She stays awake at night and guards our sleep, our health, our peace. She creates comfort and beauty at home. A woman makes knights, men out of us. For women, we strive to become better, braver, more noble. Much more can be said about what a woman means to humanity, but there simply isn’t enough time for that. And this applies to all women of any nationality and any country. But now I want to talk about the Russian woman, and there is no nationalism or chauvinism here. Because firstly, I am Ossetian and I do not think that my mother was worse than women of other nationalities, my wife is Georgian. I can only say that the life of both Ossetian and Georgian women is not easy and not simple. My wife has been through fire and water and the copper pipes with me. I will only stop at one example from my wife’s life. In 1966, I was transferred from Baku to Tiksi for service. It is the southern shore, but of the Arctic Ocean. Three children, the youngest 3 months old. She takes them in her arms and, without warning me, flies to Tiksi. And at that time, I was putting the company on combat duty, no, not in Thailand, on the island of Kotelny, somewhere at the 75th latitude, the center of the Arctic Ocean. Frankly, not every Frenchwoman would have dared to take such a step. But by that time, she had already become a Russian woman, as she was married to an Ossetian but to a Russian officer.

I want to talk about the Russian woman because the fate of the Russian woman is the fate of the Russian people. The Russian people have played a decisive role in the fates of the peoples historically associated with it.

Much has been written about the Russian woman, and very beautifully. Personally, it was reading Russian literature that shaped my perception of the Russian woman. It was Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Leskov, of course, Gorky, and others who created in my consciousness the most beautiful image of the Russian woman. The fact is that I lived in Tbilisi until I was 20 years old and I rarely came into contact with Russians. It was when I, as a cadet of the Odessa anti-aircraft artillery school, on vacation from Tbilisi, stole my wife \to be fair, it must be said that she herself longed for me to steal her\ and brought her to Odessa, having neither money nor an apartment nor anything at all, that we with my wife felt the most genuine friendly help from Russian women. It was very hard for my wife. As a second-year cadet, I received 7 rubles 50 kopecks. For the coal, which a comrade gave up to us, we had to pay 10 rubles. My wife did not know the Russian language, had no profession, and we had to live. Russian women arranged for her to work at a sewing factory, befriended her, and provided her with the most genuine support. I graduated from the school and was sent to the Baku Air Defense District. It was such a godforsaken district. We lost our son there. Kyurdamir, in the summer the heat is up to 50 degrees in the shade. Mosquitoes, gnats, snakes crawled into our Finnish houses. I don’t know which Englishwoman or German woman would have endured such wild conditions, but the Russian woman was next to her husband and helped him withstand these inhuman conditions and maintain high combat readiness of the units and subdivisions. And again, Russian women provided support and help to my wife. We were able to withstand these conditions largely thanks to the officers’ wives, and they were usually Russian. They even organized amateur activities that somehow made our life more interesting and helped us survive. So our life with my wife turned out that we communicated with Russian women in military towns, garrisons, as with officers’ wives. And to be an officer’s wife, my friends, is not a task for the faint-hearted. And Russian women followed their husbands to hell and back. Let’s remember the wives of the Decembrists. And when I saw in Tiksi how the officers’ wives lived, I thought that probably the wives of the Decembrists had it a bit easier. I arrived in Tiksi in July 1966. I see from the airplane window the Laptev Sea, huge chunks of ice floating. The air temperature is around zero. I introduced myself to the authorities. They gave me an 8 sq m room for two. Barracks, down the middle corridor. The barracks are wooden. On both sides of the corridor are 8 sq m rooms. Naturally, the conveniences are both in winter \40 degrees of frost, 40 meters per second, polar night\ and in summer on the street. I have been to these conveniences. To say it’s scary is an understatement. Common kitchen. 20 primus stoves, around the circle stand 20 women huddled together and cook lunch for the valiant defenders of the country’s air borders. And yet, American bombers with nuclear warheads flew! Water is brought in, rather carried in. That is, a truck brought chunks of ice, which were cut somewhere in a freshwater lake. Women put these chunks in their barrels, and there the chunks melted. That’s the water. Tell me, which woman would agree to live in these hellish conditions? I’m not even talking about the polar night from November to April, about blizzards, about the fact that summer is only 2 months with temperatures of minus 2 plus 2, the rest is winter! Tiksi is still the tropics compared to what I saw on the islands of Kegel and Kotelny. These islands are part of the Novosibirsk Archipelago. I had to sit on these islands for months. We had radio-technical companies there. A company of about 7-8 officers and about 50 soldiers. The island, all around the Arctic Ocean. Soldiers’ barracks, officers’ barracks. Combat equipment. In winter, you can’t go outside, you won’t return, blizzard, polar night. In summer, such slush, everything sticks to the shoes. It’s very difficult to walk. I will not talk about the conveniences. So the officers’ wives and children walk in the semi-dark corridor, illuminated by a dim light bulb. I had to eat such “delicacies” as dried potatoes, dried onions, dried carrots, and everything in that spirit. No radio, no television, nothing. What would have happened to the officer if there had not been a loving, tender, caring wife nearby? One can only imagine! But they were there, they were nearby. They could not have been there. They were not obliged to be there. No one would have reproached them for not going there. But they were there. That’s the kind of Russian woman there is. I met Russian women in Krasnoyarsk, where I was transferred from the Arctic to the position of head of the political department of the regiment. The regiment has 9 divisions. Divisions in the deep Taiga. Wooden officers’ houses. The frost reaches 55 degrees. Water is brought in. Schools, shops are 40-50 km away. No work for the officers’ wives. I come to the division, gather the women, what questions? An officer’s wife says she’s a doctor, but there’s no work in the division. The next one says she’s a teacher, but there’s no work. And so in every division. They could, and probably even had the right, to go to the city, to their father, mother, and get a job. No, they were in the taiga, next to their husbands, and with their presence supported the husbands so that the husbands ensured the clear sky over our Motherland. Well, tell me how not to admire the Russian woman. And I don’t have to go far.

My own daughter lived for almost 4 years on the Kuril Islands, on Shikotan, on Iturup, islands that the Japanese want to take back, alongside her husband, an air defense officer. And the little children were with us and with the husband’s parents. My daughter took an example from her Russified mother. Time passed, and I was transferred to Klin, to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense. In 1973, I was moved to Naro-Fominsk as the head of the political department of the separate anti-missile center, and here the situation was different. The living conditions, for those times, were wonderful for an air defense officer, even beyond his wildest dreams. A closed town. A house of culture, a school, a kindergarten, shops of all kinds, a post office, in short, everything needed for a normal life. But there were other difficulties here. The town was 20 km from the district center, with up to 2,000 women, officers’ wives, warrant officers, and there was not enough work in the military town for all the women, which caused certain tensions. Of course, this was felt, and something had to be done. There were several women’s councils in the unit. We gathered and decided to organize amateur artistic activities, fortunately, we had a music school and there were music teachers. I am grateful to those women all my life. We organized excellent amateur performances. I can say without exaggeration, we always took prize places at competitions. And so, the amateur activities to a certain extent relieved the tension. People were busy with work. Even now, before my eyes stand my wonderful, beautiful, graceful, full of inner nobility and a sense of self-worth, Russian women.

In conclusion, I would like to say that men wrongly claim Victory Day for themselves. The German general Guderian, in his memoirs, writes that if the Russians had not had Russian women, the Russians would not have won. Although he was a fascist, I agree with Guderian in this case. Unfortunately, what struck me was that the Russian woman lacks the attention she deserves. A woman can forgive everything, but she will never forgive inattention to herself. Therefore, dear men, you need to be attentive to a woman not only on March 8 but always. They are worthy of it.

                                                                               Chigoev Sh. A.