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Yuri
Vasilyevich Grunin

Latvia • born in 1921

In 1937-1941 he studied at the Kazan art school, to graduate did not — the school was closed in connection with the beginning of the great Patriotic war. Yuri Grunin was drafted into the army, first battalion, then the operating forces in the North-Western front.

In may 1942 he was wounded in battle and picked up on the battlefield by the stormtroopers of the SS division "Dead head". Three years (from may 1942 through may 1945) held in captivity, in a front pow camps on occupied by Nazis territories of Novgorod, Pskov regions, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany. Participated in the underground Komsomol organization of the Soviet prisoners of war, which arranged shoots, hid the commanders and Communists, were executed traitors.

Among the other 165 000 prisoners of war Grunin worked on the construction of roads in the Organization Todt, equivalent to army units of the Wehrmacht, for which he was subsequently convicted.

In may 1945 the pow camp passed into the hands of British troops. The British offered all the internees of the Soviet prisoners of war service in the British army and citizenship, predicted them sent to Siberian camps in the Homeland. Grunin was among those who refuse.

He returned to the Soviet Army, he served in the Soviet zone of occupation of Berlin, but was soon arrested. Ten years left in the Gulag: first, on logging in Collage (Northern Ural), then to Steplag (Kazakhstan). Was a witness and participant of the Kengir uprising of 1954.

Since 1955, Yuri Grunin lives in the Kazakh city of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan 1993), participated in the construction of Zhezkazgan, first as a worker is a prisoner, then as an architect. Grunin — artist, author of wooden sculptures and illustrations for his own works. Married, he has children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Poems have been published in the magazines "New world", "Siberian lights", "October", "Spark", "Soviet woman", "Volga", "rainbow", "Space", "field", "Word", "Andrew", "the Golden age" anthologies "Pathfinder Central Asia", "Day of poetry of 1989", as well as in periodicals Bulgaria, Austria, East Germany.

His poem included in the collection "Among other names" ISBN 5-239-00920-1 ("Moscow worker", 1990) and the anthology of Russian poetry of XX century "Stanzas of the century" ISBN 5-89356-006-X ("Polyfact", 1999, compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko).

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