Ekaterina Illarionovna
Dyomina
1923-2019
Ekaterina Illarionovna Dyomina was a legendary scout, the Hero of the Soviet Union. Ekaterina Dyomina (her surname was Mikhailova) was born on 22 December, 1925 in Leningrad. Her father was a military man, her mother worked as a doctor. Having lost both parents at an early age, the girl was brought up in an orphanage. In 1941, she completed nine grades and nursing courses of the Russian Red Cross Society. She was a participant of the Great Patriotic War since 1941 and joined the Red Army in June 1941. As her identity and age documents (such as her Komsomol card) remained in besieged Leningrad, she added two more years to her 15 years of age. She was nominated for the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union twice, in August and December 1944, but was awarded it only by the Decree of the President of the USSR of 5 May, 1990, with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal (№ 11 608). In 1950 she graduated from Leningrad Sanitary-Hygienic Institute named after Mechnikov. She worked as a doctor in Elektrostal, the Moscow region, where she got married and took on her husband’s surname, Dyomina. From 1976 until her retirement in 1986, she worked in Moscow and lived there. She was a member of the Russian Committee of War Veterans and the All-Russian Council of War and Labour Veterans. In 1964 the director Viktor Lisakovich made a documentary film “Katyusha” (based on a script by Sergei Smirnov) about Ekaterina Dyomina. The film was awarded the Golden Dove of Peace prize at the Leipzig International Film Festival. In 2008 a documentary film “Katyusha Big and Small” was made. There is a memorial plaque on the house where Ekaterina Dyomina lived.
Address: Moscow, Kulakova str., 27
