UTVARA

Rank:

Qualifications:

Campaigns:

UTVARA's Medals:

	Order of the Red Star UTVARA was awarded the Order of the Red Star for his first aerial kill during a sortie.

	Order of the Red Banner UTVARA was awarded the Order of Red Banner for his actions in Kursk in which he destroyed 2 enemy BF109's on his first mission.

	Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class UTVARA was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War for 3 aerial kills within one persona.

UTVARA's Story:

So silent... He could smell the fresh wheat of the homeland fields, feel the soft soil underneath his bare feet and the spring wind caressing his cheek. He got goosebumps when the wind lifted his hair and it tickled his neck. And all the while, string in hand, his gaze stayed fixed to the sky...



So silent.... The only sound he could hear was the wind singing through the strings of his kite. Somehow it flew, and somehow he controlled it. And it felt wonderful. It felt just right.



Many years passed. War came. He was drafted to the 41st Guards Brigade, a rifleman of the people, not sure what that meant. But it soon became apparent when the road of his village was exchanged for mud of the battlefield, and mud became snow of a filthy and frozen endless trench far away from home. He was cold, his helmet was heavy, all the faces around him were strangers standing in the places of his friends who had fallen. His rifle was also a stranger, still not doing what it was supposed to. He was no hero.



And then it happened. The spring wind came silently, unannounced, touched his cheek as it used to when he was a child, melting the frost on his cheeks and newly grown whiskers, ripping him from the present and taking him way back to the comfort of the familiar time in his past. The spring wind came, and with it came the roar! Look at it fly! His gaze was fixed to the sky. He started, surprised and excited, exchanging the soft singing of the kite string from the childhood past with this new beautiful roar, and again, it felt wonderful, it felt just right.



The same biplane he saw on that early spring day became his not more than two months from then, when he joined VVS 69th Gv.IAP regiment. They called it Chaika, but he called it the Moth. It was old, it was beat down and rusty, and it was beautiful.

He pulled his leather cap over his forehead. It was crude and itching, but it gave him an unexpected surge of confidence. He tossed a silk scarf around his neck and let it dance behind him to the wash of the spinning propeller. Mother sent him the silk scarf, and it came with many letters. He didn't read them, better that way. He promised himself he'll read them once the war is done, and that meant he will, he WILL survive.



„Chocks!“ - he yelled to the crewman. The Moth started to roll. They've had many training sorties together, but this one's for real, this one's the first. „I'll take care of you“, said Ivan 'Utvara' Zhezhembayev, „just bring me back home“.