Bochkin Andrey Efimovich hydraulic engineer. Soviet engineers

People do not live by bread alone. They, like their daily bread, need good books, taking songs for the soul, sonorous poems, music, from which the human heart in itself either cries or laughs. They cannot do without the light of someone with the glory of a life lived, touching which they suddenly comprehend such a simple and at the same time wise truth: everyone receives from life what he himself has invested in it. Until recently, an amazing human fate unfolded next to us, not easy, not easy, for which there was more than enough happiness, and sorrows, and responsibility, and hardships, through which it fell to experience the greatest of joys: to fulfill your dream.

Many still remember that finest hour of Bochkin's life, when in the cold plywood house of the ceiling headquarters, where very famous writers, poets, journalists, foreign correspondents from all over the world gathered and listened to his every word, when hundreds of glances were riveted to his tired massive face, inflamed eyes reddened from insomnia. Many newspapers then wrote about this, and Boris Polevoy accurately noted that another would have appeared at his peak, maybe in a different way, because he knew what this press conference would be like, and he always, on any day and hour, was first of all himself, therefore, going up to the table, he threw off his overcoat and remained in a simple, warm, tartan checkered shirt. I hated ties all my life. And in general, he held all this famous, one can safely say, historical press conference as an ordinary working meeting, casually, without pathos, except that the usual deafness disappeared in his voice, and the further the gray eyes acquired a shade of steel. And they listened, afraid not to hear at least one of his words:

Yes, the Yenisei is the most abundant of our rivers ...

The height of the dam is one hundred and twenty meters ...

It will be the largest power plant in the world. Its design capacity is five million kilowatts. (During the construction process, he will do his best, and state commission this energy giant will be commissioned for six million kilowatts - three times more powerful than the largest hydroelectric power station abroad.)

No, there is no such power on earth yet. Yes, so far only with us ... Probably, only the socialist system can do this.

Our first power plant on the Volkhov was fifty-six thousand kilowatts. Now one unit will be five hundred thousand. So here we go. We walk well.

Comrades and gentlemen! I ask you to write down by all means that this is only the first stage of the Yenisei cascade. And Ennsey next to the Angara is like a tiger with a kitten.

Bochkin's word. At a working planning meeting, at a meeting with experiments, in a thundering pit, at a rally in honor of the overlap, at a press conference, it sounded accurate, weighty, truthful and original.

How will this overlap differ from those that have already been in our country? - the correspondent of "Humanite" asked a question.

The fact that for the first time in the practice of hydraulic engineering we carry out it in the winter. Now is just the time when the rivers that feed the Yenisei have dried up. He froze to the bottom and dozes off. Soon he will wake up, but in the morning - the most sound sleep. So we chose this time for overlapping.

Is there any risk? asked the Daily Worker correspondent.

According to our calculations, there is no risk, - Bochkin answered confidently and calmly.

And what will be the biggest sensation on this overlap? - Correspondents were not appeased.

The biggest sensation will be that there will be no sensations. Everything is calculated, and everything is provided for.

Instead of the three days envisaged by the plan, the day before it was decided: to curb the giant in ten hours. Yes, in ten hours to do what they have dreamed of for centuries.

Is Bochkin's fate exceptional? I think no. Rather, it is typical for our country and our time. To learn its main milestones is not only interesting, but also important, because they contain more than one secret of human capabilities.

Andrei Efimovich Bochkin was born in 1906 in the village of Ievlevo, Tver province - now the Kalinin region. He graduated from a parochial school, later completed his studies in another volost, about twenty miles from home. The students themselves heated the school, cleaned and washed it, brought a loaf of five pounds worth of bread from home for a week, and almost everyone got the rest of their food themselves - with fishing rods and nets in rivers and lakes, snares, and even with a gun in the forests. They read avidly by the light of a kerosene lamp Pushkin, Nekrasov, Leo Tolstoy - him with an eye on the "father". They lived in an atmosphere, as I recalled later, of an amazing spiritual upsurge. But it turned out that this was the history of the country, and he was not at all on its sidelines. Bochkin, a Komsomol member of the twenties, had to participate in all important stages in the formation of Soviet power. Creation of Komsomol cells, political schools, groups of the poor in the countryside, the fight against illiteracy and hunger, collectivization - he traveled these roads together with his country and its people, moreover, he always rushed into the thick of events that decided their fate.

He participated in the organization of party and Komsomol work in his Tver province, was among those who created groups of the poor in Siberia, in the Volga region. In the same place he built the first irrigation systems - Buzuluk, Kutuluk. Later, he went to where the Central Committee of the Party sent him, to where the fate of the country was being decided at that moment. The Central Committee of the party said: it's time to study. And Andrey Bochkin became a student of the Water Institute.

The first student practice - at the legendary Dneproges. Newspapers, radio talked about them, about the construction, about people who rose to the very crest of time. They were called that: heroes, pioneers. These words were first heard there. This is about him, it turns out, they said: "The primary political task is being solved: the creation of our own technical intelligentsia." Yes, those who kneaded the concrete with their feet, on whose shoulders the entire hydropower industry of the country will then fall. He kneaded it earnestly, until a seventh sweat, from childhood he was superbly tempered, he easily turned the plowshare, and those who were nearby were amazed at Bochkin's inexhaustible optimism when he said:

Soon we will save people from such exhausting work, we will invent machines.

But more than one of these construction sites was pulled out on gravebarks.

Student Bochkin kneaded in blocks for more than one summer bare feet concrete for Dneproges. There were no vibrators back then. I was malnourished along with everyone else, I didn’t get enough sleep, like everyone else. But, becoming famous person, remembered those distant days:

The time on the Dneprostroy was happy, young, bright. He worked as a formworker, and a concrete worker, and a shift concrete laying foreman.

Thus began the biography of the hydraulic builder.

Bochkin studied at the institute for three and a half years, but did not have to finish his studies. Once again the most important new task confronted the Party: it required the organization of political departments in the machine and tractor stations. Again - Siberia, the creation of poverty committees, the fight against the kulaks. Then Orsk, the construction of a nickel plant, at first - the secretary of the party committee, later he asked for a senior construction superintendent. Again he made an attempt to return to the institute, but on his statement the people's commissar wrote: "Go build the Buzuluk system, and finish the institute in absentia."

Andrei Efimovich once said this about his ups and downs, movements and appointments:

Whatever happened to me in life, it turned out that everything was for the good ... Now, when I look back at the path I have traveled, which consisted of many appointments, in which they did not always take into account what I want, from the many bumps that I deservedly received and undeservedly, it begins to seem to me that I was boiled, tempered and run in according to a special program drawn up just for me, with a predetermined goal: everything that I experienced later turned out to be so necessary.

Bochkin went to a new destination - the head of construction, went to where his classmates worked at the institute, only they had already received diplomas, and he still had many, many nights to come here, work in half with studies, until he received higher education.

Again, the main tools of construction were a shovel and grabbars. Later came five excavators. Carts of earth poured into the dam were marked with crosses.

There, for the first time, when water flowed through the canal, they grabbed him by the legs and arms and threw him into the water. Dropped several times.

And the people all around rejoiced. And everyone looked at each other with kind eyes - after all, it was by their will that water flowed. This means that there will be bread not only in autumn, but also in winter, and not mash. This means that now the young full ear will not burn the Caspian dry wind.

People, seeing him in rare hours of triumph, sometimes envied him. You can’t explain to everyone like that that his happiness and luck were in the fact that at the dawn of his life he understood: you need to give as much as possible to the people and your land. And the more he lived, the more he saw that without bold and decisive engineering solutions you will not become a creator, that it is impossible, when creating something new, to stop at half measures, and most importantly, never be afraid of responsibility. Least of all think about your own prosperous biography. Big things required risk, innovation. Could the workers build the Orsk plant without block assembly in two months, or within one year build two dams in the Trans-Volga region and build two reservoirs, without being the first in the country to apply the method of complex operation of mechanisms? After all, there were no bulldozers then - they themselves came up with a wooden shield for the tractor to compact the soil. Would you have felt the breath and the living pulse of all the construction projects later, if you had not gone from the worker to the foreman and superintendent on the first dams?

At thirty-four, Andrei Bochkin was already the head of the Glavvodhoz of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. In the second half of June 1941, on the eve of the war, he left for Lithuania. The swamps dried up there. It was necessary to visit Kaunas to prepare the Nemunas water cadastre. Even on the train, I thought about new tasks and problems that I had not yet had to solve: how to quickly build the Ferghana Canal, the Ug-Kurgan reservoir, there was a lot of work in the Kuban, in Central Asia, suffered from droughts Stavropolitsina ...

The war found him in Lithuania. Bochkin returned to Moscow, got his armor removed, wanted to go to the front, but ended up in military engineering academy. In March of the forty-second year, with the rank of military engineer, he arrived at the Karelian Front. He took a sip of war, like all front-line soldiers, crawled through the swamps on his belly, mined and blew up, participated in battles in Pomerania, took Gdyn, crossed the Oder. And he knew that after the victory, those who remained alive would have to raise the country from the ruins.

When echelons with demobilized people left one after another for their homeland, he felt how his heart yearned for peaceful labor, but for another three months he was engaged in mine clearance of the coast and the sea fairway, and his comrades in arms, with whom a good pound of salt was eaten and the last eight shag was divided , were blown up by fascist mines.

Bochkin was offered to stay in the army, but he was eager to build. He understood that there was a lot of work to be done.

At the very first post-war construction site, the Nevinnomyssk Canal, Bochkin began to collect, first of all, front-line soldiers. They did not demand positions, but worked for three: they missed peaceful work. In hydraulic engineering, one cannot work half-heartedly. Bochkin himself said this well: “It occurred to me more than once that work in hydraulic engineering construction is the same war. In war you don’t have to yawn, otherwise you will be knocked over, and here you have to work continuously - water comes on you. You dig a ditch - she strives to flood you, especially in a flood. You build a dam - ready to demolish all obstacles. If you dig under it, it threatens to wash everything away. When you build a house, you can take a break. In a fight with a river, you need to be on the alert all the time. Water monitoring should go on around the clock, not weakening for a second. You won’t get fat in hydro construction, you won’t get bogged down in everyday life. A special type of person is being created, always fit, accustomed to constant tension. On the Nevinnomyssk Canal, all this was multiplied by the skills gained in the war, for the happiness that you work not for war, but for peace. After the war, Bochkin built the South Ukrainian and North Crimean canals.

But when I stood at the Angara for the first time and looked at the transparent water rushing past him, I realized that it was not for nothing that three hundred and thirty-three rivers flow into Baikal, and only one flows out. It will be the first time that a person will overcome such a river, and here there will be scales that the world hydraulic engineering did not know at all. Truly wisely Mikhailo Lomonosov predicted the future of this land: "Russian power will grow in Siberia."

After the Angara is blocked, Bochkin will be awarded the second Order of Lenin (he received the first for the construction of the Nevinnomyssky Canal), and when the state commission accepts the first hydroelectric station of the Siberian cascade, he will become a Hero of Socialist Labor and pinned on his chest the third Order of Lenin. And at the main gate of the famous Irkutsk hydroelectric power station, a beautiful marble plaque will be erected and the names of the best of its best builders will be written on it in gold letters, including the head of the construction site, Andrey Efimovich Bochkin.

And on the first day before the new boss, the construction site looked like a prehistoric ark with miserable adobe shacks and a few wooden barracks, dormitories for workers.

Bochkin rushed into the pit of the future hydroelectric building. The snow-white cover that had just fallen during the night, although it hid its size, but the cars and people scurrying along the bottom of the pit, barely distinguishable, told him more than a project, how big the scope of work was. And then you could see a motor depot, a garage, a sawmill. Red boxcars stood in several rows in the crevice of the hollow, in them lived those who stood in line at the personnel department for an hour to get to the construction site. Most of them are young people, they came on Komsomol vouchers. In Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, Poltava, Cheboksary, Kherson, they were told: “You are lucky. You are creators! You are going to build the first hydroelectric station on the Angara!”

In the evening, Bochkin walked through the cars. The “lucky ones” slept on bunks, the watchmen stoked cast-iron stoves day and night, and the fuming coal smelled of nauseating sulfur dioxide. If by morning the duty officer inadvertently fell asleep, the blankets froze to the walls. The cars were packed to capacity - two meters per person.

Before going to Irkutsk, he visited the minister. They said that by the spring they expected a doubled plan from him, although today's one is being carried out with extreme tension. Now Bochkin's face was flooded with crimson redness, cursing so that the head of the personnel department was a few steps behind, out of harm's way:

Again tents, wagons, dugouts, damn it! shouted as he walked. - I suppose they also asked to increase the recruitment orders?

He hesitantly said:

They asked.

Bochkin's gaze was so pressed that it was impossible to get out of it or lie even a little.

How much?

For a thousand people.

And where do you think to settle them if there is not a single meter of living space in stock?

Let's get out. Not the first time.

What are you? Building the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt?! It was there that one could somehow cover one's shame with a fig leaf and live under the open sky. And if the frost strikes at forty-five degrees ?!

Bochkin's companion turned out to be a nimble person, he immediately found a saving argument:

So after all, many, Andrey Efimovich, are going on their own, no one called them. From morning to evening, a wave is buzzing outside the door. Do you think they don't know about these barracks and wagons?

The head of the construction site decided to spend the last ardor of the first day on the re-education of one of his closest assistants. Worldly experience had long convinced him that only humanity can defeat the most invincible.

Such sincere concern for people was in every elephant of the new chief, such truly human nobility came from his muffled voice, from his whole bearish figure, that all this could not but be transferred to another, which is why he said, probably more for himself than for satellite:

To disentangle other people's sins is also a matter.

And it was clear that the head of the construction site would have to take on more than one cross.

Andrei Efimovich immediately plunged into thought over the project. It all started with some unknowns.

For the first time in the Soviet Union, the dam was designed as a gravel-sand dam. This should come as a surprise - sand and gravel is more permeable to water than any other material. Dam on the Angara from sand! Isn't it strange? What prompted the designers to make such a decision? The fact is that Irkutsk is located in a seismic zone, and we had no experience in building gravel-sand dams. Such dams were built only in Japan, but Japan, of course, did not know the Angara scale.

How to get a gravel-sand mixture from the bottom of the Angara for a cofferdam, and later for a dam, if the depth of the river here is about five meters? This was not mentioned in the project.

Irkutsk construction, in essence, turned into a giant experimental laboratory. Before us, no book has said that a gravel-sand dam can be erected in winter. This book - not on paper - was now written by us. It was not for nothing that hydraulic engineers from abroad came to us to make sure that we were really raising the dam in winter.

Finally, the long-awaited day of laying the first cubic meter of concrete has come. Never before had there been so many people in the pit. Everyone gathered: fitters, carpenters, concrete workers, excavators, drivers - it seemed that there was one huge family of many thousands. When the orchestra struck the anthem, everyone pulled themselves up. Bochkin looked at the sea of ​​people, he knew that something very simple must be said at these moments, but to captivate, lead people, make them believe that they will overcome everything, that each of them is in full view of the whole country.

Concrete! Concrete! First of all, for the artificial channel of the Angara, along which it has now flowed for centuries, for the bottom of the pit, for the towering gray walls to the right and left, its future banks, which should tame the violent, gigantic forces of nature, the deep power of Baikal and the seismic activity of the region. Nearby, at the foot of a high-pressure dam, is the largest Siberian city with a population of half a million. The mighty and obstinate river itself is unique. In addition, the dam will raise the water level in the reservoir by more than thirty meters. And this water mountain will hang over the city. Station structures must be heavy-duty and monolithic.

Everything again rested on the fundamental principle of construction - concrete, it must be of the highest quality.

Bochkin knew that his main task as a construction manager was to be able to convince the workers that they were jointly responsible for everything: for the future and the present, for the river and the city, for the lake and for earthquakes.

Early in the morning I was driving to a convoy of large MAZs. He spoke to drivers, mechanics, mechanics:

Do you know who you are?

They kept silent. And he strictly continued: - Not only drivers. You are statesmen. It is on you that the whole construction is based. Don't believe? Now I'll prove it.

The frowning looks became friendlier.

Yes Yes! It depends on your work how stronger to build a dam. You not only bring gravel, but also compact it. Each walk on the dam must go on a fresh place, not on a knurled track. After a large MAZ, you can vouch for the packing density. Not a single tractor, not a single bulldozer compacts gravel like that.

Later, it was calculated that the compaction of the soil with MAZs instead of rollers, as planned under the project, resulted in savings of seven million rubles.

Then he went to the concrete workers, went down to the block.

Hello girls! What are you sad today?

The brigadier answered for everyone:

We don't have to have fun. Again, concrete is not given.

You are the boss, you and explain why. We didn't come here to sunbathe. They say there is no sorted gravel, something is broken, something needs to be fixed. When will this torment end?

Bochkin immediately went to the laboratory. Asked the boss:

How much sand and how much gravel is in the natural mix you use to make concrete?

It can be seen that the gravel sorting has stopped again?

Yes. Now let's do a control analysis, the results are extremely important.

An hour later, he resolutely said, looking at the numbers:

We will prepare concrete from a natural mixture.

The designers disagree. Maybe we should call a technical meeting? Otherwise, it will be difficult for you to explain yourself to the commander-in-chief and the ministry.

Once. And no matter how long we sit, the percentage of sand and gravel will not change. And I'm not used to hiding behind someone else's back. The head of the construction site is for that and the head, to make decisions himself when necessary, as a commander at the front. And answer for them.

For violating the technology of concrete preparation, for deviating from the project, there was, of course, a good thrashing.

Bochkin's left eyebrow twitched involuntarily when they gave him the floor at the technical council. But he did not speak repentantly.

I acted not only honestly, but also bravely. Designers played it safe, unnecessarily complicated the scheme of the technological process of concrete. First, they say, it is necessary to disperse the soil, sand - separately, fine gravel - separately, large - also separately. Then again, put it all together into a concrete mixer. in the same proportions. And each cube of concrete is twenty rubles more expensive because of this. So, twenty million people's money - down the drain! It's good that the workers don't know this yet, otherwise they would laugh at us.

The representative of the Hydroproject referred to authoritative scientific works, spoke again and again about the need to comply with the concrete preparation technology established by the project, taking into account the uniqueness of the responsible hydraulic engineering unit, in the end - he categorically demanded that concrete made from unsorted mixture be placed in the main structures. He spoke for a long time. Bochkin listened, closing his eyelids from fatigue. From the side it seemed - defiantly dozing. He thought about how stupid it was to save so desperately just the honor of the uniform, especially since both sides were right in their own way. Designers demand an accurate ratio of gravel to sand. This task is laid down by them in the project. But here, on the Angara, the natural soil almost exactly meets the requirements of the project. This is a coincidence. But this accident will save millions. He discovered her first. Now everyone should be glad together that they didn’t notice, didn’t explore, didn’t take into account the gravel of the Angara itself, but ambition does not allow it. He would have time to lay more concrete, and so that no one would interfere with this. But they also interfered, and the nerves frayed a lot; commissions from Moscow came, samples were taken from all blocks, until the most respected professors proved that there was no significant difference between concrete made from a natural mixture and concrete from sorted aggregates. The concrete was great. Then the minister, in a special order, noted Bochkin's initiative, even allocated a prize. A letter was sent to Hydroproject stating that “the design of the gravel screening device was almost entirely copied from the southern construction sites, which should be recognized as completely wrong. Gravel sorting is designed only for the summer period of operation, which is completely unacceptable for the Irkutsk HPP due to the short summer period in this area.” In addition, the unsuccessful design of overpasses, defects in the concrete plant were noted. But the miscalculations of the designers were justified by complex and little-studied conditions. Eastern Siberia. Guilty could now poke his nose. Yes, he did not have such a rule. He did not like vindictive people. He believed that the builder is obliged to correct the designers, because time puts forward new requirements. I understood that when creating a project for a unique structure worth billions, designers do not have the right to take risks. They take technical solutions that have been proven in practice, that is, they rely on the experience of yesterday. But this is not an excuse for stagnation in technology. The project should not turn into a dogma. The authors of the projects must work at construction sites, because, in addition to practical experience, there is also the initiative of the production team.

Covering the Angara!

Bochkin then slept in fits and starts, but there was no nook and cranny at the construction site where he would not have been for last days. A telegram has already been sent to the minister for a report to the government with the date of blocking the river, cars, cranes, excavators, concrete cubes, and stone are ready. But there were skeptics. It was they who questioned the main thing: the pontoon bridge. They said that the increased strength of the current would wash it away, that in general blocking the Angara from a pontoon bridge was a naive idea. But now the pontoon bridge has been built and tested. After all, for the first time in the history of hydraulic engineering construction there will be such a thing: blocking the river from a floating bridge. It was prefabricated in Ulan-Ude, led down the Selenga through Baikal by a caravan of fifteen all-metal barges. The barges were firmly connected, a flooring was built on them and secured with cables. 50 dump trucks had to rush into battle with a formidable enemy who would not forgive them for the slightest confusion, not a single mistake. Of course, everything is calculated in advance and transferred to huge paper sheets of charts. But life is not paper. Bochkin again and again looked for weak links in the assault plan. I knew that the main thing is the intensity of backfilling, at every moment more stones and concrete must be thrown into the Angara than it can carry. How many times he drove up to the middle of the bridge and looked into the water: in the depths he could see the bottom, and stones rolled over it from a strong current. And when they start pressing down the river, will he rebel like that?! Bochkin did not hold on to his heart, but he was very worried.

The hour came when the big walker gave a long horn. He was picked up by a second excavator, a third, a fourth. They were joined by gantry cranes on overpasses. But now the ladle of a large walking one broke out of the ground, and a stream of water rushed into the hole timidly, but after three strokes of the ladle it poured with a roar into the pit. A convoy of dump trucks drove onto the bridge. The river boiled. The farther, the more furiously a wide stream escaped from under the bridge, bumping into a stone threshold. Everything seemed to rebel with her. Black clouds crawled from the lower reaches of the river. By the end of the first day, a gale-force wind blew up, lightning split the sky, rain pounded on the bridge deck. It got dark, like it was an eclipse.

The flow of cars thinned out - lightning struck a power pole. All excavators stopped. Trucks followed behind them. Even at the front it was not so hard for him. His face went from pale to lilac, then red, suddenly furrowed with such deep wrinkles, as if he had aged twenty years at once in a day. And ahead - the night, alarming, as before the most terrible battle. Now the whole building is in his hands. The lapse of consciousness lasted for several seconds. Bochkin's commands fell as firmly as at the beginning of the attack:

Let's start dropping cubes. And volleys!

All damage has been repaired. The column of dump trucks rushed to the bridge again. Gray humps of huge concrete cubes protruded from the bodies. On a common signal, they were simultaneously thrown into the river.

Bochkin happily rubbed his hands:

Good cannonade!

In the first minutes after the blocking, Bochkpn stopped some first MAZ that turned up. Jumped up on the footboard. Builders gathered around. They wanted to say a lot about what a great victory they had won, but only two words came out: “The hangar is blocked!”

Of course, there was a rally. Right there at five in the morning. Of course, hundreds of people closely surrounded the dump truck on which Bochkin was standing and looked around: where did the obstinate and proud Angara go? Behind the pontoon bridge, a quiet backwater barely lapped.

Andrei Efimovich Bochkin once spoke about a new milestone in his biography: “We had not yet commissioned the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station when the deputy minister asked me if I agreed to take on the construction of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station. I understood that the construction on the Yenisei promised a huge scale, but I had not yet managed to move away from the anxieties experienced on the Angara, and replied that, perhaps, I was already tired of all these big things and that the matter was approaching the retirement period - should I start such construction?

Nevertheless, I was summoned to Moscow and introduced to the Secretariat of the Central Committee. The one who reported about me, however, remarked:

Comrade Bochkin goes to this construction site without great enthusiasm.

And it’s true, I didn’t feel a great desire to take on the Yenisei. As far as I knew, the construction of the Krasnoyarsk HPP began badly: one chief was removed, then another ...

They began to convince me that I was still a healthy, powerful person, that I would overcome the Yenisei. It seems to me that what Tvardovsky wrote about the overlap of the Angara, and in particular about me, mattered here. Someone even said out loud:

Robust, reserve major, sewn to measure. Once, they say, according to the measure, then it fits. I had no choice but to ask for two months for imperfections. To this was added another month for rest.

And so I came to the Yenisei.

Once upon a time, Antop Pavlovich Chekhov stood by the same river on the road to Sakhalin and wrote in letters about what he thought at that moment: “It’s crowded on the banks of the Yenisei. Low shafts overtake each other, crowd and describe spiral circles, and it seems strange that this strong man did not wash away the coast and did not drill the bottom.

Bochkin knew all this. As well as the fact that, starting from the project, this time everything will be a “ride into the unknown”: heavy-duty metals, special machines, mechanisms, because in terms of the size of the pool, the strongman was second only to the Amazon, the Congo, the Mississippi with a tributary of the Missouri, was twice the size of the Volga , five times longer than the Dnieper.

Andrei Efimovich Bochkin had already arrived at the site of the future construction site, but no one knew about him yet, no one expected him. And he went from one brigade to another, dressed in a battered worker's padded jacket, and talked with people for a long time. He will sit, talk, what, they say, earnings, ask him from one, then from another builder:

How did it get here? Who invited? Where did you work before? - He wanted to have an immediate idea of ​​the team. And people lived in dugouts crowded, on knots. I saw drunks, dirt. There was no oven in the hospital.

It was cold in the two-story school - there was no heating boiler at all. He was indignant to himself, cursing:

“Well, in Irkutsk it’s still clear - there was a war. They didn’t have time to build: here, in the ocean of forests, dugouts!”

They said that a young guy in a tunic without shoulder straps, apparently from demobilized soldiers, appreciated his meticulousness in his own way:

You, grandfather, drove here in vain. I suppose you think, and I, they say, will earn extra money side by side with the young. What is it, a carpenter? Well, if you settle in a barracks, but if in a tent or in a dugout? The tents are wooden. The latest achievement of science. Improved. In the middle - a stove - "potbelly stove". Only in the morning we tear off the blankets from the walls. And better blow, grandfather, before it's too late, back to your grandmother on the stove. How can you compete with us here?

The soldier's friend with a frostbitten cheek also spoke directly:

Ugh, not work! .. We fill the pit, cut down the houses, and most of all we carry various loads like draft horses. The other day, they seemed to be sent to a real job - to make the foundation of a concrete plant, so to chop the reinforcement, grandfather, and then there is nothing. No scissors! We are wielding a sledgehammer, you understand?.. That's what it is - a great construction site! So it goes. And if there is no real work, there is no income. So, except perhaps for cabbage soup, and even then without meat.

A few days later, a meeting was announced at which a new, only appointed head of construction was to be introduced to the team. It was then that an amazing thing happened: many recognized him as a carpenter grandfather. Those demobilized soldiers who scolded the construction site exclaimed loudly, together:

Oh yes grandfather! Well, smart!

From that time, from that last construction site, they called him more among themselves, behind his eyes, and sometimes in his eyes they spoke out of forgetfulness, but there was so much respect, reverence and even admiration in this new nickname of his - Grandfather - so much respect, reverence and even admiration that he was not offended . Yes, and real granddaughters, blooded ones have been for a long time, and these, very young, faces glowing with a hot blush - aren't they grandchildren to him? In the very first speech, he told them everything that was necessary to begin with, as if he had laid out a program for the near future.

Everything that you did yesterday and today, that we will do together tomorrow, is the approaches to the main assault: blocking the Yenisei. At the front, we said that the soldier wins the battle, who thinks about the battle ahead of time. There is also a battle here - a battle with the great Siberian river. But from tomorrow we need to work better. I know what we don't have, what we lack. Yes, almost nothing, but everything will be in the near future.

“On the other hand, the huge office of the head of construction,” Andrey Efimovich later recalled, “which I reached only on the third day, was in fact high level: modern furniture, soft armchairs, expensive curtains, telephones, a switchboard, call buttons and, to top it off, a plexiglass plate already helpfully nailed by someone with the inscription "A. E. Bochkin” and even reception hours. Looking ahead, I’ll say that for all the ten years that I spent on construction, I didn’t sit in this office much, I think that I didn’t spend even two hours a day here, and when I came here, the secretary looked with horror at my boots. They were forever in clay, in concrete. Catching her eye on me, I immediately hurried to change my shoes at the entrance in the corner. Of course, I felt annoyed in those first days, seeing my name on the doors of this office, so far completely out of place here.

The chief engineer conducted business for another two weeks, and Grandfather "went to the people." I walked around tents, barracks, hostels, canteens.

Bochkin sincerely believed that it was in the working man that the beginning of all things existed, that he was capable of more than he seemed. He repeated this conviction on RAM more often than others, if he was told that the deadlines for the work schedules were being disrupted and all possibilities had been exhausted.

Did you talk to the workers? I ask: did you have a heart-to-heart talk with the workers? Did they explain what our main task is now and how difficult it is for us so far? Yes, they, come to them, explain everything, they will do everything beyond any plan.

Then they wrote that for this holy faith in them, Grandfather was paid the same. As soon as he appeared at any site, calloused hands with packs of cigarettes or cigarettes stretched out on all sides. He took one, passing his pack around in a circle. Often I caught on myself warm, friendly, sympathetic looks. Bochkin had his own approach to the most insoluble problems.

They said that when the concrete plant threatened to take the construction site by the throat, he came there early in the morning. He will drive the car into a back street, and he himself will stand aside, smoking, as if waiting for someone. And so for several hours, day after day, until the tension subsided. It was another move in his strategy. Bochkin had many moves. It is unlikely that only age and experience were the reason. From morning to night, disappearing at a construction site, either thanks to one, even accidentally dropped phrase, or thanks to his own powers of observation - he felt where tomorrow or the day after tomorrow his pulse could go astray. And I went to that place today. And he disappeared there, as if he was rummaging through a weak area with a searchlight, fishing out, sniffing out - why the failure. And if a failure did occur, the first one knew what to do to save the situation.

That is why in those minutes when the Yenisei was closed, hundreds of hushed, grateful human eyes were riveted to it, and a whisper swept through the rows:

Bochkin! God of the Yenisei.

But glory rolled past him, his eyes looked only into the hole, where the handsome and strong man Yenisei calmed down.

Then almost the entire team of builders from Divnogorsk was transferred to the Sayans. Experienced, soldered, shot, they immediately harnessed themselves to a new business without acclimatization. Even under him, when the Sayan construction was on the rights of management in his submission, he visited there himself, went around the sites, smoked with the boss or foreman, yesterday's pet, for a cigarette, asked about this and that. He came to the operatives, which were led by his nominees, sat on the sidelines and assumed an indifferent look. And then, when they stayed in the office one on one or went to the Yenisei, he corrected their decisions and orders. So Sayano-Shushenskaya is in good, reliable hands.

In the Sayans there could be the eleventh Bochkin Sea. There was an experience, but the hills of life were steep, he fired up on the slopes beyond measure, he did not know how to walk with an even step. Maybe that's why they threw each time for a breakthrough.

How they saw him off in Divnogorsk! How hard it was to say goodbye to his last station - on the eve he went around all the city streets and back streets, and people, having heard that he was leaving Divnogorsk forever, which they built together from the first tents, respectfully and silently, adults and children, recognizing him, gave way. The stewardess on board the plane, after the usual announcements, said:

Today we are making an unusual flight. Andrey Efimovich Bochkin, head of the construction of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, is on board our plane. The construction is completed and he is leaving our city. Dear friends! Now the plane will change its course for a few minutes in order to make a lap of honor over the tenth Bochkin Sea.

The turbines howled, the passengers crouched at the windows: there, on the ground, splashed his last sea. It was clear that it was slightly stormy: steep waves flew into the bright brocade attire of the age-old taiga. Twenty thousand people were building the dam. How many hearts are given to them! Now only three people work in the machine room. People dispersed to other construction sites, cars and cranes were dismantled. And after all, he did not sleep peacefully even once in all the eleven years of the construction of the dam. Finally, he went to say goodbye to the turbines, then he climbed the dam and stood alone on the shore for a long, long time. Everyone left, realizing: he wants, he needs to be alone for the last time.

But on the day of the storming of the Yenisei in the Karlovo range, in the Sayans, Andrei Efimovich Bochkin was the most dear and honored guest, although this idle word did not fit him: guest.

In the first two days he managed to visit everywhere. In the pit, where the native noise of a huge construction site was deafening, he immediately looked younger, his eyes sparkled cheerfully, mischievously. At the rally after the closing, they listened to him, afraid to miss even one word:

Naked force of nature and man - face to face. You can't get used to it. Although for me, it would seem that this is surprising. Well prepared you, comrades, for the overlap. I saw the latest modern technology here. But in my life there was Dneproges, where concrete was kneaded with shovels. There were committees of the poor and the fight against illiteracy in my life. How much we have gone through in just one human life.

Correspondents snapped their phones, chattered cameras, but he ran away from them and went to his brigade - named after Bochkin.

What struck him most of all in their supply room was his own portrait, not the one in orders and medals, which went around the newspapers in the days when he was awarded the Lenin Prize, but the other, where he is 18 years old, where the fire of attacks burns in his eyes, but on naked body thrown over a nondescript patched jacket. And a hot wave of gratitude swept over my heart, but I didn’t show it, I asked:

Well, eagles, show yourself all forty magpies, what are you, my sons? And then on the shields, on the Board of Honor I read: the Bochkin brigade. I couldn't wait to see you. How do we live and work?

At first, brigadier Sergei Kolenkov was responsible for everyone:

For five months in a row we have taken first place in the construction site. We became the winners of the competition for the right of personal participation in the overlap. True, they participated in it symbolically, they cut the ribbon and, of course, were themselves in ribbons. Mostly KrAZ drivers worked ...

Bochkin was concerned with everything:

Didn't it all start with fame?

It's clear. Immediately we were like from a pine forest. Do you know who will hand over the best workers? At first, they could hardly manage the marriage, then, when they aligned with the plan, they decided to break out into the forefront. And then the thought came, they say, all advanced brigades have a name. The famous brigade of Mikhail Poltoran - named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov, the brigade of Valery Pozdnyakov is named after Yuri Gagarin. They keep a shovel, with which Gagarin laid concrete in the second pit in Divnogorsk. We decided: although not yet advanced, it is better to fight for it already with a good name. And then we watched the documentary "The Tenth Sea of ​​Bochkin". It turned out that we are building your eleventh sea. Didn't know this before. We went to find out, asked some people, it turned out that you started building the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. And they finally decided: we must fight for the assignment of your name to the brigade. I must admit, at first I doubted, because Bochkin, I say, is alive, let's find out if this is possible. They began to consult - in response, nothing definite. And the lads were already only repeating: it’s wonderful that he’s alive, we will correspond, we will invite you to visit. Once they gathered, they demanded: we only want Bochkin, and that's it! That's how it was decided. And then we were transferred to the water slabs. Six thousand cubic meters were laid, one and a half times higher than the norm. Your name has given us strength. Then we were asked to remake the “bosom” behind the retaining wall. At one time, a miscalculation was made, the wall was erected, but the “bosom” was forgotten. I had to lay three hundred cubes almost by hand, there was no way to approach it with equipment. And all this on top of your main plan, on weekends and after work. They did not take into account either time or fatigue.

Bochkin got excited:

This is our way! Thank you. Don't you know?

And then, though out of order, almost everyone shouted:

His Komsomol youth brigade promised not only not to be conceited, but to send him all their labor reports to his Moscow address so that he could see them himself, and transfer the money earned by the honorary member of the brigade A.E. Bochkin to the account of the Tabag orphanage.

Since then, letters and telegrams from the Sayans have often been sent to Moscow in Strelbischensky Lane: either they congratulated them on Victory Day, or they reported that the brigade had won the competition for the right to lay the first concrete in the left-bank pit.

In the Sayans, in the supply room of a brigade that itself wanted to be named after him, one of the workers drew a poster: cavalry rushes to the bridge across the Yenisei, and a big-headed young man in a helmet with a red star rushes ahead on a fiery red horse, and an old photograph is embedded , where in the eyes of young Andrey Bochkin the fire of attack burns, and behind him on red horses - forty more riders.

Today one of the streets of Divnogorsk is named after Bochkin. And on this street lives a concrete worker, Hero of Socialist Labor Ekaterina Fedorovna Skryukova, whom Bochkin himself once showed how it is more convenient to hold a vibrator. And next to it is the foreman of carpenters-concrete workers of the main structures, Alexander Lardygin, who laid a tenth of the concrete into the body of the dam with his team. I would have met Andrei Efimovich and Yuri Ozornitsky on “his” street, with whom he chopped and hewed logs for the first houses of Divnogorsk on Sundays. Yes, any resident of that street is a Bochkinian. And for those who come later, they will also tell about the former head of the famous construction sites, who managed to manage both the business and be side by side with people.

Now they often talk about the Bochkin style of work, that for every driver, crane operator, concrete worker and just for Aunt Domna, who cooked delicious borscht, he had enough warmth, kindness and light. And isn't this one of the secrets of his legendary fame? But also, of course, in unbending courage, which flared up with an all-illuminating light in minutes, hours and days of difficult trials.

The flood of the sixty-sixth year with the Sayan was also not a surprise. Hydrogeologists predicted that during the flood the Yenisei would bring down 24-26 thousand cubic meters of water per second on the builders, that such floods were rare even on such a treacherous and obstinate river, about once every hundred years. A headquarters was created at the construction site, it had to foresee everything, even an evacuation plan was drawn up in case of an emergency. On the third of May, the Yenisei began to stir along the banks. Helicopters flew to reconnoiter the upper reaches of the river. After they returned, an emergency meeting of the headquarters was held. Bochkin spoke as if he was giving commands before the fight:

A shift has begun, in a day or two the ice will break. It cannot be passed through the bottom holes in this form. It can cause a lot of trouble. What will we do? We leave the shutters, except for four, closed. The ice in the upper pool will rise fifteen meters, and we will hold back this avalanche. When the sun and water have steamed the ice, depriving it of its strength, we will open the gates and dump the remaining ice, essentially a loose mass, through the bottom openings.

Three days later, the water level in the upper pool jumped sharply.

The ice is going to ram the dam! - the head of the water group reported to the headquarters.

The lintel enclosing the parking of ships was crushed at lightning speed. The cables could not withstand the pressure, the barges were carried to the hydroelectric facilities. The people acted quickly and boldly. The ships were delayed, moored with new cables. Huge ice floes hit the dam. Work to strengthen the longitudinal lintel was carried out with the greatest effort of all forces. Flight after flight, 25-ton dump trucks carried rocky soil, 18-ton concrete blocks were laid on top of it.

Bochkin went to live in the headquarters - a boarded booth near the dam. There was a table, a sofa, several telephones. In general - the control room. He never let a cigarette out of his mouth for a minute and ran out of the headquarters to the pier every half an hour. The water in the Yenisei rose more than eight meters. This water has not been here since 1902. And then the sun began to burn. Streams caused by rapid snowmelt in the Sayan Mountains joined the groundwater. Even in winter, the taiga was covered with snow to the very tops. Furious jets began to flood the underground galleries of warehouses. Unexpected snow in the middle of May in the Sayans, followed by rain in the center of Asia and to the Arctic Ocean. And behind the jumper, the Yenisei raged so that the banks began to crumble.

Bochkin's face became almost purple from the high pressure, his eyes were filled with blood. Nobody has ever seen him like this. The doctors took him to the hospital. Already from there, he sent a telegram to the Minister of Construction of Power Plants: “The inflow of the reservoir has reached 22.5 thousand cubic meters and continues to grow to the expected 26-27 thousand cubic meters. Discharge through the holes is 20 thousand.

Pumping water from the pit reaches 40 thousand cubic meters per hour. Emergency operations are defined for the protection of downstream shore facilities subject to erosion. Berths, underground galleries of the piers, as well as consumable warehouses of the concrete plant, are flooded. The management staff, machine operators, drivers of heavy vehicles have been transferred to a round-the-clock barracks position. Concrete laying continues at a normal pace."

And the Yenisei became even more furious. The blocks did not stop working for a minute. Concrete and food were delivered to people there. Slept right there. A special situation was declared at the construction site. Everyone who could help in trouble came to the dam: doctors, ORS workers, teachers, kindergarten teachers. Each pair of hands was worth its weight in gold. People passed bags of cement from hand to hand for 15 hours in a row, thousands of bags - each weighing half a centner. All this flew into the roaring mouth of the Yenisei, along the entire washed-out row of the pit. Massive concrete cubes were dropped. Dump trucks with heavy blocks blocked the way to the quay of portal cranes.

The central newspapers were already reporting with alarm that the sea was continuing to rage. The water was rising, almost catching up with the dam. In some blocks, people worked several tens of centimeters from the water. She had only a little to get up to rush into the pit. In addition, a strong wind drove a large wave to the dam. Measures were required as energetic as the onslaught of the Yenisei. Then everyone understood: only Bochkin, the most experienced hydraulic engineer, could save the situation. But he himself, catching a shadow of confusion on the faces of his deputies, asked:

Just don't lie. What's in the pit?

They honestly told him:

The construction situation is catastrophic.

He jumped off the bed. But he went down into the pit assembled. In pitch darkness, he silently walked around the entire dam. And I understood everything. Ordered:

We will increase the top jumper.

It was the simplest, but the surest way out in that situation. So, who is faster: a dam with a cofferdam or the Yenisei? People or elements?

And the sky was covered with thunderclouds, thunder rolled. As if a river and a thunderstorm conspired. Lightning put out of action the cables of the electric line, the pumps of the upper drainage stopped. The roar of the flood mingled with the roar of the downpour. Electricians in the pouring rain, under violent lightning went to the line. No one gave them an order, no one sent them to repair the damaged cable, risking their lives. Otherwise they couldn't do it. Bochkin, too, in those moments could not stop them.

The moment came when the sea was no longer raging, no longer bubbling. It silently accumulated strength for the last jump, swelling higher and higher. It triumphed. It considered the battle with humans almost won.

But people didn't give up. Soaked to the last thread, with blackened faces from terrible nervous tension, they believed every Bochkin command, word, decision. Bulldozers without stopping kneaded the ground with caterpillars, increasing the bridge centimeter by centimeter. Hands were stiff with tension. Heads cracked from the roar of engines, scorched by their heat. Another centimeter or two - and the dam will give up, the Yenisei will flood the city.

The people continued to fight. All were heroes.

Foreman Yuri Sevenard (a member of the Komsomol, the son of the chief construction engineer, came to Divnogorsk after graduating from the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute) with great difficulty turned on the AVR (emergency switching on of the reserve). But this electricity was only enough for lighting. The accident had to be eliminated immediately. He, Volodya Karnaukh and Lenya Volkov went down through the hatch into the barge. We were chest-deep in icy water. They began to feel for the pressure valve with their feet, then - to dive in turn. Still, the shutters were opened. Now we had to turn on the electric motors. They are underwater.

Can kill! shouted Sevenard. - Six thousand volts!

Won't kill! Volodya answered. - Here the water is snowy. It doesn't conduct electricity.

While, immersed in water up to his chin, he was looking for a switch with his hand, those two had goosebumps running down their backs: six thousand volts! But then a fireball erupted over the water. The pumps chugged.

Bochkin smiled: all the drainage pumps started working.

Disaster averted. The building has been saved. The city is too. It was said that three hours before the end of the shift, he called the head of the ORS to the headquarters and ordered a free parade dinner to be prepared for the entire assault detachment by midnight. Right here in the dining room of the pit. And he went to the fishery inspectors and bought from them all the fresh sterlet that they picked up on the stones, asked the cook to make a good sterlet's ear. No one left even after the shift and dinner, although the buses stood nearby to take them home. Soaked and stunned, they climbed into the cars again. But in the darkness of the night Bochkin's hoarse voice was heard:

Enough, brothers! Thank you.

And he bowed low to everyone, to the waist. Not only to bow, in those moments he was ready to carry each of these tortured people home in his arms. And people thought so, and wrote in the newspapers, and on the radio throughout the country they broadcast that the entire construction of the station was saved by the fact that at critical moments Bochkin's energy grew faster than the flood shaft rushing to the dam.

In the morning of the next day, the account again went to hours and minutes. For ten days and nights people erected a protective wall. Concrete workers laid the third million cubic meters of concrete in these hot days. Only at the front, where life and death stood side by side, were people able to survive, to withstand such an overload. The boundaries of human possibilities have been erased. The sea surrendered, could not stand the combat. Bochkin's illness also receded. Could not stand the frantic pace of ten shock days. And my heart beat again in line with the rhythm of construction. He removed the barracks position for most of the leaders. Only electricians and the drainage service were obliged to be on duty around the clock. The Yenisei was no longer self-willed, he began to forget that he was one of the top ten great rivers of the world, he picked up his veins and muscles for himself.

On January 26, 1967, the block of the first starting unit was concreted. And a new, pre-launch period began at the construction site. In April they celebrated the opening of the sea with songs, with an orchestra. Then heavy-duty transformers came from Zaporozhye, and high-voltage transmission lines were built in the primeval wilderness. Not uncommon on the path of the Lepovites was permafrost. And then in the pits for the supports, brown, soggy earth floated, and there was no end to that quicksand.

The new sea was born not only in the roar of explosions, in mortal battles with a gigantic river, but also in the precise work of assemblers, where a mistake of half a millimeter could nullify all previous work. Now the newspaper regularly published news from the editing front. The attention of the entire construction was riveted to the launch of the first two giant turbines.

Finally, the most cherished of the cherished days has come.

The chairman of the state commission received reports from the heads of services:

Turbine ready!

The generator is ready!

The shutters are up!

Reports came quickly, but those few minutes seemed painfully slow to those assembled. But they passed, and now, hiding the excitement, the chairman of the commission gives the command: “I allow the launch.”

It was still quiet for a moment - and suddenly a rumble arose in the engine room, it intensified, as if a train was approaching. It was the Yenisei from the height of a thirty-story building that fell into the throat of a waterfall, reached the impeller and slowly turned a hundred-ton turbine shaft, and it dragged along a giant rotor. The turbine picked up speed, the rumble intensified, the plates under our feet began to tremble. In the depths of the crater, a steel colossus of almost two thousand tons rotated rapidly and easily, and outside, under the floor of the engine room, only a small tower of the exciter generator towered.

Not the first unit was put into operation in front of my eyes, but it's always like the first time. And this turbine was unique - there was no other like it in the world ...

The attendant went to the console, inserted the key into the well, waited until the synchronizer needle showed that the generator voltage was balanced with the mains voltage, and finally turned the key. It was seven o'clock forty minutes ... Electricity set off."

Bochkin's face, they say, turned black. But, rubbing his hands happily, he said:

Sang well!

Andrey Efimovich Bochkin celebrated his seventieth birthday at home, in Moscow, in Strelbischensky Lane. Postmen carried letters and telegrams in piles that day. And the door of the apartment did not close, letting in southerners with indelible tan, pale-faced northerners. Elderly men came here with carnations in their hands, but more were fit, slender, with early gray hair - the guards of the domestic hydraulic engineering grown by him. And in the pile of letters and addresses sent to Bochkin's name, such disinterested human love and such nationwide fame beat that the greatest ambitious man could envy. This love broke the official tone of greeting addresses, torn from every line of telegrams. So do not write to someone who was simply the boss. So they write only then and only to those who, leading people along to high peaks, kept in his heart the love of man.

The heart... It has its limits of strength. It is not easy for him sometimes and joyful moments are given. On the day of his seventieth birthday, Bochkin surreptitiously swallowed nitroglycerin several times. He knew that the victors have an easy life on earth, but that this ease comes at a high price...

Three years later letters and telegrams came again from all over the country. And friends, comrades, pupils, students came together. But it was no longer joy, but grief that brought them together: Andrei Efimovich Bochkin died on October 16, 1979.

The life of Andrei Efimovich Bochkin, perhaps, will answer many questions. But her height is not only in what she did: yes, she lived, created, built. He left something else, no less important: the commandments of the deepest decency, by which he himself lived, they were absorbed by all the people who walked beside him. He never trampled on the weak, did not please the strong, did not flatter or curry favor with anyone, did not play tricks, did not betray his friends, pushing the blame either on circumstances or on the intricacies of life. And in each, it would seem, most useless little man, unexpectedly for everyone, he found that secret spring, by pressing on which he could find unknown and holy springs. Of the many over whom the wheels of life passed, he managed to mold real people at various construction sites. He was trusting, but at the same time, his eyes took on the shade of steel and the sharpness of the blade, became merciless if they rested on vulgarity, mediocrity, stupidity, immorality. Construction sites, man-made seas - this is important, but no less significant, that for a long, long time people will absorb the entire height of the Bochkin wave of life.

Andrey Efimovich Bochkin(October 30, 1906, Ievlevo village, Tver province - October 16, 1979, Moscow) - hydraulic engineer. Hero of Socialist Labor (1960), Honored Builder of the RSFSR (1966), Lenin Prize Laureate (1973), Honorary Power Engineer of the USSR (1976). Member of the CPSU (b) since 1925.

Biography

Born into a peasant family, he was the eleventh and last child.

Education

1917 - graduated from a four-year parochial school in the village. Ilgoshchi I soup.

1923 - study at the school of the second stage with. Ilgoshchi, further - in Kiverichi, Mikhailovo-Prudovoe.

Since 1929, he studied at the Moscow Institute of Water Management and Land Reclamation at the Faculty of Hydraulic Engineering. In 1933 - passed the educational production practice at the DneproGES.

1941-1942 - Student of the Military Engineering Academy named after VV Kuibyshev.

Labor activity (pre-war)

Andrey Bochkin has been actively engaged in propaganda work in the countryside since the age of 17. He works in the committee of the Komsomol in Tver, in the editorial office of the newspapers Tverskaya Pravda and Tverskaya Derevnya, in the agro-industrial department of the Tver City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, travels around the entire Tver province with propaganda carts. Then, in 1927-1928, he worked as a secretary of the party committee of a textile factory in V. Volochka. With the beginning of collectivization in the countryside, A.E. Bochkin, on a party call, participates in the creation of the first collective farms in Western Siberia (1928-1929, 1934-1935). Since 1936, at his personal request, he was transferred to the construction of a nickel plant in the city of Orsk, Orenburg Region, where he was the secretary of the party committee of Nikelstroy, and then a senior construction superintendent railway Nickel - Akkermanovka.

1937-1940 - chief and Chief Engineer construction of the Buzuluk irrigation system (Domashkinskaya and Labazinskaya dams) and the Kutulukskaya dam in the Orenburg region.

1940-1941 - Head of the Glavvodkhoz of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR (supervised the construction of the Fergana and Nevinnomyssk canals, the Uch-Kurgan reservoir).

The Great Patriotic War

March 1942-1945 - Major of engineering troops, Karelian and 2nd Belorussian fronts: brigade engineer of the 85th Marine Brigade of the 215th Infantry Division; corps engineer 312 rifle corps. He was wounded, shell-shocked. In 1942, 8 km from the front line for the needs of the army, he built his 1st, mini-hydroelectric power station. Participated in the battles for the liberation of Poland, Denmark, Germany. He ended the war as a lieutenant colonel.

Labor activity (post-war)

Bust of A. E. Bochkin in the Museum of the construction of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station (Divnogorsk)

1945-1949 - Head of the construction of the Nevinnomyssky Canal and the Svistukhinskaya Hydroelectric Power Station in the Stavropol Territory.

1950-1953 - Head of the Main Directorate for the construction of the South Ukrainian and North Crimean canals.

1953-1959 - Head of AngaraGESstroy for the construction of the Irkutsk HPP.

With the beginning of construction management, Andrey Efimovich made a number of cardinal decisions for Krasnoyarsk HPP:

1. rejection of the lightweight, arch type of dam construction and the adoption of a heavy, gravity-monolithic type;
2. rejection of the "continuous" method of laying concrete in the body of the dam and the construction of the classical non-trestle method, which ensured the reliability of the structures;
3. change in the master plan for the construction of the city of Divnogorsk;
4. overlapping of the Yenisei in winter conditions, during the minimum water flow:

1963, March 25 - for the first time in winter conditions, the most full-flowing river in Russia, the Yenisei, was blocked in 6.5 hours.

During the period of maximum work, the number of people at the construction of the Krasnoyarsk HPP, together with subcontractors, amounted to more than 21,000 people.

1971 - released from the duties of the head of KrasnoyarskGESstroy.

1979, October 16 Andrei Efimovich Bochkin died in Moscow. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

On Sunday, October 30, we will celebrate the anniversary date unique person, whose name is inextricably linked with the history of the formation of our city and the development of the energy industry not only in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, but throughout the country as a whole. This day marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the famous hydraulic builder, Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin Prize Andrei Efimovich Bochkin. This legendary man can no doubt be attributed to those people whose deeds determined not only the fate of our time, but also the future of Russia for many years to come. Such people have always been a reliable support of the state.
It is unlikely that anyone will argue that life is measured not by the number of years lived, but by its meaning. Why for many centuries people are very sensitive to "round dates" in their own lives? Probably because age is a victory over being. It seems that quite recently we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Andrei Efimovich Bochkin on a grand scale. And here we are on the verge of another anniversary date. But even now, after a while, his name remains at the hearing. They didn't forget about him. He is remembered by his colleagues, former associates and descendants of hydraulic engineers. A memorial complex has been erected in the center of the city, where, on a high pedestal, a bronze (two human height) Bochkin “looks around” the surroundings of Divnogoria. Two educational institutions in the city of Divnogorsk are named after him (students of the Divnogorsk hydropower technical school and gymnasium No. 10 proudly call themselves Bochkins). Is this not a victory over eternity?
Of course, the editors of the newspaper "The Lights of the Yenisei" could not stay away from the significant date. On the eve of the anniversary of the great hydrobuilder, with the support and help of veterans of Krasnoyarskgesstroy, we decided to remind our readers what kind of person he was - Andrey Efimovich Bochkin.

MAIN LIFE MILESTONES A.E. BOCHKINA
10/30/1906 - In the village of Ivlevo, Ilgoshinsky volost, Tver district, a son Andrei was born into a poor peasant family of the Bochkins.
1920 - Joined the ranks of the RKSM, organized a Komsomol cell in the village of Ilgoshi and was elected its chairman.
1925 - Joining the ranks of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks
1929 - student-thousander
hydrotechnical faculty of the Moscow Institute of Water Management. He passed his industrial practice at the Dneproges.
1937 - 1940 - Head and chief engineer of the construction of irrigation systems and dams Buzulukstroy, then Kutulukstroy, where irrigation systems were created for the first time in the RSFSR.
1940 - 1941 - Head of the Glavvodkhoz of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR.
1941 - 1945 - Member of the Great Patriotic War.
1945 - 1949 - Head of the construction of the Nevinnomyssk Canal and the Svistukhinsk hydroelectric station in the Stavropol Territory.
1953 - 1959 - Head of the construction of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station.
December 10, 1959 - Appointed head of the Construction Department of Krasnoyarskgesstroy.
1960 - Awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
1973 - Awarded the Lenin Prize in science and technology for the creation of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station.
October 16, 1979 - A.E. died in Moscow. Bochkin. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

A lot of books have been written about Andrei Efimovich Bochkin's big life filled with various events. Unfortunately, the newspaper format does not allow in full tell about her. Anyone who knew Andrei Efimovich closely knows how steep turns sometimes awaited him on the path of life. Not everyone can endure something like this. Bochkin's contemporaries called him among themselves Pavka Korchagin. And the hydro-engineer himself expressed this about his fate: “... Everything that happened to me in life, it turned out that everything was for the good ... Now, when I look back at the path traveled, consisting of many appointments, in which they did not always take into account what I want, out of the many cones I received deservedly and undeservedly, it begins to seem to me that I was boiled, tempered and run in according to a special program drawn up just for me, with a pre-set goal: everything that I experienced later turned out to be so necessary ... ".

DIVNOGORSK PAGE

It was here, in Divnogorsk, that Bochkin's outstanding organizational talent was fully manifested.
Leading the construction at a critical moment, when the choice of the type of dam by Moscow specialists was leaning towards the arched “lightweight and openwork”, Andrei Efimovich, having shown statesmanship and remarkable will in defending his position, managed to convince the commission to build a heavy dam. Monolithic concrete - gravity type. A.E. Bochkin devoted himself to work, to the fulfillment of the task set before him by the party and the government - to reliably and on time build the most powerful hydroelectric power station in the world on the Yenisei, but at the same time he was attentive to the needs of the builders. All Divnogorsk residents, “both young and old,” respectfully called him Grandfather. In 1971, due to health reasons, he was forced to take a well-deserved rest, having not completed much work before commissioning the KGPP. On July 2, 1971, the Divnogorsk City Council of Workers' Deputies appropriated A.E. Bochkin the title of "Honorary Citizen of the city of Divnogorsk", and a few days later he left for Moscow, as it turned out, forever ... On October 16, 1979, the heart of an outstanding hydraulic builder stopped beating.

THIS IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW!

Per feats of arms During the Great Patriotic War he was awarded:
- Order of the Red Banner;
- Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class;
- Order of the Patriotic War II degree;
- medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War";
- Medal "For the Defense of the Arctic".
For honest and conscientious work A.E. Bochkin was awarded:
- four (!) Orders of Lenin;
- Order of the Red Banner of Labor;
- a lot of medals;
- Awarded the Lenin Prize.

ON FRIENDSHIP WITH THE BOOK AND THE WORD

From a deep youth, Andrei Efimovich respectfully treated the printed word. As a gray-haired old man, he recalled how "the days of greatest happiness - reading newspapers and books ... in an old park ... with half-starved friends from the boarding school." The profession of a hydraulic engineer did not alienate him from the book, from the press. On the contrary, A.E. Bochkin, a subtle psychologist and ideologist, directed the most powerful force of newspaper, magazine, book lines, air, photo and film cameras to create a team of builders of Krasnoyarskgesstroy, to instill in the builders a sense of self-responsibility and dignity for what they have done: to everyone, everyone - read, listen, watch - we, the builders, are able to compete with the giant Yenisei, erect the world's greatest hydroelectric power station, and give energy to the Motherland. Andrey Efimovich never distinguished himself personally. In his vocabulary, he most often used the unifying "We". There was a close relationship between the book and Bochkin throughout his life. He admired the works of poets and could recite entire poems by heart. He was sincerely interested in the work of the literary circle and personally initiated the appearance of the first libraries and a bookstore at the construction site.

FAVORITE HOBBIE - SONG!

Andrei Efimovich knew how and loved to sing sincere and secluded Russian songs. Maybe his mother instilled in him his love for them. It is possible that this kind and bright hobby was born in him from school.
Despite the hard working days, sleepless nights, business trips, Andrei Efimovich found the opportunity to go on vacation with the builders - to sing songs, have fun around the fire with the already conquered Yenisei splashing at his feet.

Prepared by Olga GAMANOVICH
(the publication uses materials from the book "Creators" (A.V. Gulyaev, I.G. Fedorov)
Photos courtesy of the Divnogorsk City Museum)

Andrey EfimovichBochkin(October 30, 1906, the village of Ievlevo, Tver province - October 16, 1979, Moscow)- the largest hydro-builder of the 20th century.

Biography

Born into a peasant family. The biography of the builder is closely connected with the fate of our Motherland and is typical for major leaders of the Soviet state. In 1920 he joined the Komsomol, and in 1925 - the Bolshevik Party. In those same years, Bochkin studied at the pedagogical college with. Prudovo, Tver district, worked as an instructor at the Tver Komsomol Ukom, deputy editor of the Tverskaya Derevnya newspaper. In 1927-1930 he occupied party posts in Vyshny Volochek and Aleysk in the West Siberian Territory.

Main special education received at the Moscow Institute of Water Management and Land Reclamation (1937). From the 4th year of the institute, the communist A.E. Bochkin was mobilized by the Central Committee of the CPSU / b / to work in the political department of the MTS with. Romashkina (Romashkino Andreevsky (now Kurmanaevsky) district of the Middle Volga region, where he did a lot for the development of the region, where he became a personality. Andrey Efimovich recalled:

“Sometimes I had to get on a tractor, plow, sow. Not to tell about everything that was included in our work. I will only say one thing: two years later, people ate not mash, but bread ... And this political department experience served as the foundation for my future work - already as secretary of the district committee of the party, then senior superintendent of the construction of the Buzuluk irrigation system, which was the first irrigation system in Russia , which consisted of canals and two earth dams on the Labazy and Domashka rivers.

In 1937, on a personal request, Andrey Efimovich was sent to a managerial job in the hydro-construction organizations of the Orenburg and Kuibyshev regions.

Bochkin built the Kutuluk irrigation system, the second in Russia. Andrey Efimovich always remembered this construction site. A large dam, a canal, and many structures were built here. Everything has been tried and tested over and over again. But reality often refutes any calculations. That's what happened this time as well. In the spring, when the canal was opened, it rained for several days, and the reservoir overflowed with water. It was April 16, 1939. The water has risen to a critical level. Concrete slabs moved from their place, soil was exposed. It was a disaster. But people did not give up and won. Bochkin himself recalled this episode as follows.

“I could hardly keep my feet above the raging stream, I stood on the observation cable bridge, thrown from shore to shore. The bridge was tossed from side to side, and I was doused with streams of burning ice water... We coped with this raging stream, and I realized that water is so insidious, so incompressible and unyielding, that everything can be expected from it. They compress iron, steel and cast iron, but it, pliable and soft, cannot be either squeezed or driven into a smaller volume. And they say: quieter than water, lower than grass. There is no more absurd saying,

Bochkin recalled the events of 1939.

Fate was not favorable to Andrei Efimovich, gave him severe trials and many times. His beloved little son Volodya died in an icy stream. There were many difficult and dramatic moments, but Andrei Efimovich steadfastly endured failure.

After Kutuluk, Bochkin was transferred to Moscow as the head of the Glavvodkhoz. This is the head office at the ministry level. Bochkin was 33 years old.

With the beginning of the Patriotic War, A.E. Bochkin, like many of his peers, voluntarily joined the Red Army. Having completed the course of the Military Engineering Academy in Frunze, he fought in engineering positions on the Karelian, 2nd Belorussian, 2nd Ukrainian fronts, participated in battles, amphibious operations to liberate Murmansk, Danzig, Stetin, Borgolm Island. And always Bochkin was true to himself. So, on the Karelian front, he arranged a model of a wagon train on the road, which was constantly shot by the German "Focke-Wulfs". In the next raid, the German "aces" attacked the mock-up and got caught on it. The plane was shot down, the Germans were discouraged. Bochkin received an order for this. Or make a hydroelectric power station at the forefront. This is also his job. The Germans never understood where the Russians got their electricity from. And the tunnel that Bochkin decided to dig to the enemy positions. It's 180 meters. The tunnel was dug right into the center of the German defense and explosives were detonated there. After that, the line was taken almost without resistance. Bochkin received the Order of the Red Banner for this tunnel.

During the war years, Bochkin could not sit at the headquarters. He was offered to take part in a combat operation as the commander of an airborne engineering and reconnaissance detachment. It was in the Barents Sea. The detachment landed on the enemy coast, carried out reconnaissance in force and conducted reconnaissance of engineering coastal fortifications. On the way back, the boat in which Bochkin was was wrecked on a reef. The commissioner, who was with him in the boat, died, and he ended up on this reef, barely rising above the water. Bochkin recalled:

“I was stuck on the reef in one tunic, my pants were torn on the ledges of the stone. I was completely wet, everything in me was trembling from the cold and from the heat rising in me. Mouth, skin, eyes - everything gradually became one wound. I had nothing to expect "It was up to me to stop this torture. I waited for a big wave and, opening my mouth wide, walked towards it. But as soon as I began to choke, as soon as the wave swallowed me up, something screamed in me: "No!" And I returned to reef, a tiny island that is now left to me from the whole world.

And so I wanted at least once to take a sip of unsalted water. I didn't want to eat anymore. I was breaking, shaking, there was not a single cell in me that would not hurt. I opened my mouth again and walked towards the wave, and again at the last moment something said in me: "No!" And pushed me to the surface.

I don't know how many times this happened. Then I completely lost consciousness, and, perhaps, already in oblivion, I tried to end these torments, and yet I could not end them. Could not!

In my breast pocket I had sketches of coastal fortifications wrapped in oilcloth. For this reason, I found myself on foreign shores. I had to hand over these papers to the one who sent me, otherwise our intelligence, which cost many lives, would lose its meaning.

As I later found out, it lasted fifty-four hours, and every hour on this accursed island was like an eternity.

Bochkin was noticed by our boat, which was looking for non-returning participants in the amphibious assault. His almost lifeless body was taken to his own, and the doctors managed to save him.

S. Demenchuk's book "The Chief Hydraulic Builder" tells how Bochkin managed for the first time in the practice of wars to build ... a front-line hydroelectric complex in swamps for wiring electricity to dugouts and trenches! With a wooden turbine, with a panel water intake. The front-line hydroelectric power station, which the Germans became aware of, was so disguised at the same time that all attempts to detect it with the help of aviation failed.

He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War I and II degree, the Red Banner of War, the medals "For the liberation of the Soviet Arctic", "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War."

At the end of the war, as a professional hydraulic engineer, he was invited to the post of head of the Glavvodkhoz of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR, led the construction of the Nevinnomyssky Canal and the Svistukhinskaya Hydroelectric Power Station, as well as Stavropolstroy. In the hardest post-war years in the almost complete absence of funds and materials, the construction of the most important facilities was nevertheless completed: in June 1948, the Nevinnomyssk Canal and the Svistukhinskaya hydroelectric power station were put into operation, which provided electricity to the city of Stavropol and the surrounding areas. The reliability of these objects has been tested by time. For the Nevinomyssky Canal, the country awarded him the Order of Lenin.

After the construction was completed, Bochkin was appointed head of the Water Management Department of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, and from 1950 to 1953 - head of the construction of the South Ukrainian and North Crimean canals. He was awarded the second Order of Lenin for the Ukrainian and North Crimean channels.

Since the late 1950s, he was put at the head of the famous Angaragesstroy department. At the construction site, Andrey Efimovich managed to create a friendly, hard-working team and short term brought construction to the forefront.

This construction was the ninth major construction in his biography, for which he received the Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. The completion of his hydro-construction activities was the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station.

How could A.E. Bochkin to cope with the work of such a gigantic scale. Such a construction site as the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, for which, as he himself recalled, 1,500 factories worked, was akin in terms of production nuclear weapons I.V. Kurchatov or missile systems S.V. Korolev.

The leader of such gigantic construction projects must undoubtedly be an outstanding specialist, a brilliant organizer of production, have vast work experience, be courageous, and be able to take reasonable risks. All this certainly was. But there were other features that everyone appreciated so much.

This is his relationship with people. Attitude cordial, respectful, constant desire to help a person. And people responded to him with their inspired work, devoted attitude to the cause. This is especially evident in his memoirs, which he called "The Tale of a Hydro-Builder. With Water as with Fire." “When you remember what has been passed,” writes E.A. Bochkin, “you see before you the faces of comrades, those to whom you owe everything. These are people with whom you worked and fought side by side when it was time to fight. I want to talk about them, and not at all about myself. Everything that happened in my life was determined by them, everything that was done was done thanks to them. These are the words, and I know for sure that these words are not a beautiful pose, but a position.

At the construction of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station, one of the machine operators gave a good idea how to get a gravel-sand mixture from the bottom of the river. Bochkin accepted the idea, and appointed the initiator as chief mechanic. Later he recommended him as the head of the construction of the Vilyui hydroelectric power station. He built a hydroelectric power station and the city of Mirny with diamond mines. Then this man headed KamAZ. His name is Evgeny Batenchuk. And it all started with Bochkin, his ability to see people.

He arrived at Sayano-Shushenskaya already as an honored guest and ... an honorary member of the brigade, which was named after him. In 1971 Andrey Efimovich was elected a member of the Technical Council of the Ministry of Energy and Electrification of the USSR.

Honored Builder of the RSFSR, laureate of the Lenin Prize A.E. Bochkin was awarded three Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. Poems and songs were composed about him, films were made, in 1977 the Bochkin Prize was approved, which was awarded to the best Komsomol youth team of the Tvermelioratsia association.

He died in 1979 and was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

One of the streets in the area of ​​the hydroelectric power station is named after him, on the house number 1 of which there is an information board. His name is listed on the memorial plaque of especially distinguished construction workers.

Compositions

1. With water as with fire (The story of a hydraulic engineer). - M., 1978.

Literature

1. Pokachalova M.D. Andrey Efimovich Bochkin // Newspaper Siberian Power Engineer. 2006. 19 Oct. (No. 19). C. 4.
2. Goncharov V. Construction manager (eyewitness recollection)
3. Goncharov V. His name was simply grandfather // Krasnoyarsk worker. - 2001. - November 2.
4. Ivanov L.B.Soviet engineers. - M., 1985.

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The head of Kutulukstroy, an outstanding hydrobuilder, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Andrey Efimovich Bochkin, passed a big life path, who devoted all his strength and knowledge to the electrification of our Motherland, constructing irrigation and energy facilities in the Orenburg region, Stavropol Territory, Ukraine and Siberia. Andrey Efimovich Bochkin brought up thousands of his followers and students. In the city of Divnogorsk, according to the project of the famous sculptor Yuri Ishkhanov, a monumental ensemble was erected in honor of the labor feat of the Yenisei hydraulic builders with the central figure of Andrei Efimovich Bochkin. In Moscow, Divnogorsk and Sayanogorsk in 2006, in connection with the 100th anniversary of the outstanding hydraulic builder, solemn events were held, a book of memoirs was published mainly by those specialists who directly worked with Andrei Efimovich Bochkin.

The future hydraulic engineer was born on October 30, 1906 in the small Tver village of Ievlevo in a poor peasant family.

As Andrei Efimovich himself said, he was born the eleventh child in the family. When it was time to give birth, his mother went to the barn alone, without calling anyone for help, and gave birth to him on straw. She already had two sons named Andrei, both of whom died in early childhood. He became the third Andrei. And survived. The father died early. But the mother was kind, and, according to Bochkin, this was the only upbringing that she could give him. He lived on the stove, shared it with cockroaches, and did not remember the case when his house was hit.

After graduating from the parochial school in 1917, he continued his education at the 2nd stage school in the village. Ilgoshi.

After graduating from school, he entered the Tver Teachers' Institute, where he did not have to study for a long time: he was soon recalled by the provincial committee of the Komsomol to political education and, as an instructor of the county committee of the Komsomol, became in charge of the school of political education, created training centers in villages and volosts, gave lectures and reports , arranged loud readings among the peasants of the Igoshinsky volost.

In 1924 he married a young teacher, Varvara Fedorovna, with whom he lived for more than fifty years (until her death in 1975)

Under the conditions of the new economic policy, A.E. Bochkin created cooperatives in the Goritsky district of the Tver province, then traveled with the Tverskaya Pravda campaign cart throughout the region, thanks to his ingenuity in the volosts and districts, the peasants of the province heard radio broadcasts from Moscow for the first time.

Despite the active organizational and political activities to strengthen Soviet power in the Tver region, A.E. Bochkin's desire to study did not weaken, and finally he entered the Water Institute: it was a time of industrialization, a period of grandiose plans for the electrification of the country. For three and a half years, A.E. Bochkin learned the secrets of hydropower from prominent professors of the largest university in the country

A.E. Bochkin considers his career in the Orenburg region to be the beginning, where he did a lot for the development of this region, where he became a personality. In the thirties, he raised the Orenburg village, being the head of the political department of the MTS in the village of Romashkino, Andreevsky (now Kurmanaevsky) district.

“Sometimes I had to get on a tractor, plow, sow,” Andrey Efimovich recalled. - Do not tell about everything that was included in our work. I will only say one thing: two years later, people ate not mash, but bread ... And this political department experience served as the foundation for my future work - already as secretary of the district committee of the party, then senior superintendent of the construction of the Buzuluk irrigation system, which was the first irrigation system in Russia , which consisted of canals and two earth dams on the Labazy and Domashka rivers.

Subsequently, his knowledge gained at the Water Institute, on the construction of the Buzuluk water system, where he became the head of construction, helped him write thesis. In his book “With water, like with fire,” he recalls: “I immediately began and prepared my graduation project, prepared for the exams that remained for me, and here I graduated from higher education, both formally and in essence: this is my first independent work in hydraulic construction required a thorough study of many problems of hydraulic engineering.

In the mid-1930s, A.E. Bochkin was sent to build the Kutuluk irrigation system in the Bogatovsky district. It was the second irrigation system in Russia, which played a big role in the development of the lands of the arid Trans-Volga region.

After the commissioning of the Kutuluk irrigation system in the spring of 1939, A.E. Bochkin was again recalled to Moscow and appointed head of the Glavvodkhoz of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR.

The Great Patriotic War found A.E. Bochkin in Lithuania, where he was on a business trip, returned to Moscow and asked to go to the front, but was sent to the Military Engineering Academy. V. V. Kuibyshev and in March 1942, having received the title of military engineer, he arrived on the Karelian front. He was appointed head of the engineering service of the 85th Marine Rifle Brigade of the 26th Army.

As a military engineer, a specialist in hydropower, A.E. Bochkin taught his subordinates to dig trenches and build dugouts taking into account the characteristics of the terrain, overcome water barriers, dig channels in the system of countless Karelian lakes, erected defensive structures.

In February 1943, Major Bochkin was transferred to the 186th rifle division, and in July 1943 in the 205th Infantry Division of the 26th Army as a divisional engineer. The division held the defense in the Karelian swamps, between Kestenga and the Loukhi station. The German divisions of the SS "Edelweiss" and "Dead Head" captured the reference heights, and the 205th dug in front of them - and not a step back. Here Andrei Efimovich built his first hydroelectric power station: a tiny one, with one wooden turbine, using a seven-meter difference in the levels of two small lakes. But the current got real. “... And they gave it to the wire fences, and illuminated everything they wanted, even the underground soldiers' club - we built it in five reels and met the new 1943 in it ...”. In January 1944, Bochkin was awarded another military rank- Lieutenant Colonel, and soon, for the successful digging under the Gangashvara mountain, which allowed one explosion to destroy the entire enemy defense line, Bochkin awarded the order Battle Red Banner. In November 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Bochkin, as a corps engineer, was transferred to the 132nd Rifle Corps of the 19th Army on the 2nd Belorussian Front. As part of the corps, he took part in the Pomeranian offensive in February 1945, in the capture of the city of Gdynia, and the crossing of the Oder. And on March 7, 1945, while crossing the Grabov River in the Segetin area, he organized the restoration of the bridge under enemy fire, for which he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree.

In the personal file of Lieutenant Colonel A.E. Bochkin, there are such lines from the combat description of the head of the engineering service of the 85th Marine Rifle Brigade on the Karelian Front: "... strong-willed, courageous, resolute, enjoys business authority among the personnel, possesses organizational skills. .. Upon arrival in the division, he energetically took up the restructuring of the front line of defense, he knows engineering well ... At the front line, he personally supervised sapper work ... In battle, he behaves boldly, decisively ... On March 7, 1945, he received combat the task of restoring the blown-up bridge across the Grabov River. The task was completed ahead of schedule. Under enemy fire, the bridge was restored, the tank brigade passed on time."

A.E. Bochkin ended the war in the summer of 1945 in Denmark, on the small island of Bornholm, where under his command a ring of German underwater mines was defused. Demobilized on August 29, 1945. He was also awarded the medal "For the victory over Germany"

After the war, Andrei Efimovich took part in the construction of ten hydroelectric power stations. Irkutsk became the ninth. For the first time the great Siberian river was blocked. And for the first time Bochkin was appointed head of construction. He built a solid station and became a Hero of Socialist Labor. However, it was the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station that became the main thing, the result of the life of Andrey Efimovich, already filled with grandiose events and deeds.

The scale of A.E. Bochkin attracted many prominent Soviet writers and poets. B.N. Polevoy, A.T. Tvardovsky and others, he also became the prototype of the heroes of a number of films.

For his honest and conscientious work he was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of the Patriotic War I and II degree, military medals. For labor exploits he was awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

A. E. Bochkin - Honored Builder of the RSFSR, laureate of the Lenin Prize. The title of Hero of Socialist Labor A.E. Bochkin was awarded on January 11, 1960 for his skillful leadership and labor heroism during the construction of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station.

The outstanding hydro-builder passed away at the age of 73 after a severe long illness on October 16, 1979 in Moscow and was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

G.G. Pivkina (based on materials from sites)