Did you know that the heroine of the song ‘Katyusha’ had a prototype?

Gennady Shishkin/Sputnik
The song ‘Katyusha’, written in 1938 by poet Mikhail Isakovsky and composer Matvey Blanter, is one of the most famous Soviet songs in the world. During World War II, BM-13 rocket launchers were named in her honor. Sincere lines about Katyusha, going out on a steep high bank, were close to many.

But, it turns out that the heroine is not a fantasy of the authors; she had a real prototype. So, who was Katyusha, who sent her song to the "fighter on the far frontier"?

There are several versions. The most common and plausible goes as follows: poet Mikhail Isakovsky was inspired by the story of Ekaterina Alexeeva - her husband was a border guard and served in the Far East. During the Hassan conflict in the late 1930s, she traveled with him to the front line, worked in a hospital and was awarded the ‘Order of the Red Star’. In 2013, a monument to her was erected in Vladivostok.

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