Meliton Kantaria

Meliton Varlamis dze Kantaria or Kantariya (Georgian: მელიტონ ქანთარია, Russian: Мелитон Варламович Кантария; 5 October 1920 – 27 December 1993), Hero of the Soviet Union (8 May 1946), was a Georgian sergeant of the Soviet Army credited to have hoisted a Soviet flag over the Reichstag on 30 April 1945, together with Mikhail Yegorov and Alexei Berest.[1]

Meliton Kantaria
Native name
მელიტონ ვარლამის ძე ქანთარია
Born5 October 1920
Jvari, Georgia
Died27 December 1993(1993-12-27) (aged 73)
Moscow, Russia
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service/branch Red Army
Years of service1940–1946
RankJunior sergeant
Unit150th Rifle Division
Battles/warsWorld War II
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union

Biography

Born to a peasant family in a small Georgian town of Jvari, he worked in a kolkhoz until being mobilized in the Red Army in 1940. During World War II, he served in the 756th Rifle Regiment, 150th Rifle Division, of the 3rd Shock Army at the 1st Belorussian Front. He is credited for having mounted a red banner, together with Sergeant M.A. Yegorov, over the Reichstag on 1 May 1945.[2]

Demobilized in 1946, he lived thereafter in Sukhumi working as a governmental shop manager. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1947. A year after the secessionist war in Abkhazia started, he moved with his family to Moscow[3] where he died two months later in December 1993 in a Moscow hospital.

Meliton Kantaria House in Ochamchire, destroyed during the fighting

Honours and awards
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See also

References
  1. Rewriting and demolishing history.
  2. Федеральный закон РФ от 7 мая 2007 г. N 68
  3. Izvestia, Сын Героя Советского Союза Мелитона Кантарии Шота: "Отец для прочности древко своим ремнем закрепил" Archived 2012-05-25 at Archive.today, 8.5.2007 (in Russian)
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