Volgograd artist shares memories of post-Stalingrad aftermath
The future artist survived the Battle of Stalingrad in the Zavolzhye region.
Famous Volgograd artist Vladimir Rakhleev, a survivor of the Battle of Stalingrad, on the eve of the 83rd anniversary of the victory at Stalingrad, told how the city and nearby suburbs lived in the first days after the defeat of German troops and the capture of Friedrich Paulus. Everything that young Volodya had to see at that time is reflected in many of his paintings.
This image is considered a self-portrait of the Volgograd artist.
Vladimir Rakhleev, together with his mother, survived the Battle of Stalingrad in the village of Solyanoye in Zavolzhye. He learned from his mother that the Germans at Stalingrad were defeated and had surrendered. And she was told by soldiers who heard the joyful news on the radio.
The scene depicts a figure halted just steps from the Volga River.
— As soon as we heard this news,« recalls Vladimir Alexandrovich, »we set off on foot and by hitchhiking towards Stalingrad. We came to Krasnoslobodsk, but did not go further, across the Volga. We had nowhere to go there, since the city was practically destroyed. We settled in an empty adobe hut on the outskirts of Krasnoslobodsk, in the Tatar settlement. We registered there. Based on that, we started receiving bread ration cards after some time. While the ice remained on the Volga, we walked across it to Stalingrad with my mother. We came to Yelshanka, where before the Germans came to the city, my grandmother«s house was, but found only ashes there... When we returned to Krasnoslobodsk, my mother started working at a bakery. It was located on the Volga bank, in the building of a former slaughterhouse, near the ship repair plant.
In the autumn of 1943, Vladimir Rakhleev started first grade.
— The school building in Krasnoslobodsk had long been bombed. Next to it, in a shed, under a canopy, desks were set up for us — you could say, practically outdoors. That«s where I began my schooling,» recalls the man.
Over time, Vladimir Alexandrovich Rakhleev became a professional artist, one of the most famous in Volgograd. And on many of his canvases, he captured everything he witnessed in 1942–1943, during the battle for Stalingrad.
In the past year, 2025, Vladimir Rakhleev celebrated his ninetieth anniversary. A personal exhibition of Vladimir Alexandrovich«s paintings was dedicated to it, held throughout December and January in the artist»s small homeland, at the district museum complex in his native Dubovka.
And his relative, the grandson of his own brother Alexander Rakhleev, became a riverman, piloting cruise ships along Russia«s waterways:
— I believe that Vladimir Rakhleev is my relative from the Dubovka Rakhleevs, but I am not personally acquainted,« said Alexander Rakhleev. »Family ties were broken at the level of my grandfather Ivan, Vladimir«s brother. About Ivan, unfortunately, I know almost nothing, except that he was repressed in the late 1930s. I would like to establish and maintain contact with all the Rakhleevs. A couple of years ago, I tried through the museum where he had an exhibition — it didn»t work out.
