The soldiers of the search party "Eaglet", operating at the parish in honor of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Seven Keys of the city of Yekaterinburg, returned from the XXVI International training "Memory Watch".
Dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Smolensk search engine Igor Anatolyevich Zharyntsev, who died in 2024, the "Memory Watch" took place on the territory of the Yelninsky district of the Smolensk region.
The Eaglet is not an ordinary search party, it is an Orthodox squad. At the grand opening of the "Memorial Watch", the singers of the detachment helped Bishop Meletius of Roslavl and Desnogorsk to perform a litany at the cross, where there was a temporary shelter with the remains of soldiers raised for the Watch. Here, every evening, the squad sang memorial prayers.
"This year, the detachment turned out to be the most numerous – almost fifty fighters from young to old took part in a search expedition to the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. The place for the camping bivouac was chosen right where the military operations took place. Every day, the eaglets went on a search," said the participants of the Watch in the VKontakte group.
Together with the "Hammer and Sickle" detachment of the city of Safonovo, the fighter of the "Eaglet" detachment Valeria was the first to raise several fighters of the Red Army. The remains of one Red Army soldier were picked up by a group of Yekaterinburg search engines led by Maria Zhilenkova. The guys also found two medallions, a spoon, a flask, a gas mask and a bowler hat. The second group, together with the search party "Height" of the city of Desnogorsk, found the remains of the skull and collarbone of a Red Army soldier. The third group, together with the Sickle and Hammer software, participated in the rise of another Red Army soldier.
"During the two weeks of the search, the detachment raised 16 Red Army soldiers. There was also one collection of the remains of soldiers," the fighters shared. – For the search eaglets, Yelnya became a place of wonder: the group discovered a mass grave in a trench containing the remains of three soldiers – heroes of the Great Patriotic War. There are medallions attached to each of them. One is lost, the second is under examination, the third is read: Bukaev Semyon Nikiforovich, born in 1910, Saratov region."
During the Watch, Yekaterinburg search engines visited the church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Novospasskoye, where they had a sincere conversation with its rector, priest Nikolai Privalov. The pastor blessed the children to ring the bells in the ancient bell tower of the church where M.I. Glinka was baptized.
Also, the eaglets, on their own initiative, on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, on August 19, at the location of their detachment bivouac, served a mass – a small service performed by people without a priest.
The commander of the detachment Alexey Leonidovich Solovyov and the fighter of the detachment, professor of the Alexander Nevsky Military University Mikhail Mikhailovich Kurochko conducted interesting lectures of spiritual and moral content for the searchers, which were surrounded by birch trees and a sparkling bonfire.
The Orlyonok search party was created in 2012 on the initiative of the rector of the church in honor of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Seven Keys of the city of Yekaterinburg, Archpriest Andrei Kanev, in order to search for the remains of missing soldiers of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and perpetuate the memory of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland. In addition, the group conducts significant spiritual and moral work among young searchers, conducting lithias and spiritual conversations.