RP78ZM
Velikoy Pobede 78 Zinaida Mareseva

She was born in the village of Cherkassk , Volsky district , Saratov region on 20.06.1923 .

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, she graduated from short-term nursing courses and at the end of November 1942 voluntarily went to the front.

She fought as part of the troops of the Stalingrad, Voronezh and Steppe fronts.

When crossing the Seversky Donets River south of Belgorod, medical instructor Mareseva assisted the wounded and ferried them to the left bank of the river. For two days, Mareseva, together with an orderly, carried 64 wounded from the battlefield. In one of the flights, she was mortally wounded by a mine fragment and died in hospital on August 6, 1943. Senior Sergeant Zinaida Ivanovna Mareseva was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union of the Guard posthumously on February 22, 1944 for bravery and courage shown during the crossing of the Seversky Donets River. She was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Star, and a medal. She was buried in the urban-type settlement of Pyatnitskoye in the Volokonovsky district of the Belgorod region.