The name of the ancestral village of the Gazdanov brothers — Dzuarikau, in Ossetian translates as "the abode of the saint."

The eldest of the brothers, Magomed Gazdanov, was the first Komsomol member in the village. Being a natural leader, he headed the Komsomol movement. He was a leader for the youth. The elders used to say that when the roaring miracle-machine was brought to Dzuarikau, the whole village came out to the street to watch how Magomet would mount the "steel horse."

The second brother, Dzarakhmet, was a skilled horseman. He tossed a coin while standing on a horse, performed a trick, and then caught the coin. The horses obeyed him without question. The villagers were sure that he spoke their language.

The third son in the Gazdanov family was Khajismel. He was considered a born artist. The young man had excellent musical hearing, played the violin well, and sang Ossetian folk songs better than anyone else in the village. He was also the best dancer.

The fourth son, Maharbak, showed pedagogical talent from childhood. At school, he was quick to help kids who were struggling with some subjects. No one in the village was surprised when he chose the teaching profession. After graduating from the North Ossetian Pedagogical Institute, he returned to his native village and taught Ossetian language and literature.

The fifth son in the Gazdanov family, Sozyrko, was known in the village as a joker. He had a subtle sense of humor. The young man improvised jokes and funny stories on the spot, which even made the strict elders laugh. After finishing school, he enrolled in a food technology college and later worked as a cook in the capital of the republic — the city of Ordzhonikidze, now Vladikavkaz.

The sixth son was Shamil. Strong and athletic, he dreamed of a military career from childhood. After school, having passed exams brilliantly, he entered a military school. He became an artillery officer.

The youngest in the family was Khasanbek. When the war began, he had just finished school.

Each of the brothers dreamed of a large and friendly family and wanted to succeed in their profession. The war shattered their plans. One by one, they went to the front.

The youngest, Khasanbek, did not stay aside either.

Mother Tasso did not want to let him go to war. But he told his mother: all my brothers are fighting, defending the homeland, I cannot sit at home. He had just passed his school exams. He gathered his books in a stack and promised his family: I will return and continue studying. He was only 17 years old. To be drafted into the army, he added a year to his age. He left, not really knowing the way to the city, barefoot, without even shoes.

And so it happened that the first death notice came to the Gazdanov family about the youngest brother. The family believes that Khasanbek went missing in Belarus, caught in the fiercest fighting. Soviet troops, defending, suffered heavy losses, especially from air raids. Official sources state that he died in September 1941 in Ukraine, defending the village of Timoshevka in the Zaporizhzhia region. German tanks were rushing toward the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station. The people's militia and troops barely held back the hordes of fascists. Hundreds of Red Army soldiers remained unburied on the battlefield. When the Germans occupied the village, locals buried the fallen soldiers and militiamen in trenches, craters, and an anti-tank ditch. Many graves were lost.

Two other brothers, Magomed and Khajismel, fought in Crimea. They were privates. They met on the peninsula during the war. With them was their sworn brother — Ossetians have this concept. In his presence, Khajismel died defending Sevastopol; thanks to his talent, he could have become a people's artist. The sworn brother managed to dig a shallow grave and bury Khajismel. There was little time; Soviet troops were retreating. Later it became known that Magomed went missing during the defense of Sevastopol.

Khajismel’s sworn brother returned to the native village after the war, badly wounded, and soon died.

Dzarakhmet fought in Novorossiysk. He was an outstanding horseman in his cavalry regiment. He never learned that he had a daughter. For a long time, he was listed as missing, but relatives later found out that he died on June 15, 1942. Dzarakhmet Gazdanov was buried in a mass grave with 800 soldiers at the city cemetery in Novorossiysk. The family found this burial only in 2013. In the memory book of Novorossiysk defenders, he is listed under number 87.

Meanwhile, the mother of seven sons, Tasso Gazdanova, went out every day to the road along which her children had gone to the front. Gazing into the distance, she waited for the postman with letters from her sons. At night, she talked to the moon, and during the day — to the sun, asking the luminary, if it warmed her sons, to help them in difficult moments. Tasso died when the third death notice arrived at the house. Her heart could not bear such grief…

Maharbak, who worked as a teacher before the war, died near Moscow in 1941, Sozyrko fell in battles for Kyiv in 1942.

The sixth brother, Shamil, who had been a career military man since 1937, died in battle on November 23, 1944. Initially, he was buried southeast of the village of Nikratse, in Latvia. After the war, he was reburied in a mass grave at the memorial near the Lieknie farmstead in the Skrunda region. His name and surname were engraved on the monument. However, there was a mistake in the patronymic: on the monument, it reads not Asakhmetovich but Alekseevich.

Guard Lieutenant Shamil Gazdanov went through a heroic path. He was commander of a mortar company of the 6th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 2nd Guards Rifle Division. He was awarded two Orders of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War 2nd class, and the Order of the Patriotic War 1st class. He received the last award in August 1944, three months before his death.

The ancestral village of the Gazdanov brothers, Dzuarikau, was occupied by fascists in 1942 during the war.

The Germans, having taken Chikola, Digora, and Alagir, rushed toward the Military-Ossetian and Military-Georgian roads. Since the Gazdanov house was the largest and most solid in the village, the fascists set up their commandant’s office there. While retreating, the Germans blew up the house, leaving only ruins. The family was taken in by relatives with the same surname. Later, the collective farm built them a small house.

Soviet troops were advancing from the west. Victory was getting closer. The head of the family, Asakhmet Gazdanov, was waiting for the last surviving son — artilleryman Shamil — to return home. One spring day, he was sitting in the yard holding his granddaughter Mila when he noticed the village elders entering the gate, all dressed in black. He understood everything. They were carrying the seventh death notice. He never got up from where he sat. He had a heart attack. As a sign of mourning, the whole village dressed in black clothes.

The story of the Gazdanov family shocked the residents of the republic. It was decided to erect a monument to the seven brothers who gave their lives for the Motherland on the fronts of the war.

On the eve of the Victory anniversary, a competition was announced. Sculptors presented dozens of sketches. None of them touched the heart of the first secretary of the regional party committee. Suddenly, sculptor Sergey Sanakoev called him, urgently asking to be put on the phone despite a meeting. He began shouting into the receiver: "Turn on the radio immediately! Cranes!.." The secretary did not understand anything. Sergey Pavlovich continued: "They did not fall into our earth once, but turned into white cranes... A song based on the poem by Rasul Gamzatov. The monument to the Gazdanovs must be made in the form of flying cranes!" Thus, in 1975, the monument appeared: "Flying, flying across the sky, a weary wedge..." The war scattered the brothers across different lands. They returned home, to their native village Dzuarikau, having turned into white cranes.

Rasul Gamzatov wrote the poem "Cranes" in 1965 in Hiroshima, Japan. He was struck by the story of a Japanese girl, Sadako Sasaki, who developed radiation sickness after the bombing of Hiroshima. While in the hospital, according to an old legend, to recover, she began folding a thousand paper cranes. The girl worked tirelessly but did not manage to make the required number of birds and died. Thousands of women in mourning clothes gathered near the monument to the girl with a white crane. And in Japan, the crane is white. The poet recalled how, standing in the crowd amid human grief, he suddenly saw real cranes flying in the sky on their migration from Siberia. They flew in a wedge. Rasul Gamzatov noticed a small gap in the flock... That day, a telegram arrived. The poet learned of his mother's death. On the way home, on the plane, he thought about his mother, two brothers who did not return from the war, millions of the fallen, women in white, and cranes. His hand reached for a pen and notebook. The lines sounded in rhythm with the overwhelming emotions. As a result, the poem was written, which became a requiem, akin to a prayer.

Every year, thousands of tourists come to the monument to the Gazdanov brothers. Then they are taken to the village school, where a small museum is set up. Seven black Circassian coats hang on the wall. And from the photographs look Magomed, Dzarakhmet, Khajismel, Maharbak, Sozyrko, Shamil, and Khasanbek... They will forever remain 34, 30, 29, 28, 26, 24, and 17 years old.

Of all the Gazdanov brothers, only two managed to marry — Magomet and Sozyrko. Grandmother Tasso and grandfather Asakhmet now have 15 great-grandchildren.

Sources:

https://www.mk.ru/social/2019/07/02/belye-zhuravli-istoriya-semi-pogibshikh-osetinskikh-bratev-gazdanovykh.html