Victor Chaika, mayor of Rivne, administrative centre of the Rivne region in the Western part of Ukraine, sent on the eve of the Victory Day an official greeting letter to the Tuvan war veterans who liberated Rivne and some of the Ukrainean villages from the Nazi's occupation in 1944. Vera Bailak, 83, and Kyrgys Chamzyryn, 87, are the only Tuvan war veterans who lived up out of the legendary Tuvan Cavalry Squadron numbering 208.
Tuvan People's Republic, since 1921 an independant state, took the Hitler's agression against the Soviet Union as its own disaster.
Tuvan Great Khural which incidentally gathered on the same day as the agression started declared that Tuva would participate in the fight of the Soviet Union against fascism with all its might. Tuvan military commissions were piled with hundreds of letters from volunteers who wanted to fight in the Red Army against German troops. People began to gather money, cattle, horses for the Soviet Army. But the Soviet Union was not willing to engage the soldiers from other states relying on its own forces.
Only in 1942 the Tuvans were let into the Red Army. The first group of Tuvan volunteers made a part of the 25th tank Russian regiment (Ukraine front) in May, 1943. Khomushku Churgui-ool, commander of the Tuvan tank crew, for his heroic behaviour was awarded with the Heroe of the Soviet Union star.
Official farewell to the 208 fighters of the Tuvan Cavalry Squadron took place on the 1st of September, 1943, on the main square of Kyzyl. One fourth of the squadron was made up of the Oyun clan.
The Tuvan volunteers passed a necessary military course in the village of Snegiri (Smolensk region) and then walked to Ukraine. 'We were going at nights. In a knee-high mud. Artillery men were in the poorest position having to pull very heavy canons. Very scarce food. We took care first of the horses feeding them and then ate ourselves.'- Vera Bailak remembers.
The Tuvan squadron took part in the liberation of a number of Ukraine villages and the town of Rivno, where up to now a street carrying the name of Tuvan Cavalry Squadron exists.
3 years ago when Rivne officially celebrated the 60th anniversary of its liberation, out of 9 Tuvan war veterans alive at that time it was Vera and Kyrgys who were found apt due to their medical performance to undertake a far-off and tiring trip. Chaika was the one to receive them and to say at a reception to the two envoys: 'Will Chaika be in power later or not - it does not matter - you will be always welcome here as our Liberators'