A historic meeting of the descendants of two front-line soldiers - a delegation of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug arrived in Nur-Sultan, including the search teams and Anatoly Yaptik, the descendant of the World War II soldier Ivan Yaptik. A Kazakh citizen Mukhtar Kaishatayev’s grandfather, whose name was also Mukhtar Kaishatayev, served in the 340th Rifle Regiment of the 46th Rifle Division. Unfortunately, both died in 1945. The story of soldiers promising to meet in Kazakhstan was revealed by accident. Search teams discovered a photograph of two soldiers with the caption ‘Comrade-in-arms are reading a letter from Kazakhstan’. 77 years later, their descendants met in the Kazakh land to fulfill their grandfathers’ promise they had given each other.
“Anyway, there are still many blank spots in this story, because there are still no documents confirming the death of Mukhtar Kaishatayev. It is unknown when he died and where he is buried. We are going to search together with the team from Kazakhstan. I think that we will find it,” said Andrey Gunichev, commander, search party, Russia.
“I’m very excited. There are wonderful, kind and reliable people in Kazakhstan. Thank you for everything! I’m grateful for coming to your country. I want to say that the Kazakh people cordially welcome us. They respect all traditions and I am happy to be here. I am taking a piece of Kazakhstan with me,” said Anatoly Yaptik, a great-nephew of a front-line soldier Ivan Yaptik.
