Press photo "A gun stuck in the mud"

An original picture that perfectly illustrates the marching life of Soviet gunners. The reverse side is clean, but it's safe to say that this is a TASS newsreel. The size is 165*238 mm. Guarantee of authenticity.

Nikolai Ivanovich Khandogin (1909-1989) was a Soviet military photojournalist, during the Great Patriotic War he was a photojournalist on the Leningrad and 2nd Baltic fronts, best known for his newsreels of besieged Leningrad.

Nikolai Khandogin was born on October 20, 1909 in the Belarusian village of Volyntsy, now Verkhnedvinsky district, Vitebsk region. He grew up without a father, worked as a farmhand, worked as a shepherd and a road construction worker. After graduating from high school in 1927, he studied at Belgoskino in Minsk, at the projectionist courses, and then worked in the Vitebsk region. In 1931, he was drafted into the Red Army, and during his service he became interested in photography. Nikolai sent several of his photographs to a contest organized by the editorial office of the newspaper "For the Glory of the Motherland" (the official newspaper of the Belarusian Military District, now the official newspaper of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus — "Belarusian Military Newspaper. For the glory of the Motherland"). Nikolai was awarded the main prize — the Fotokor camera. The photo showed a tank emerging from the water while crossing the river[1]. It is noteworthy that for the first time in world practice, the use of tanks in overcoming water obstacles was carried out in 1934 by the troops of the Belarusian Military District with serial T-26 and BT-5 tanks. In 1935, after completing his military service, Nikolai Khandogin was hired permanently as a photojournalist on the staff of the newspaper On Guard of the Motherland (the official press organ of the Leningrad Military District, the regional supplement to the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda). Since 1938, he also worked for LenTASS. In 1939-1940, he was one of the few photojournalists during the Soviet-Finnish War. During the Great Patriotic War— he was a photojournalist on the Leningrad and 2nd Baltic fronts. After the war, N. I. Khandogin continued to work for the newspaper "On Guard of the Motherland", his works were published in various publications — the daily newspaper "Evening Leningrad", the magazines "Soviet Union" and "Ogonyok". Nikolai Ivanovich also collaborated with the Soviet Information Bureau and the Khudfond Combine of the RSFSR. N. I. Khandogin died on May 15, 1989, and was buried in his homeland in Volyntsy. In 2009, a monument was erected on his grave to mark the centenary of N. I. Khandogin.