Solovetsky cabin boy from the city of Kuibyshev: Ivan Pavlovich Zorin (1925-1987), a participant of the Great Victory parade of 1945

The paper, based on a wide range of sources, shows courage and heroism of Soviet youth during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, using the example of the biography of the Solovetsky young man from the city of Kuibyshev (Samara) – Ivan Pavlovich Zorin (1925–1987). The School for cabin boys of the Training Detachment of the Northern Fleet of the USSR Navy 1942–1945 (Solovetskaya School for cabin boys) – was a grotesque military educational institution. As for its students, it was the youngest school among the countries participating in the Second World War. Largely because of this, its graduates gained the status of veterans of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 – only in 1985, thanks to the chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces in 1984–1988, Marshal of the Soviet Union S.F. Akhromeev. Among 4111 specialists trained in the Solovetskaya School for cabin boys there were 3 Heroes of the Soviet Union and 3 Heroes of Socialist Labor, 3 laureates of the State and 1 Lenin Prizes of the USSR, admirals and scientists, honored teachers and artists as well as production leaders. The author emphasizes the task of genetic continuity of modern Russia with the Generation of Winners; the goal is patriotic education of youth and creative development of society.