Yuri Sakharov

After the German invasion of the USSR during World War II Sakharov twice was mobilized for engineering work (digging trenches), but both times, under the pressure of the advance of the Nazi troops during the disorderly retreat of the Red Army, the civilian mobilized were left to their own devices, and Sakharov twice returned home to Stalino.

After the second return, it turned out that the Soviet troops and the military registration and enlistment office had already left the city, and the Germans had not yet arrived.

For a short time, Sakharov worked as a secretary at a school whose director was his chess teacher Apollinariy Gaevsky.

In April 1942, when the financial situation became completely desperate, Sakharov, with one of the echelons, together with other Soviet citizens, went to work in Germany, where he was assigned to the Anna-3 mine near the city of Alsdorf.

But at the first overnight stay, Sakharov escaped (by stealing a bicycle from a policeman) and returned to the Anna-3 mine, where he waited for the arrival of American troops.

All mentions of Sakharov were removed from books and articles being prepared for publication, including a collection of selected games of Ukrainian chess players edited by Isaac Lipnitsky and Boris Ratner (1952).

Documents from his case, stored in the archive of the SSU, indicate that immediately after returning from Germany he was under close surveillance by state security agencies.

When this resolution reached the place of detention only in early October, it turned out that Yuri Nikolaevich had already been released (as “unreasonably convicted” with the note “considered not convicted”) by decision of August 10, 1956 of one of the many local commissions for the review of cases repressed, which were created by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 24, 1956.

Yuri Sakharov was part of the Soviet Team that won gold in Chess Correspondence Olympiad VI of 1968–1972 and VII of 1972–1976.