Dmitry Sergeevich Petronov

Born in Stavropol, 16 August 1913.

His father is Sergei Beligtovich Petronov. His mother is Natalya Fomavna Ostrucheskaya.

In his memory, Sergei was just a fisherman and sometimes become farmer, working together with the village. The mother was fully housewife who loves cooking and baking. Even though his mother had mutism and mostly communicating through board and chalk, Dmitry still learned to speak well thanks to his father and neighbors around.

When Civil War and famine comes, his father joins as partisan and killed shortly when Dmitry was 6 years old. The mother who know the famine will worsen, deciding to take risk by fleeing with Dmitry with available food ration. They managed to reach Tsaritsyn around 1920, almost died in hunger. But they are helped by a Tatar family with surname Khurashuk who also hide their identity and Islamic religion. 

With Khurashuk family, they built a small bakery slowly to feed themselves and savings money. With gratitude, Dmitry and his mother made a vow to help concealing the identity of Khurashuk family. A the mother and son are trustful, they can slowly perform prayers and traditions. Dmitry's mother also find it fascinating and help hiding it. though Dmitry's mother and Dmitry still prefer to be Orthodox, albeit not too religious. this also made Khurashuk family stayed alive and not exiled in crucial years.

I often think the bakery is only known in the neighborhood who need the bread. Khurashuk family had to be clever in getting the flour, and so... Dmitry's mother become the 'frontline' as she has more Western Russian face. So far they are managed to get low quality flour... and that's already enough to feed themselves and sell it to neighborhood.

During those times too, the bakery also feeding some homeless people. One of favorited for Dmitry was a little girl named Darya... that mysteriously went missing 4 months later. Dmitry eventually moving on, thinking the girl probably died or already move out with her father.

Time passed again. Dmitry's mother died in pneumonia around 1928. The head family, Timur Khurashuk and Marva Khurashuk, immediately stepped up as the foster parents for Dmitry. The family's three children (oldest sister Sofia, middle brother Ismail, youngest brother Zakhar) also thinks of Dmitry as their siblings.

Dmitry then lives as baker, and only entered elementary and junior high school. After that, he is more focusing as baker, had no big ambition and just focus surviving as normal Soviet man. He still finds small things that made him happy: listening to Alexandrov Ensemble performing at radio inbetween 1928 until 1932... which noticed by Ismail. 

So one day, Ismail invited Dmitry to take a challenge register when the ensemble opening audition in each big cities include Tsaritsyn (or Stalingrad), and Dmitry agreed. Unexpectedly, Dmitry passed and became a tenor choir artist after the vocal audition. Dmitry also received benefits, including having his own communal room at Moscow.

He might feel both homesick (he has to live alone in provided Moscow communal by government) and happy (for the first time he has chance to expand himself). However he didn't feel the resentment, . because Tatar family never abused/neglect. in fact Dmitry feels bad to cling on them (even if the family already thinking of Dmitry as their part of family!)

And so, his adventure in the ensemble started...