Ivan Kulbertinov

Ivan Kulbertinov
Native name	Иван Николаевич Кульбертинов
Nickname(s)	Siberian Midnight Siberian Owl Kulbert
Born	7 November 1917 Tyanya, Yakutsk, Russian Republic
Died	13 February 1993 (aged 75) Tyanya, Sakha, Russian Federation
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Service / branch	Red Army
Years of service	1942–1946
Rank	Sergeant Major
Battles / wars	World War II
Awards	Order of the Red Banner

Ivan Nikolaevich Kulbertinov (Russian: Иван Николаевич Кульбертинов; Yakut: Ньукулай уола Уйбаан Кульбертинов; 7 November 1917 — 13 February 1993) was a Soviet sniper of World War II with a tally of 487 kills.

Early life

Kulbertinov was born on 7 November, 1917 in Tyanya in the present-day Sakha Republic to an Evenk family of reindeer herders, who hunted wildlife in the taiga of Olyokminsky District. His father Nikolai Romanovich Kulbertinov died when he was ten and his mother Anna Vasilievna was often sick due to chronic illness. For most of his teenage years, Kulbertinov worked on the Novaya Zhizn collective farm in Tsivilsky District, Chuvash Republic, for which he was recognised as a Stakhanovite. His older brother Nikolai was killed while serving on the Eastern Front in 1939.

World War II

Kulbertinov was drafted into the Red Army on 12 June 1942. Measured as 153 cm and 53 kg, he underwent training in the Ural Mountains and deployed as part of the 2nd Guards Airborne Division on 27 February 1943 near Staraya Russa, where he made his first confirmed kill. Between 1942 and 1945, Kulbertinov served outside of Moscow, Oryol, and Kursk in western Russia, in Kiev and Vinnitsa in western and eastern Ukraine, as well as in Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia. His high-ranking kills included a Sturmbannführer and two Waffen-SS Obersturmbannführer. During the war, Kulbertinov trained around 35 junior snipers.

Wehrmacht troops in Mukachevo nicknamed him "Kulbert" while those in the Eastern Carpathians referred to Kulbertinov by the epithets "Siberian Midnight"( German: Sibirische Mitternacht) or "Siberian Owl" (German: Sibirische Eule). In the community of his home, he was given the honorific name "buskhaa", meaning "mighty" in the Evenki language.

Post-war

In 1946, Kulbertinov was demobilized in Irkutsk. While there, he was involved in a shooting incident, when two drunk Red Army officers approached Kulbertinov while he was eating and accused him of stolen valor, derogatorily calling him a Chukchi. Kulbertinov wounded both men with his Tokarev sidearm. He was arrested and tried shortly after, but released less than a year later in 1947. Kulbertinov was returned to Tyanya and from 1948 to 1969, he worked as a hunter for the state-run silver fox farm while also setting up traps to deter wolves from a deer husbandry site.

Kulbertinov was the recipient of 12 medals, as well as a personalized Mosin–Nagant rifle from the Military Council of the Red Army. He was also twice considered for Hero of the Soviet Union, but ultimately did not receive the award.