Olga Fyodorvna Kiss née Bordashevskaya (russian: Ольга Фёдоровна Бордашевская; 1919 – 29 March 2002) was a soldier in the Red Army during World War II, credited as one of the top women snipers in history. By some accounts, she tallied 108 kills, placing her behind only

Lyudmila Pavlichenko Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, (russian: Людми́ла Миха́йловна Павличе́нко; uk, Людмила Михайлівна Павличенко (romanized: Lyudmyla Mykhailivna Pavlychenko), ; 10 October 1974) was a So ...

Tatyana Kostyrina Tatyana Ignatovna Kostyrina (; 18 July 1924 – 22 November 1943) was a sniper in the Red Army during World War II and one of the top women snipers in history. After her death in combat she was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Unio ...

and

Nina Petrova Nina Pavlovna Petrova (russian: Нина Павловна Петрова; 27 July 1893 – 1 May 1945) was a Soviet sniper during the Winter War and World War II. She was credited with 122 kills by soviet government. She was posthumously awarded t ...

Biography

Bersashevskaya was born in 1919 to a Russian family. Before the war she was a student at university in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

with dreams of becoming a writer. Upon the German invasion of the Soviet Union she immediately volunteered for the war effort, originally working as a nurse in a field hospital. Later on in the war, she attended the Central Women's Sniper Training School based in

Podolsk Podolsk ( rus, Подольск, p=pɐˈdolʲsk) is an industrial city, center of Podolsk Urban Okrug, Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Pakhra River (a tributary of the Moskva River). History The first mentions of the village of Podol, w ...

, graduating and being deployed to the warfront as a

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

in 1944. Her customized rifle, which she nicknamed "Ivan Ivanovich", was a gift from the

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...

. During her time as a sniper she rapidly accumulated a tally of enemy kills, including ten enemy snipers, and earned promotion to the rank of senior sergeant. However, her last kill was on 10 March 1945, since she was badly wounded by mortar fire days later and left unable to continue fighting. Her cumulative tally is not entirely clear due to lack of specification about final results in award documents, however, it is certainly sizable, with the lowest estimate being from a February 1945 magazine crediting her with 80 kills at the time, while most other sources go by Ivan Vybornyk's statement that she had 108 kills. After the war she married, taking on her husband's surname. Despite her injuries from the war rendering her classified as a disabled veteran, she did not retire, participating in a long-term voyage of Soviet whalers to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

and later becoming executive secretary of the

Soviet Peace Committee The Soviet Peace Committee (SPC, also known as Soviet Committee for the Defense of Peace, SCDP, russian: Советский Комитет Защиты Мира) was a state-sponsored organization responsible for coordinating peace movements active ...

. She died on 29 March 2002.''Жукова Ю. К''. Девушка со снайперской винтовкой. — М.: Центрполиграф, 2006.

Awards

* Order of Glory 2nd class * Order of Glory 3rd class * Medal "For Courage" * campaign and jubilee medals

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bordashevskaya, Olga 1919 births 2002 deaths Recipients of the Order of Glory Soviet military personnel of World War II Soviet military snipers Soviet women in World War II