Military Figure. She was a World War II Soviet Sniper. Born in the Russian village of Yedma to a milkmaid and a logger. Highly valuing education, she was determined to continue her studies beyond what was available near her home. She moved to Arkhangelsk to attend the college there against her parents' wishes. While still a college student, she worked as a kindergarten teacher, and learned to shoot on the shooting range. During the German invasion, she and other townsfolk fought fires from the bombing and took turns protecting the kindergarten by standing lookout with guns on the rooftops. She was later awarded the title "Honored school teacher of the Russian Federation." She was also a member of the political youth organization the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. Three of her five brothers were killed in combat and Shanina decided to enlist. She was not immediately accepted, but after a time she was permitted to train and was finally accepted into the Central Female Sniper Academy. The Soviet Union had decided women would be ideal snipers because they were thought to be more resilient than men on the field of battle, better able to function in cold temperatures, and were patient and calculating. A sniper with 59 confirmed kills, she was featured in a Soviet magazine while active and was known to the enemy as "The Unseen Terror of East Prussia." During the Battle of Vilnius alone, she killed 12 enemy soldiers. An exceedingly accurate shooter, she was capable of hitting moving enemy personnel and shooting two targets in quick succession. Her weapon of choice was the Mosin Nagant M91/30 rifle with a PU scope. After taking a bullet wound to the shoulder she was awarded a medal for courage. She kept a battle diary and wrote many letters, and much of this material was published in the years after her death. While on a short vacation leave she wrote in her diary, "Again, ready to run to the front. Some force draws me there. How to explain? I want to see a real war." Soviet snipers were usually not dispatched to areas of heavy fighting but she insisted on serving in these battles. The subsequent fighting was devastating to the Soviet forces, as shown in a letter she wrote eleven days before her death: "Maybe I will soon be dead. You may ask why I was going to die. The battalion, where I am now, 78 have only 6." Her bravery received praise during her lifetime although she was at odds with the Soviet policy of sparing snipers from heavy fights. On January 8, 1945 she wrote in her diary, "After the rest went to a member of the military council to achieve its goal - to get to the front. He sent to the army commander, General Krylov. With great efforts persuaded to let me into the next offensive. Finally!" In heavy fighting during the East Prussian Offensive, she shielded the severely wounded commander of an artillery unit and she sustained mortal wounds when a shell fragment tore her abdomen open. Fellow soldiers took her to a hospital in the village now named Novobobruysk, where she died the following day at age 20. At the time of her death her rank was Senior Artillery Sergeant. She was originally buried under a pear tree on the banks of the Lava River, but her ashes were moved two years later to the war memorial in the village Znamensk where 959 other soldiers were also brought from various locations. She was the first female Soviet sniper to be awarded the Order of Glory. Despite her successful, if short, service on the field of battle, she told a nurse at the hospital where she died that she regretted having done so little. She is buried at the mass grave memorial, but in her own single grave.