Sports and metallurgy are a path for strong-minded people. However, war hardens in a different way. Our famous colleague Eduard Anotkin is a demobilised Ukrainian defender and a well-known arm-lifting and armwrestling coach.
After a year on the front line, he returned home, determined to rebuild his life and train athletes again.
Eduard Anotkin is a representative of the company's labor dynasty. His grandfather also worked at the plant, then his father, in whose footsteps our hero followed. He graduated from vocational school with the specialty of locomotive driver's assistant and got a job at the plant. Then there was service in the army and again a return to the Kamet-Steel family. During his years of work, Eduard also worked in the plant's Security Department and for five years in the Blast Furnace Shop.
On the third day after the full-scale enemy invasion, Eduard went to the military recruitment office and volunteered. At first, he was appointed commander of the rifle division of the Kamianske territorial defence battalion, and from May 2022 he served in the Donetsk sector.
"My wife, of course, was very worried, but I knew where I was going and why I was doing it. But my mother still doesn't know that I was at war. Because I would definitely not have been able to bear this burden of emotions. So, before we were taken to the front, I told her that I was going on guard duty at a hospital in Dnipro, and therefore I would not be able to call and visit often. I thank God that I came back alive, because I was more worried about my mother than myself,’ the veteran says.
Eduard received a concussion at "zero line", after which doctors insisted he needed rehabilitation for a month, but Anotkin refused and returned to his brothers-in-arms three days later.
Soon, he began to have serious heart problems (according to doctors, Eduard suffered a heart attack in his legs), so after another hospitalisation, the fighter was demobilised for health reasons. Upon returning to the plant, the veteran was not left without support from colleagues and management. He could no longer work in the Blast Furnace Shop due to his health, so he was offered to undergo retraining and become an electrical fitter in the Network and Substation Shop, which he still works for today.
Sport became a psychological adaptation to normal life after the war for Eduard. In his free time, he continues to train champions. His total coaching experience is over 25 years, 10 of which he has been coaching on a voluntary basis.
And Eduard's first significant coaching achievement in 2024 was the Ukrainian Armwrestling Qualification. Nearly 300 athletes from 13 regions of the country competed for the title of winner, including Anotkin's student Yevhen Hryhir, who competed as part of the visually impaired participants, showed excellent results in the 80 kg category and was selected for the Ukrainian national team.
So now coach Anotkin will be training his athlete for the European and World Championships, which will take place in a few months.
Eduard remains a man with an active civic position, provides volunteer assistance to his brothers-in-arm at the front and continues his donor work, as he has been awarded the title of Honoured Donor of Ukraine. The veteran believes it is his duty to help people and the state to survive and win in every way possible. Kamet-Steel is truly proud of this man. We wish Eduard good health and success in his noble deeds!
