Previously, in the square near the Novozybkov Pedagogical College, there stood a howitzer from the Great Patriotic War on a pedestal. Similar artillery pieces are installed in many cities across Russia, but this gun was special and rightfully called "legendary."

Its uniqueness lay in the fact that it had a single owner, which was unusual for socialist USSR, where everything was considered communal. The exception was artilleryman Stepan Smolyakov from Zlynka. At the beginning of the war, learning that a pilot had bought a plane with his savings, he decided to do the same and acquired a howitzer.

This was not easy, as there were no wealthy people in the Soviet Union, but Smolyakov worked hard in the Far East and saved up 27,000 rubles, a significant sum. He showed his savings book to his commander and soon began fighting with his personal howitzer number 7811.

With this howitzer, Smolyakov fought throughout the war, from Elets to the Reichstag: he participated in battles on the Kursk Bulge, in the Bryansk region, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany.

On May 9, 1945, Victory Day, after finishing the war in Berlin, Smolyakov handed over the howitzer to his division and returned to Bryansk region to his fiancée Kristina. They later had three sons and a daughter. Smolyakov fulfilled his dream of becoming a printer and the director of a printing house in Zlynka.

In the 1960s, Smolyakov remembered his howitzer and, not expecting much success, wrote to the Minister of Defense of the USSR Malinovsky asking to locate it. Surprisingly, the howitzer was found in a hangar of one of the arsenals.

By order of the Minister of Defense, the howitzer was delivered to Novozybkov and installed on a pedestal with a marble plaque, which bore the inscription in gold letters: "Howitzer No. 7811 was purchased in 1942 with the personal savings of Smolyakov S. P., who fought with it in the battles of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 from Elets to Berlin."

However, in 1990, on the eve of the USSR's collapse, it was decided to transport the legendary howitzer to Smolyakov's small homeland, Zlynka, which was quite logical.