The paper concerns the recreation’s forms of population of the South of the Krasnoyarsk Region during the Great Patriotic War. The purpose of this work is to portray the common view about recreation’s forms in this time. There are a lot of quantitative studies devoted to recreation in wartime, however, for a deeper understanding of life in this period qualitative researches are more valuable. The method of oral history is more relevant for this purpose, because it allows exploring the direct people’s experience in the past. The base of the content is interview’s data of 20 persons (aged 78–88 years) collected at the period of 2013–2016.

The analysis allowed outlining a general view about recreation in wartime of the South of the Krasnoyarsk territory. Firstly, the study revealed diverse forms of recreation. There are reading books in libraries, listening to radio, going to the theaters and circus (both local and visiting), the mobile cinemas. A special form of recreation can be called the evening-dancing to the garmoshka, accordion, bayan, and in some places to the brass band. Secondly, this study found differences between urban and rural recreation. Rural people had fewer opportunities for recreation’s activity. For example, in rural areas most libraries were closed because of the lack of the ability to contain it. Thirdly, interpersonal communication play very important role, which allowed people to relax, to rest and to share your experiences and emotions with other people.