The beret presented in the museum was hand-crocheted. It was made from synthetic threads of red color. It belonged to Maria Mikhailovna Rokhlina, who was a combat medic of the 95th Rifle Division during the Great Patriotic War. With the division, as a seventeen-year-old, Rokhlina took part in the battles of Stalingrad and in the Battle of Prokhorovka.

The war began when Maria Rokhlina, a native of the Zaporozhye region of the Ukrainian SSR, was a very young girl, so she had to quickly grow up. She was a combat medic: she provided first aid and carried out the wounded from the battlefield. While working as a nurse in the hospital, she saw the pain and suffering of the soldiers and fought valiantly for their lives.

Maria Rokhlina recalled,

During the war, women still preserved the sense of femininity, no matter how harsh military everyday life. They wanted to look beautiful, but the statutory military uniform did not allow it. Maria Rokhlina, in spite of everything, knitted herself a red beret, which she wore in between battles. General Andrey Ivanovich Oleynikov noticed in the trench a combat medic in an unusual beret. He smiled and called her “Little Red Riding Hood”. From then on, Maria never parted with her small, but feminine, accessory, and the soldiers began to affectionately call her their Little Red Riding Hood.

She said,