Hotline of power engineering specialists:
In Tambov there was a regional scientific-practical conference "The historical memory of the Great Victory: deeds and fates", dedicated to the Day of Defender of the Fatherland. It was attended by representatives of state authorities and local self-government, veterans, search teams and clubs operating in the Tambov region. Including - the search group of Tambovenergo. The initiator of its creation, Deputy Chief of Kirsanovsky Distribution Zone for Sale of Services, Sergey Kolychev told the conference participants on its work.
During the Great Patriotic War more than a hundred military airfields operated in the region. Several flight crews crashed in the Tambov sky. And Sergey Kolychev, being himself a former military pilot, together with colleagues started searching for them a few years ago. "We believe that perpetuating names of heroes for future generations is our moral duty. As a result, it has become our common concern," he stressed in his speech.
Through the Central Military Archives of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation the power engineering enthusiasts found personal data of pilots and identified several dozen names of fallen pilots, previously buried in mass graves. As a result, it was decided to perpetuate them. At the initiative of Sergey Kolychev and with the active support of his colleagues, they opened a monument to the crew of the aircraft Li-2, crashed near the village of Kobyaki, and a monument to the pilots of the 1st Officer Ryazan Higher School of night crews of long-range air force fallen in the region in 1944. In 2015 with the efforts of the team of Tambovenergo a memorial obelisk was installed in the village of Podvigalovka and at the military cemetery of the city of Kirsanov.
Today this work continues. According to Sergey Kolychev, to the forthcoming celebration of the 71st anniversary of the Great Victory the power engineers plan to install an obelisk at the military cemetery in Kirsanov to another crew crashed while performing their task. In the search he and colleagues managed not only to identify the names of the dead pilots, but also to find their relatives. They will come to the opening of the memorial to pay their last tribute and respect to their loved ones.
The work of the search group of the power engineers was highly appreciated by representatives of search organizations. "Search for names of fallen soldiers is difficult and responsible work. It requires serious analysis of historical sources, restoration of the chronology of events. Often, it takes many years. The work, which is done by the search group of Tambovenergo to perpetuate names of the fallen deserves a lot of respect," stressed Chair of the Tambov Regional Office of the All-Russian public movement "Search movement of Russia" Elena Valatina.