Tkalenko, Andrei Alexandrovich

Early years

Andrey Tkalenko was born on September 30, 1913 in the city of Nikolaev of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine ) in the family of a blacksmith .

After graduating from seven primary school classes in 1926, he entered the factory school.

From 1926 to 1929, Andrew worked as a blacksmith’s apprentice in the forging and metalworking workshops of the Nikolaev Metal Plant, and from 1929 to 1933 - as a foreman, first of the Nikolaev Metal Plant, then in the Nikolaev Artel “Red Blacksmith”.

From 1933 to 1935 he worked as the head of the blacksmith shop of the Oblstroy trust in the city of Nikolaev .

In October 1935, Tkalenko was drafted into the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army .

Until 1938 he served in the 187th regiment of the troops of the NKVD of the USSR in the city of Chelyabinsk . There he graduated from the junior commanding regimental school and the evening Komvuz year.

After demobilization from January 1938 to January 1939, he worked as head of the administrative and economic department of the Chelyabinsk plant "CHEGRES".

In 1939, A. A. Tkalenko decided to return home and enter military service there. Already in February, he was enlisted in the 198th squad of the NKVD of the USSR (VOKhR) of the city of Nikolaev as an assistant to the chief of staff of the detachment, then assistant to the commander of the detachment in the economic unit.

Great Patriotic War

In June 1941 the Great Patriotic War began . In August, during the retreat from Nikolaev, Andrei Aleksandrovich was wounded and was treated in a field hospital of the 9th Army .

In March 1942, from the 198th detachment, Tkalenko was sent as a student to the Stalingrad Military-Political School. In late August 1942, the school had to join the battles at Stalingrad , in connection with which the students of the school were issued an early release.

A. A. Tkalenko was appointed to the post of military commissar of the infantry battalion of the 62nd Army , and also was elected a member of the party bureau and second secretary of the Stalingrad military-political school.

In September 1942, in the battles near Stalingrad, Andrei Aleksandrovich was slightly wounded, and after, in October, he was seriously wounded.

From October to December 1942, Tkalenko was treated in the hospitals of Engels and Saratov , then was evacuated to the Sverdlovsk region.

After recovery, he was sent to Moscow to the reserve of the Political Administration at the Military-Political School named after V. I. Lenin .

On the third day of being in the reserve, Andrei Tkalenko was assigned to the 70th army of the troops of the NKVD of the USSR. During the formation of the army, he was sent to army retraining courses for battalion commanders, at the same time he served as deputy chief of combat training courses (courses were located at the 222nd army reserve regiment of the 70th Army of the NKVD of the USSR).

After completing the courses, the military council of the army appointed A. A. Tkalenko as deputy commander of the 222nd reserve regiment for logistical support.

In the period of the battles near Kursk as part of the army, Andrei Alexandrovich Tkalenko assembled and prepared the replenishment of combat units. Then a similar task was performed already near Brest .

At the end of 1944 , by the decision of the military council of the 70th Army and the Order of the Commander of the 2nd Byelorussian Front , Tkalenko was appointed deputy commander of the 200th Dvinskaya Order of the Red Banner Division for rear.

As part of the division, he took an active part in the hostilities during the liberation of Brest and Pinsk , and then of Poland .

He was in this position until the end of the Great Patriotic War. The 200th Division, consisting of the 2nd Belorussian Front, reached the Elbe River in combat.

For participation in the logistical support of a number of cities during the war, A. A. Tkalenko, nine commendations of the Supreme Commander were announced.

Post-war years - construction of the Baikonur cosmodrome

In July 1945 , already in Germany , the 200th division was disbanded. It was part of the 49th Army , and on its base the Gorky Military District was formed.

In connection with the disbandment of the division, the military council of the 49th army appointed Andrei Alexandrovich head of the army’s food department, but he did not leave Germany with the army headquarters, as a decision of the military council of the front was appointed ombudsman for 35 thousand troops returning from Germany in the USSR.

He never accepted the position of head of the GVO food department, in connection with the decision to disband the district, and therefore received the position of deputy head of the machine-gun and mortar officer school for material and technical support in the city of Arzamas, Gorky Region.

In December 1945, the school was disbanded, and at its base, a high school of staff service of the Red Army was formed, where A. A. Tkalenko was appointed deputy head for logistics.

For the good organization of food, provision of listeners, getting the 1st place in the District in the competition for the best nutrition unit Tkalenko was awarded with certificates of appreciation and thanks to the District Commander.

In 1946, in connection with the disbandment of the school, Andrei Aleksandrovich was appointed deputy commander of the 7th engineering and assault brigade for rear.

In 1947, the brigade was reformed into the 7th civil engineering building and redeployed to Kapustin-Yar, Astrakhan Region, where he participated in the construction of the 4th State Central Test Site of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The brigade later became known as the 2nd Simferopol Red Banner.

In 1950, by order of the head of the engineering troops of the Soviet Army, Andrei Alexandrovich Tkalenko was transferred to the 25th Engineering Office for the post of assistant chief, then head of the department. The headquarters of the Office was located in the capital of the Azerbaijan SSR - the city of Baku .

Over the years he served in the Directorate, he was repeatedly encouraged by cash bonuses and thanks to the Commander of the Transcaucasian Military District .

From June 1953 to June 1955, Tkalenko served as the head of the 160th Directorate for Engineering Construction Works of the Far Eastern Military District .

In June 1955, Andrei Aleksandrovich was appointed deputy head of the 130th Directorate for engineering and construction work (Major General G. M. Shubnikov ) for logistical support (military unit No. 12253).

It was the builders of this unit who were entrusted with building a new rocket test site, which later became the Research and Testing Test Site No. 5 of the USSR Ministry of Defense, known worldwide as the Baikonur space center .

With the beginning of the construction of the cosmodrome, under the leadership of Andrei Alexandrovich, a lot of work was done to provide a huge team of first-builders with housing, and a number of other urgent engineering tasks were solved.

When in the autumn of 1955 the question arose of a shortage of building materials, reed was used for construction, which grew in large numbers in the valley of the Syr Darya River.

From this reed mats were made, which were used as wall materials and roofing. The first buildings of the Zarya settlement were built from reed smeared with clay mortar.

At the direction of A. A. Tkalenko, a workshop was organized on the production of adobe blocks of clay, reed and manure. These blocks were built dormitories, family barracks, production shops, warehouses. His efforts in the initial period of construction were equipped with the temporary headquarters of the UIR and residential premises on the so-called "9th site".

One of the barracks where the headquarters was located had a large hall without any partitions. In the second barrack, a hostel was arranged, where bunk beds were installed in small rooms. A. Tkalenko lived in one of the rooms with A. Yu. Gruntman, Chief Construction Engineer .

By order of the Minister of Defense of the USSR No. 01283 of March 27, 1956, Andrei Alexandrovich Tkalenko was given the rank of colonel ahead of schedule.

Throughout the period of construction of the spaceport, Tkalenko did a great job of providing the building with all the necessary things. Especially great difficulties had to be experienced at the first time, when the railway station Tyura-Tam could not accept a huge amount of incoming cargo, there was no storage space, roads, a sufficient number of cars, loading and unloading equipment to organize the sorting, transshipment, delivery of materials to the construction site. .

Gradually, the work entered its normal course, and the huge construction team, thanks to the efforts of A. A. Tkalenko, did not know any special supply problems.

On June 27, 1971, Colonel Andrei Alexandrovich Tkalenko was dismissed from the ranks of the Armed Forces of the USSR to the reserve for health reasons.

After his dismissal from the Armed Forces, Andrei Alexandrovich continued to work in his native military unit No. 12253 as a civilian specialist. From October 1971 until his death, he served as the head of the operational group of the Scientific Research Test Site No. 5 of the USSR Ministry of Defense ( Baikonur Cosmodrome ).

Veteran cosmodrome Andrei Alexandrovich Tkalenko died on May 21, 1986 .

• Wife: Irina Nesterovna Tkalenko (born May 7, 1919) - was a member of the women's council of the cosmodrome and head of kindergartens number 50 and number 63 of the city of Leninsk (now the city of Baikonur). Participant of the Great Patriotic War, awarded the Order and eight medals.
• son: Boris Andreyevich Tkalenko - for a long time he served as an officer in parts of the 130th Office of Engineering Works and took an active part in the construction of the launch complex of the reusable transport space system "Energy-Buran". He was married to Lyudmila Georgievna Shubnikova, daughter of the first head of the construction of the Baikonur cosmodrome, G. M. Shubnikov , and also a friend of the Tkalenko family.

• The order of Lenin
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor
• Order of the Patriotic War, I degree
• two orders of World War II degree
• Order of the Red Star
• Medal of Honor"
• Medal "For Military Merit"
• Medal "For Labor Valor"
• Medal "For Labor Difference"
• medal "To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
• medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
• other medals

Honors

• Honored Builder of the Kazakh SSR
• Freeman of the city of Leninsk ^[1]
• Honored builder of Baikonur ^[2]

• According to the latest will, A. A. Tkalenko was buried in the territory of the G. Shubnikov Soldier Park ^[3] in the center of Leninsk (now Baikonur ), not far from the memorials on the mass graves of those killed in the explosion of an intercontinental ballistic missile R-16 and the explosion of an intercontinental ballistic missile R-9A .

• Biography A. A. Tkalenko on the site "Space Memorial"
• The badge "Builder of Baikonur" was proposed and implemented by the veteran of the construction of the Baikonur cosmodrome, Colonel Tkalenko Andrei Alexandrovich
• Unknown Baikonur. Collection of memoirs of veterans of Baikonur
• Baikonur Cosmodrome: November 15, 1988, Last National Space Program of the USSR, personal list

• Malkov M.N., Narovlyansky N.S., Khrenov V.A. “Main builder of Baikonur”. - Moscow: Moscow textbooks. SeaPress, 2004. ^[4]