FEDOR PETROVICH KOTCHENKO
1918 – 1995
The hero of the USSR
Fyodor Petrovich Kotchenko was born in the village of Smakovo (now - Vitebsk district, Vitebsk region). Graduated from the Gomel Cooperative College. From 1937 he worked at the Gomel auto repair plant, in the Tolochin timber industry enterprise. During the war from August 1941 in the partisan detachment "Bolshevik" - commander of a subversive group, deputy commissar of the detachment for the Komsomol, a member of the Gomel underground city committee of the Komsomol. A group of demolition men led by him derailed 10 echelons, an enemy armored train, participated in the defeat of enemy garrisons, smelted more than 100 kg of shells from shells to undermine the echelons.
On 1 January 1944, Fyodor Petrovich Kotchenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Member of the CPSU since 1945.
After the war, Fyodor Petrovich lived and worked in Gomel in consumer cooperatives. He was a chairman of the Gomel regional committee of the trade union of consumer cooperatives, director of the Gomel universal base, director of the Gomel industrial plant, a chairman of the board of the Gomel regional consumer union, director of the Gomel city office of secondary raw materials of the Gomel regional consumer union. For his labor achievements, Fyodor Kotchenko was awarded the Certificate of Merit of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR, the badge "Excellent worker of the Soviet consumer cooperation", the medal "Veteran of Labor". Fyodor Petrovich Kotchenko died on 17 July 1995 and was buried in Gomel.
The Museum of the Hero of the Soviet Union Fyodor Petrovich Kotchenko was opened at the Trade and Economic College. And those who visit the Gomel auto repair plant cannot but pay attention to the memorial plaque installed at the central checkpoint of the enterprise. It is dedicated to the former workers of the plant, who, under the leadership of the first director Ilya Fedoseenko, the commander of the Bolshevik partisan detachment, selflessly fought against the Nazi invaders. Details disappear from memory, but everyone remembers that a group of demolition men Fyodor Kotchenko, a former driver of the enterprise, derailed an armored train and ten railroad trains with fascists and military supplies.