The ceremony of awarding the medal "For Courage" to the relatives of a deceased Russian soldier took place in Vitebsk

May 7, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA /. The ceremony of handing over the combat medal "For Courage" to the relatives of a Russian soldier who died liberating the Vitebsk region took place today at the People's Museum of Military Glory of Vitebsk Vocational and Technical College No. 19, a BELTA correspondent reports. The medal, pierced by a fragment, was found near the village of Zaronovo in the Vitebsk region during a tourist rally and handed over to activists of the Vitebsk youth public association "Military-Patriotic Club 'Poisk'" at the Vocational and Technical College No. 19. According to the chairman of the association, Anatoly Burdo, the number was preserved on the award, which allowed the searchers to actively engage in studying the fate of its owner. Through archival institutions in Russia, it was established that the medal belonged to sniper Mikhail Alekseevich Lukashenkov of the 51st Guards Rifle Regiment of the 18th Guards Rifle Division. The personnel of this military unit almost entirely perished in battles near Lake Losvido near Vitebsk. "The study of the soldier's fate and the search for his relatives lasted about 9 years, and their geography stretched from Vladivostok and Novosibirsk, where he was drafted and where he served, and further across Russia," noted Anatoly Burdo. As it turned out quite recently, the relatives of the deceased were conducting parallel searches. The soldier's nephew, Alexander Prokopchenko, and his son Alexey came today from Tolyatti to receive the medal of their heroic uncle. According to Alexander Prokopchenko, the impetus for studying the fate of his own uncle was the death notice and his last letter from the front. "He served for 4 years in Vladivostok, then stayed there to work at a shipbuilding plant and went to the front on June 23, 1941," said the nephew. Passing through his native Novosibirsk on a military train, the soldier could not properly see his parents. The relatives of the deceased began searching for the grave in 2001. Thanks to the employees of the archival service of Gorodok (Vitebsk region) and local historians, they managed to establish the burial site, as well as contact the activists of the search movement to receive their uncle's award. -0-