(Petro Rechmedin)
b. 1908,
June 1 in Andrushivka, Vinnytsia oblast. (father
/ mother)
d. 1947, May 19 in Berezhnytsia village, Stryj district, Lviv oblast.
Petro studied in Karlivka, Poltava oblast. He graduated from agricultural and agritechnical institutions. There he met his first wife, Varvara. They lived in Karlivka. They got one daughter, but soon after she was born they divorced. Petro then moved to Plyskiv, Vinnytsia oblast, where he worked as a chemistry teacher. It was here in Plyskiv he met his future wife Pavlina Vojtsjukh who was his student that time. Soon after Pavlina had finished school they married (1938). The family lived in Plyskiv in a small teacher's apartment which was situated in the same building as the school Petro was teaching at.
Petro liked to make experiments and he had lots of different chemicals at home. He also liked to speak foreign languages. Besides Ukrainian and Russian he could speak German, English and French. He tought his son Anatolij some German words when he was just two years old.
During the 1930s Petro was a member of the Communist party for a while. Although he was disappointed in it soon, so he was expelled from it after he hadn't paid party membership fee for three months. That was probably the reason he didn't make a better career than a village teacher.
 Petro, Anatolij and Pavlina Rechmedin in early 1941. |
During the German occupation of Ukraine (1941-1943) Petro worked as an agriculturist and lived at his parents-in-law in Bohdanivka. When Ukrane was liberated from the German troops in the beginning of 1944, Petro was sent to the army. He was in the front of the army in unarmed so called "border units", but managed to survive. Later, after saving a wounded colonel, and thanks to his knowledge of German, he worked in the army's staff. He went through Western Ukraine and Hungary as a soldier.
In October 1946 Petro decided to move to Western Ukraine. One of the reasons was that he was afraid of the coming hunger (they had poor harvest in Eastern Ukraine in 1946). He got a job as a teacher in a veterinary college in Berezhnytsia village, southeast of Stryj in Lviv oblast. The family lived in a teacher's house which they shared with the teacher's family of Shumilins who came from Russia.
 Picture of Petro taken after WW II. |
Petro and two other colleagues were killed in the night of 19th of May 1947 during bandit fightings close to the college they worked at. The investigations which were hold later, didn't give much information about Petro's murder.
Petro was buried in Stryj city cemetary.
Children in the first marriage:
Ljudmila, b. 1936 in Karlivka, Poltava oblast. She worked as a nurse in Karlivka.
Children in the second marriage:
Anatolij, b. 1939, April 28.
Leonid, b. 1942, May 19 in Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast. He lives in Stryj, Lviv oblast.
Viktor, b. 1944, July 24 in Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast, d. 2005, May 9. He was a farmer and lived in the village of Ochitkiv, Orativskij district, Vinnytsia oblast. He was married to Hanna, who was born in Ochitkiv. They had one son: Leonid Rechmedin (b. 1976). He has inherited his parents house in Ochitkiv, but he works in Vinnytsya.
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| The first cousins Alla and Leonid Rechmedin in May 2006. |