Gesture of desperation: the daughter of pilot Chkalov asks to give her the ashes of her father that are kept in the Kremlin wall

The last straw for the family was the seizure of their dacha in Serebryany Bor by developers from the structures of the billionaire Yevtushenkov. Three generations of the Chkalovs have lived here for more than 80 years.

Julia Suntsova

For the past few months, the grandchildren, great-grandchildren and son-in-law of the Hero of the Soviet Union have been living in their country house literally in a state of siege. The perimeter of the site was cordoned off by the security of BON Investments JSC, the locks on the gates were changed, the keys to which were not given to the family, and a change house with 11 cameras was installed in front of the house. Video surveillance is directed to all windows, balconies and doors - family members are monitored around the clock. The Chkalovs are sure that as soon as they leave the site, the company claiming their dacha will burn everything to the ground.

The chronology and scheme of the capture of the Chkalovs' dacha, inherited by the family by order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1357 of 12/27/1938 “On perpetuating the memory of V.P. Chkalov" was described in "NI" in detail a year ago in the article "Under siege: how billionaire Yevtushenkov deprives the family of pilot Chkalov of a family nest".

Since then, the family of the Hero of the Soviet Union has managed to challenge the sale and purchase agreement between Mosdachtrest JSC and BON Investments JSC in the Court of Appeal, defending their right to free use of the dacha. However, the court of cassation reversed this decision and rolled back the verdict to the court of first instance, according to which the descendants must immediately move out of their estate. Reason: at the time of signing the Decree of 1938, Valery Chkalov's youngest daughter Olga Chkalova had not yet been born (the pilot's wife was just pregnant), which means that the right to free use of the dacha does not seem to apply to her ... Such is the logic of the court.

The great-grandson of Valery Chkalov, Igor Valerievich Chkalov, challenged this conclusion of the court in another court, and the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in December 2021 confirmed the legal force of Decree No. 1357 “On perpetuating the memory of V.P. Chkalov” (according to which the use of the dacha is assigned to the family). However, for the legal successor of the Central Committee of the CPSU - Mosdachtrest JSC, which privatized state dachas after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these documents seemed unconvincing. In 2020, in order to close the issue with the Chkalovs, Mosdachtrest is selling their land to JSC BON Investments. (The main activity of the company with an authorized capital of 35 thousand rubles is “Advising on commercial activities and management”).

“The family has been bullied for a year and a half. Law enforcement and judicial authorities do not want to stop this lawlessness in any way. During this time, 26 applications were submitted to the police and 46 more to various authorities. The family did not receive sane answers. The duplicity of the authorities is disarming: on the one hand, they say that they do their best to honor the memory of the great pilot, the hero of the Soviet Union, but at the same time, a group of authorized persons from the state - law enforcement and judicial system makes a decision that daughter Olga Valerievna Valery Pavlovich - it turns out that she is not a daughter, and completely shamelessly, using gangster methods, evicts us, “imposters” from our family nest”, - comments Igor Chkalov, great-grandson of Valery Chkalov.

The youngest daughter of Valery Chkalov, Olga Chkalov, in April of this year, filed an application addressed to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin, in which she asks to cancel the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the burial of her father, Valery Pavlovich Chkalov, in the Kremlin wall and transfer the ashes to the family for reburial.

If with living children they can treat the memory of heroes in this way, then it is not known what will happen in the future when the first generation leaves. While still alive, I would like to make every effort to ensure that, as Pushkin said, everything was in order with the “father's coffins”, comments Olga Chkalova. In an interview with NI, she explained why she was asking the Russian Government to return her father's ashes to her:

- The idea to rebury my father arose several years ago. With my sister Leroy, we wanted to do this even during perestroika, as soon as talk began about the burial of Lenin. We considered a letter of petition about this to Yeltsin, but then our brother Igor Valeryevich spoke out categorically against the reburial.

A few years ago, I returned to this idea after I suddenly heard strange arguments on the news from a certain architect, one of the authors of the Federal War Memorial "Pantheon of Defenders of the Fatherland" in Mytishchi. He stated that places in the memorial were already ready for the reburial of Marshal Zhukov and test pilot Valery Chkalov. In an interview with Dozhd [recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation as a foreign media agent], I noted then that I was actually still alive, and it would be nice to discuss this issue with me. We were surprised then that, while making such proposals, the authors of the initiative did not even consider it necessary to inform the family.

Today the question is relevant for me again. As our experience with the dacha shows, a private person with money can easily, relying only on some kind of personal jurisdiction, cancel the Decree of the Government (of the then Council of People's Commissars of the USSR). The sale and purchase agreement between individuals is above the Government Decree and, in fact, terminates it! Dad was buried in the Kremlin wall, also according to the same Decree of the Government (Council of People's Commissars), and I don’t know who and what might come to mind next, but I’m already convinced that even my own children can’t influence anything. I am many years old, and while I am alive, I would like to have time to put things in order with my "father's coffins." Now I just have no confidence how it will all end when I'm gone.

We have not yet received a response to my request [to hand over the urn] with the ashes. If it is positive, the resting place will be chosen by the family. Most likely it will be the Novodevichy cemetery - next to the grave of the wife of Valery Chkalov. By agreement with the Moscow City Hall, I, as a daughter, can exercise this right.