“Everything is overgrown with weeds”: the father of the crashed Lokomotiv captain Ivan Tkachenko remembered the tragedy

— What commemorative events are planned for September 7?

“In the morning there will be a service and memorial service in the Assumption Cathedral, then we will go to the Leontievsky cemetery,” says Leonid Vladimirovich. — There are always a lot of people around the memorial where the guys are buried on this day. Drivers driving past the cemetery at 16.05, when the Yak-42 crashed to the ground, honked their horns. (The Yaroslavl hockey club Lokomotiv flew to Minsk for the opening match of the next KHL season, where they were supposed to play with the local Dynamo. – Author). In Yaroslavl they remember that terrible tragedy.

As Leonid Vladimirovich says, the memorial ceremony will also take place on the territory of the memorial complex in Tunoshna.

— On the bank of the river there is a large granite cross made of marble, which is covered with an arch made of monolithic concrete and glass. The stone, near which part of the fuselage of the crashed plane lay after the disaster, was pulled out of the river. The names of all those who died were carved on it.

The day of remembrance will end with the laying of flowers at the Hockey Brotherhood memorial near Arena 2000. Every year fewer and fewer relatives of the victims come to the events. Time takes its toll, some of them are no longer alive.

“The pain remains, it just went deep, deep,” says Leonid Vladimirovich. “One day I sat down and began to remember how I then learned from strangers about the plane crash, how everything happened. He immediately began to distract himself so as not to relive all that horror again and again.

— Do you go to Lokomotiv games?

– No, I don’t go. The first year I couldn’t watch matches at all. And now I don’t really like the hockey that exists. I remember a series of friendly hockey matches between the national teams of the USSR and Canada in 1972, where there were really real stars in the team. And now the hockey players have somehow all leveled out. All average, similar to each other. You can’t tell one team from another by style.

Science is not involved in sports. In hockey, the main thing is the head, which controls the muscles. You have to be able to think on the court and make decisions quickly.

Leonid Vladimirovich – psychophysiologist. He has his own unique technique. But, as our interlocutor says, he does not have the opportunity to apply it fully.

— My eldest son and I have a school with a small skating rink. We train children from 3 to 6 years old, then they go to Lokomotiv. For the methodology to fully work, I need to go through the entire cycle with young hockey players, bring them to the youth team, and instill in them all the skills. I want to film the entire cycle and leave it for my eldest son to keep. In the meantime, I’m helping boys from Riga who moved to Germany, counseling them via Skype.

— The hockey school named after Ivan Tkachenko was never opened?

“They didn’t let me build a private school.” And this was Vanya’s dream. I tried to build it, but I couldn’t find the money for it. Most of the amount paid went to Vanya’s children.

I thought that the Ministry of Sports would somehow help me in this endeavor, but they said that there was no money. Now, in the place where it was planned to create a school, there is a wasteland. I only managed to level the field, and the director of one of the factories helped me with this. Now everything there is overgrown with weeds. But guys from St. Petersburg, Kazakhstan, and Belarus wanted to come to our school to train. The parents of the young hockey players were ready to change their place of residence.

— Do you meet relatives of deceased hockey players at the cemetery?

— When we see someone, we communicate. In general, everyone comes at different times. We see that the graves have been removed and flowers have been planted. But there is no such close communication; we don’t know who lives what.

The children of the hockey players are already grown up. For example, Vanya’s eldest daughter Sasha graduated from school this year with a gold medal. I entered Yaroslavl University, which I graduated from at one time. And Vanya’s second daughter, Varyushka, who is 15 years old, gets straight A’s. It so happened that we do not communicate, but intelligence, as they say, informs.

A few months after the tragic death of Ivan Tkachenko, his common-law wife Marina gave birth to a long-awaited son, who was named Kolya.

— The boy grows up with three sisters. Marina later got married and gave birth to another girl.

— They didn’t let Kolya play hockey?

— Representatives of Lokomotiv came to the kindergarten where Kolya went when recruitment was announced. They said that the boy had information, but Marina was adamant and said: “You won’t wait.”

— And as for Ivan, was his innate talent immediately visible?

“I immediately decided that my sons would play sports. Because everything depends on the abilities and capabilities of the person himself, and how he will then move through life. And as soon as I put Vanya on his skates, he immediately ran. Then he beat all the players at the regional Golden Puck tournament. And our region was quite large at that time, more than 20 thousand people lived.

But Vanya had to go through a difficult path; there was a period of lack of demand. It’s good that a new coach, Vladimir Vuytek, came to Lokomotiv. But he, too, did not immediately notice, he saw Vanya. And only when he, playing in the pre-season tournament for Torpedo, scored two goals against Lokomotiv and made two more assists.

Then there was the era of Pyotr Ilyich Vorobyov, power hockey was in favor, not who would change someone’s mind, but who would run over whom and, as they say, would crush whom.

— Do fans leave any notes or memorabilia at Vanya’s grave?

— They bring scarves with the Lokomotiv logo, flags, toys, figurines of angels. They bring flowers regularly. People from other cities come to Vanya’s grave. Recently there was a family from Kostroma. The head of the family, a two-meter giant, came up to me, thanked me for my son, and said: “If you need anything, please contact me.” But we are used to giving more than taking. If you give and help a person, then you immediately get two joyful people. If everyone did this, we would live in a different world.

– Are you dreaming about Vanya?

– In all the years I dreamed about it only once. There was some small excerpt when Vanya was still little. But many parents of deceased hockey players and acquaintances dream about Vanya.

In Tkachenko’s apartment, Vanya’s portrait hangs in a prominent place.

– You walk past, he “looks”, “follows” you with his eyes… What can I say, our whole life turned upside down with the death of our son.

Leonid Vladimirovich admits that he often picks up the “Order of the Palm”, which was posthumously awarded to Ivan Tkachenko.

“This is an honorary badge of a child’s vocation, which is awarded for mercy and charity in favor of children. Moreover, the award winners are chosen by the children themselves. They voted for Vanya. You can’t fool children’s hearts.

Only after the death of Ivan Tkachenko did it become clear that he had been helping sick children for many years. He donated a total of about 10 million rubles for their treatment. The last translation was sent on September 7, 2011, the day of his death.

— When in Yaroslavl, at the Millennium, the documentary film “Captain Nemo” about the lost Lokomotiv team and Vanya was shown for free, the kids in the cinema hall roared.

Everyone who drives along the ring road sees a five-story building with graffiti on the facade, which is dedicated to the deceased hockey team and one of its most prominent players, Ivan Tkachenko. Yaroslavl residents admit that when they see the inscription “Lokomotiv – our team forever,” they cannot hold back their tears.