Remains of the pilot, who died fighting for Caucasus, reburied in Beshankovichi District

A commemorative event was held on thieve of the National Unity Day. The remains of pilot Stepan Kovalenok were reburied with military honors in Beshenkovichi. A native of Belarus, he died in the sky over Krasnodar Region in 1943. A fragment of the downed plane was found last winter. After the identity of the pilot was established, the Belarusian and Russian volunteers began searching for the relatives of the hero, and the authorities worked to transfer the remains to his small motherland. And today the soldier returned from the war.

The ceremony of the transfer of the remains of the dead officer in Gelendzhik was attended by the Belarusian delegation. Four days later, under the flags of the two states, the military ceremony was continued on a mass grave in Beshenkovichi. A tribute to the memory of the fallen hero was paid by the parliamentarians of Belarus and Russia, activists of veteran organizations and fellow countrymen.

The pilot was born in the village of Krivoe Selo. He was conscripted into the Red Army, sent for training to Odessa military aviation school and from there, he went to the front.

The war also took away two brothers of the pilot. They managed to find the distant relative of the deceased pilot. She remembers well the place, where the house of Kovalenok's family was located and the old lady, who all her life hoped to see her sons alive.

The guests from Russia have brought the soil from the place of the pilot's death: the capsule will be stored in a local museum. It means one more lesson of war for the visitors of the exhibition.

The story of Stepan Kovalenok is one of hundreds of thousands of such stories. Keeping the memory of the unparalleled courage of the defenders of the Fatherland and being worthy of their feat is the least we can do in gratitude for the peaceful sky.