Alexander Pavlovich Chekalin

Alexander Pavlovich Chekalin – a young partisan scout of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (1942, posthumously). He was born in the village of Peskovatkoye in the Tula region into the family of a government employee. The son of a hunter, Chekalin knew the local forests well from childhood and was an accurate marksman. He played the mandolin and was fond of photography. In 1941 he completed eight years of school. With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War he joined a combat detachment, and then became a scout in the partisan detachment 'Peredovoy'.

In November 1941 Alexander Chekalin was captured by German occupiers, tortured and executed. In his honor the town of Likhvin was renamed Chekalin, and streets in many settlements were also named after him.