General Mikhail Ivanovich Tchertkoff (1829-1905)

Mikhail Ivanovich had a very productive diplomatic court career. He was constantly seen in the entourage of Tsar Alexander II, participated in the subjugation of Chechnya, was Ataman of the Don Cossack Army and Governor of Voronezh, Kiev and Warsaw. He used his influence on the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II and achieved the highest rank of any other Tchertkoff in the military – that of full General.

Biographers describe him as an honest and considerate man. He opened the Voronezh Public Library and built a railroad from the Rostov region to Voronezh in 1869, which gave birth not only to the town that bears his name, but also the entire Chertkovo Region.

Today the town of Chertkovo has 12,000 inhabitants and is located on the border of Ukraine. Indeed the railroad track divides the town– half in Russia and half in Ukraine thus becoming a border town of two republics!

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