World War II veteran, a member of the fighting, a true patriot, a man who honestly fulfilled his duty and came to Victory. He survived, so he always acts honorably, as befits the defenders of the motherland.

Cold autumn of 1943 a mobilization began on the newly liberated territories Sumy and Chernihiv regions. In one of the columns tired recruits the eighteen years old Volodya Khilchevsky went to meet his fate. He took the baptism of fire took at the Lyutezhsky springboard during the liberation of Kiev, where his division lost more than three thousand men killed, and he himself was wounded and shell-shocked in Yasnogorodka - village with such a poetic name. But youth prevailed, and he recovered, moved on to the West. The fighting was heavy, brutal. At the end of 1943, near Korosten a young signalman Khilchevsky was ordered to provide a link to the opposite bank of the river through the destroyed bridge, from which there were only icy cold and slippery metal girders for which he clung, breaking nails. It was terrible: at the bottom of a deep chasm, from the other side began to shoot. But he has not broken, apparently on the desire to live. Division then received the title Rylsk-Korostensky, and ahead lay a heavy, dangerous path length in the 13 months prior to the second being wounded in February 1945, already in Germany, under the Breslau.

Victory Day he met in Novograd Volyn. During treatment in Zhytomyr hospital a desire to learn led him to night school. Time was running, and in January 1946 he was discharged from the hospital with the open wound as a disabled person in the home Bakhmach. And there there were exhausted, sick mother, five-year-older sister and elder brother railway man. The father died in 1944. The poverty was hopeless. The soldier with military awards and badges for injuries and concussion, which is destined to live, went to complete his education in the tenth grade.

Since 1946, after the enrollment into the Mechanical Department of KPI, specialty "Automobiles and tractors", his whole life is connected with the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. It was difficult not only financially. It was hard to learn, due to gaps in education, but he had no right to retreat. The newspaper "For a Soviet engineer» №25 (95) of 29 June 1951 posted a picture where the background of the main building are graduates of the KPI, who perfectly defended thesis projects. Second from the left - V.V.Hilchevsky. After graduating with honors he was taken to post-gradute school at the Department of Strength of Materials by the future world-renowned academician G.S.Pisarenko. Finishing graduate school he defended his master's thesis in 1954, and his doctorate

V.V. Khilchevsky for two years headed the Department of Strength of Materials (1960-1962). For 18 years he headed the Department of Materials Science and Technology of structural materials (1973-1991). For more than thirty years he was in charge of the preparatory department. During more than 15 years Khilchevsky was the chairman of the committee on strength of materials and metal technology at USSR Ministry of Higher Education. He put a lot of effort in organizing the branches of the KPI in Chernihiv and Zhytomyr, participated in the work of many qualification boards, repeatedly traveled abroad to give lectures. Students KPI now enjoy his textbooks and manuals. The direction of scientific work of Vladimir Vasilyevich Khilchevsky - the study of energy dissipation in complex fluctuations of systems and the creation of new advanced technologies. He prepared many PhDs. He has 18 state awards, honorary award of the President "For Courage", the honorary title "Honored Worker of Education of the USSR," "Professor Emeritus" KPI ", winner of the nominal prizes and the like.

V.V. Khilchevsky and still maintains close ties with the KPI. The new generation of polytechnics will fit the following pages in the annals of the achievements of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, but the glorious traditions of our ancestors will forever remain a role model.

A.K.Skuratovsky, veteran KPI, Excellent of Education of Ukraine, assistant professor of LTMS