Dyachenko Yakov Vasilievich

Year of birth: 1817

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Year of death: 1871

Colonel, the founder of Khabarovsk city, one of the most useful figures for the settlement of the Amur. He was born on March 21, 1817, in a noble family in Poltava province. He received his education in private educational institutions. At the age of 15 (April 16, 1832) he joined the service as a non-commissioned officer in the Tiraspol regiment of chasseurs.

After the disbandment of the regiment in 1833, he was transferred at first to the Finnish Dragoon Regiment, and then to the Novomirgorod Lancers. On October 24, 1835, for distinguished military service Dyachenko becomes a cornet and again for distinguished military service, two years later, on September 4, 1837, he is made into lieutenants. On May 23, 1841, “he was dismissed from his service for illness with the rank of first lieutenant on request”. Ten years later - on March 16, 1852, Dyachenko entered the service of a lieutenant once again with the appointment to the Siberian Line Battalion. Having left on March 20 from Poltava, he was on the spot on June 12 of the same year and arrived in his battalion.

In 1857, he was appointed the head of four companies of the 3rd East Siberian Linear Battalion situated on the Amur River by the governor-general of Eastern Siberia to arrange horse Cossacks. On April 16, 1857, he was made a captain for distinguished military service. On November 2, 1857, he was awarded the Order of Saint Anna of III degree.

On February 23, 1858, he was appointed as a commander of the battalion. On May 31, 1858, he led the landing of the 13th Siberian Line Battalion on the Amur river bank and construction of the Khabarovsk post (later Khabarovsk city). On October 6, 1858, the governor-general of Eastern Siberia “entrusted the main management of the newly emerged Ussuri battalion of the Amur Cossack army and the management of the natives who live up to Gorin down the Amur”.

On September 18, 1859, the governor-general of Eastern Siberia commissioned him to manage the arrangement of government peasants, who had resettled freely from the internal provinces of Russia. During the year he fulfilled these duties until the arrival of the appointed police officer. On October 24, 1859, for distinguished military service, he was made the Major with the approval of the battalion commander.

On November 22, 1861, he was made a lieutenant colonel for distinguished military service. On January 12, 1862, he was approved as a commander of the 4th East Siberian Linear Battalion. On July 2, 1862, he was appointed as a commander of the Ussuri Foot Battalion of the Amur Cossack Army, whose commander was approved by the highest order from February 10, 1863. On May 22, 1863, for distinguished military service, he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav of II degree.

On February 18, 1866, he was appointed as the head of the Novgorod post (bay Posyet), in this post approved by the highest order from April 2, 1866. The Novgorod postal group protected Primorye, maintained posts in Vladivostok, Nakhodka Bay, Strelok Bay, Vyazemsky tract and Verkhnee-Beltsovoi village. In 1868 Primorye was attacked by large gangs of Honghuzi (Chinese bandits), in the defeat of which Ya.V. Dyachenko actively participated.  On July 20, 1869, he was made a colonel for distinguished military service.

On March 26, 1871, Ya.V. Dyachenko died of acute catarrhal inflammation of the smallest branches of the respiratory throat.

On May 30, 2008, in Khabarovsk, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the city's foundation, a bronze monument of Ya.V. Dyachenko was opened.  The four-meter monument was made by the Moscow sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov. Because the real portrait of Ya.V. Dyachenko is unknown, the sculptor created a collective image of the military officer of the mid-19th century. Bronze captain V.Ya. Dyachenko was installed on a granite pedestal facing the Amur, near the landing site of his battalion, in the area of Shevchenko Street (intersection with Arsenyev Street), which became the first street of a new city a century and a half ago. The donations of Khabarovsk citizens - they collected almost 1.9 million rubles helped to add a stone to cairn of the first builder.