Fedor Fedorovitch Tereshchenko

1888 - 1950

Theodore (Fedor) Fedorovitch Tereshchenko was the son of a wealthy Kiev sugar producer. His father was the legendary sugar magnate Theodore Arteimovitch Tereshchenko.

As a young man, he was fascinated with powered flight. He joined the Kiev Air-Sailing Society and became one of its most active members. In 1909 he built an aircraft similar to the Bleriot-XI and published a set of technical drawings. The aircraft was demonstrated at the XII Congress of researchers and doctorates in December 1909. As part of his innovative thinking, he introduced the idea of a movable wing to increase airspeed in the horizontal plain. In his Chervone property, he built an aircraft workshop which was expanded during the WWI years producing over 7 designs. A few dozen aircraft were built monthly and many more repaired there. All products of his factory carried his name, despite the fact that often his personal contribution to the design was minor.

He was somewhat of a playboy in his teens and caught the eye of Princess von Keyserling, daughter of the Austrian Royals. They had a child, Nathalie, in April of 1910 and only after the Czarina insisted they marry did the two finally wed. They were divorced after a few years.

In 1914 Tereschenko moved the entire aircraft production to Moscow to avoid the advancing German forces. There he organised a special repair train for front line service of aircraft. With his participation, several other innovations were introduced like a tent-hangar for field aircraft repairs. He merged the business with a Moscow based aircraft company and at the end of the war in 1921 fled to Paris to escape the revolution that had consumed all Russia and Ukraine.

In Paris he played the piano in cabarets and wrote music as well. He was deeply involved in the Occult and wrote several books on the subject. Following the second world war he moved to Brittany but relied economically on his sister, Nadehzda who lived in Switzerland. He died in 1950.

Fedor Fedorovitch in 1940 with his mother in Springland (Bursinel, Suisse)                                             Tereshchenko books on the Occult (1949)