On March 25, 1965, Vyacheslav Matveevich Tkachev passed away, one of the most experienced military pilots of the Russian army.

At the beginning of World War I, he commanded the 20th Corps Aviation Squadron. During one of his reconnaissance flights, his plane came under fire, and one of the bullets pierced the tank with castor oil. Tkachev managed to close the hole with his foot and bring the plane back to Russian territory. For this feat, he became the first aviator awarded the Order of Saint George, 4th class. Tkachev was not only an outstanding pilot but also possessed excellent organizational skills and the ability to make theoretical generalizations. He became one of the initiators of the creation of special fighter units and published a book titled "Materials on Air Combat Tactics." On June 19, 1917, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich took the position of head of the Aviadarm, the aviation management of the active army.

During the Civil War, he commanded the aviation of the Kuban Rada with the rank of major general, and in 1920, he headed the Air Force of the Russian Army under the command of Lieutenant General Baron Wrangel. After the evacuation from Crimea, Tkachev settled in Yugoslavia, where he took up teaching.

During World War II, Tkachev, unlike many other veterans of the White movement, refused to collaborate with the Germans against the Soviet Union and lived in Belgrade as a private individual. However, after the city was captured by Soviet troops, he was arrested by SMERSH and sent to Moscow, where he received a 10-year camp sentence as an "enemy of the people." On March 25, 1965, after 10 years in camps, Vyacheslav Matveevich Tkachev, a legend of Russian aviation, the first fighter pilot and the first ace of Russia, died in Kuban, where he lived in poverty.

On September 23, 1995, in honor of the 110th anniversary of his birth, a memorial plaque was installed on house No. 82 on Shaumyan Street in Krasnodar, where he spent his last years.