High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Yuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk (June 21, 1897-1942) was the pseudonym adopted by Oleksandr Gnatovich Shargei, a pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight. He was a theoretician and a visionary who, in the early twentieth century, foresaw ways of reaching the moon. Kondratyuk was born in Poltava, Ukraine (then Russian Empire). His father, Ignatiy Benediktovich Shargei, studied Physics and Mathematics at Kiev University. Kondratyuk's mother, Ludmila Lvovna Schlippenbach taught French at a Kiev high school, and must already have been pregnant when she married in January 1897. Because of her unusual surname, it is often suggested that Ludmila must have been a descendant of Wolmar Anton von Schlippenbach, a general who took part in Charles XII of Sweden's failed invasion of Russia.
