By the early 1960s, Soviet citizens could boast that their country not only possessed the world’s largest transport plane, the Tupolev Tu-114, but that the state airline company Aeroflot also operated the world’s longest non-stop passenger run with its service between Havana, Cuba and Moscow.

What was it like to fly the Soviet skies at the height of the Cold War? In 1963, Time magazine correspondent Edmund Stevens, the first Western citizen to make the Havana — Moscow run, described his experience:

One struggles up a ramp that is like a staircase leading to the fourth floor of a building—the Tu-114 is around 40 ft. high when standing on the ground. Inside the hatch, cabin follows cabin: a crew compartment; a large compartment empty of everything but a few suitcases, food hampers and cases of soft drinks; a serving pantry, with a galley down a flight of steps on a lower level. Then come the first-class compartments, four of them, each completely private. In contrast with the rest of the plane, where fittings are as spartan as those on a troop carrier, the first-class section has wood paneling and curtains.

Read the whole piece here.

ScP