Hi,

I contacted you about visiting the Russian AF Museum at Monino a few weeks ago.

We actually went to the museum. The directions provided by your website were of indispensable help.

We were in Russia with a tour company called Overseas Adventure Travel. They tried their best to not have us go there by ourselves by first saying that we needed a driver/guide at 500 rubles/hour. That cost eventually went to 1,000 rubles/hour. Then they said we could not get in under any circumstances. They then tried to discourage us by saying the train was dirty and dangerous. It was not!

We rejected all of those scenarios and told them we would take the Metro and the train to the museum anyway.

We followed the directions from your website. We only had two minor problems. We missed a checkpoint and probably walked an extra 5 minutes when going to the museum. It took us twenty minutes total to get from the train station to the museum. And, in going back to our hotel, we found that we could not get back into the Metro Station building from which we had exited at the Yaroslavskii Station. The entrance is a set of steps going down on the street in front of the Station.

There was no problem getting into the grounds of the museum/academy. We noticed while walking to the museum that all of the gates to the academy were open and there were no guards. I think we could have walked right through the academy and no one would have cared. There were knots of cadets or officers standing around here and there smoking.

My partner speaks German and she was able to converse with some of the cadets in that language. We wanted to be reassured occasionally that we were still going in the right direction.

We arrived at the museum and a lady walking behind us showed us where the ticket office was. She worked there. We were there at 0900 when it opened and were the first ones there. The museum director who spoke English, greeted us and asked where we were form and when we said the USA, he put his arms around us and said, “Welcome my friends. Come in.” He asked whether we wanted a guide and when we said no, he said. “You came to just take pictures, fine.”

He then offered us a picture booklet with explaining the aircraft on display. A retired Colonel Victor Kazashvili had authored the booklet. He was there too so I bought the booklet ($10) and shook his hand and suggested he sign it. He did and inscribed: “To Thomas. Thank you for your love of aviation.” It was in Russian of course and I had to have it translated later. The Colonel was 81 years old and started flying the Yak 3 in WW-II and flew a succession of aircraft finishing with the MiG-17.

At that point the director asked in we needed the lavatory and when we said yes he said, “I take you.” It was in a different building. When we got there he said, “I wait you.” Afterward he walked to the museum gate with us where an old lady was taking tickets and selling souvenirs (the only ones available other than the booklet at the ticket office). The director wished us a good visit and bid us farewell.

Now could it have been more friendly that that?! Overall it was easy to there. An hour and twenty minutes by train from the Yaroslavskii Station. However, it is important that you have all the Metro Station and train station and other pertinent names in the Cyrillic spelling otherwise you will not recognize anything and will be completely confused.

There were a total of 108 actual aircraft on display. They say 185 but that must include models, etc.

No prior notice is required, the people are friendly and the museum is definitely a worthwhile visit.

As an aside, the tour company did get us into Star City where we inspected the facilities. We also had a half hour session with cosmonaut Sergei Zalyotin who had been in space twice. The first time was a 180 day stint aboard MIR. He was scheduled to do one more mission to the International Space Station. It was revealing that he was able to stand there at Star City and say out loud without fear that all the astronauts and cosmonauts get along like brothers. It’s just the politicians that screwed things up. He suggested that they all ought to sent into space so they can look back at the fragile earth and begin to make the right decisions.

I was in the Strategic Air Command in the 1950s. At one point I was stationed with our B-52s at Brize-Norton RAF Station in England. We had a C-47 which we could fly to Western Europe and Denmark on weekends. But we were forbidden to go to Sweden, Norway or Finland due to the Cold War paranoia. If at that time someone had said I would be sitting in the Cosmonauts Cafeteria in Star City enjoying lunch, I would have had believed them to be insane.

We spent 4 days in Kiev, Ukraine, 4 days in Moscow, then took a 6 day, 1,000 mile cruise up the Volga and other rivers and lakes to spend 4 days in St. Petersburg. A marvelous trip.

PS. The Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow has about 20 aircraft and helicopters and lots of tanks, etc. on display.

Cheers!

Tom Geisler

Many thanks to Tom for the report on his trip to the Air Force Museum (as well as his visits to Star City and the Red Army Museum)!

ScP

[ My apologies for the long delay in posting the last segment of my series on the VVS Museum. After uploading Part Five, I took a week off to visit family and friends. Since then I've been hard at work with some colleagues developing what we think is going to be an exciting new web resource. I'll have more to say about that in a few weeks. In the meantime, here at last is my last word on The Russian Air Force Museum at Monino.]

As I first mentioned in the second part of this series, two of the displays housed at the VVS Museum are currently closed to visitors. The Museum’s hangar containing “Unique Flying Apparatuses” is unavailable while repairs are being undertaken to its roof. It is expected to re-open early this fall. Meanwhile, the exhibition devoted to the history of Russian aviation has been closed since a fire gutted much of the Museum’s main building in 2005.

Despite the fact that you cannot currently view these displays, we’ll conclude our field guide with a description of what you can expect to see once these parts of the Museum re-open.

“Unique Flying Apparatuses”

Located in a hangar opposite the entrance to the open-air collection of planes, the Museum’s display of “Unique Flying Apparatuses” contains a sizable number of historic and replica aircraft representing machines largely constructed during the decades preceding the Great Patriotic War.

The “oldest” plane in the collection is a Farman IV, a box-kite pusher biplane (patterned after a slightly earlier Voisin model) that first debuted in 1909. Notwithstanding its light weight and flimsy appearance, the wood, wire, and lacquered canvas contraption proved both sturdy and highly modifiable. This model was the first one to emerge from Moscow’s Dux aircraft factory. Dozens more were assembled by other enterprises and amateur constructors. Although the precise number built is impossible to ascertain, the Farman IV was arguably the most popular airplane among Russia’s first generation of aviation pioneers.

The Farman IV housed in the Museum’s collection is a working replica built on order of the Lenfil’m studio for use in The Aviator (Воздухоплаватель), a 1975 feature film loosely chronicling the life of Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin (1870-1948). An Odessa-based circus strong-man (and later champion Greco-Roman wrestler), Zaikin was a noted celebrity in pre-WWI Russia. He earned initial fame for public demonstrations of strength in which he broke iron chains with his hands and bent steel bars across the back of his neck. In 1910 he became one of the first Russians to fly a biplane when he took to the air aboard a Farman IV. According to the Museum’s official guidebook, the replica housed in the VVS collection completed fifty flights before being donated by the film studio in September 1975.

In addition to the Farman IV, the Museum’s collection of unique planes includes a full-scale mock-up of Imperial Russia’s most famous native aircraft: the Il’ya Muromets. The brainchild of Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (1889-1972), (the pioneering constructor who would later develop the world’s first functional helicopters) the four-engine Il’ya Muromets is justly recognized as one of the most innovative and revolutionary airplanes ever built. The plane was also colossally large by the day’s standards. The initial version measured 62 ft. in length and possessed a wingspan of just over 101 ft. It was capable of lifting more than 2,000 pounds and could cover more than 350 miles while staying aloft for upwards of five hours.

Although the Muromets was not the world’s first multi-engine plane — that honor belonged to Sikorsky’s 1913 Russian Warrior — (aka Big Baltic or Grand), the flying behemoth introduced numerous ground-breaking components. The plane’s most distinctive feature was that its passenger hold was incorporated into the fuselage: a design innovation that served as a model for nearly all subsequent military and civilian aircraft. Over five feet wide and six feet high, the passenger compartment was capable of comfortably accommodating up to one dozen people. The plane also possessed a sleeping cabin and an observation platform as well as a generator for producing electric light to illuminate the cabin, a heating system, and, in another aviation first, a toilet.

In addition to being the first true passenger aircraft the Il’ya Muromets also served during the Great War as the world’s first strategic bomber. In December 1914, the Russian General Staff ordered the formation of a group of twelve Muromtsy which it designated the “Squadron of Flying Ships.” Initially employed as reconnaissance platforms, the planes were soon utilized to bomb enemy positions. The Squadron was responsible for history’s first effort at mass bombing. It also undertook the first nighttime bombing raids and the first bomb damage assessments using photographic equipment. Before Russia exited the war in April 1918, Sikorsky’s giants amassed an impressive service record. Despite flying more than 400 sorties, only one of the 73 airplanes deployed was lost to enemy fire.¹

The Museum’s standout example of a unique Soviet “flying apparatus” is its copy of the famed Tupolev ANT-25 Stalin’s Route (Сталинский маршрут), the most celebrated Soviet airplane of the pre-WWII era. Stalin’s Route first garnered recognition in July 1936 when a flight crew consisting of pilot Valerii Chkalov, co-pilot Georgii Baidukov, and navigator Aleksandr Beliakov set a world distance record by flying just over 5,800 miles non-stop from Moscow to the Pacific rim island Udd. The next year, the same crew and aircraft made history again when they successfully completed the first trans-Polar crossing on a flight between Moscow and Pearson Air Field in Vancouver, Washington. A second ANT-25 flown by pilot Mikhail Gromov, co-pilot Sergei Danilin, and navigator Andrei Iumashev followed up the success of Stalin’s Route by completing an even longer (6,300 mile) non-stop trans-Polar flight from Moscow to San Jacinto, California one month later.

“History of Russian Aviation Exhibition”

The final stop in our tour of the VVS Museum is the history of Russian aviation exhibit normally housed in the main administrative building. When open, the exhibit is a treasure trove of fascinating information, models, and artifacts. If you read a bit of Russian, you can get a sense of the presentation by taking a look at the Museum’s official homepage where you’ll find detailed descriptions of the Museum’s fixed displays. Unfortunately, the descriptions are only available по-русски. The on-line guide suggests that the Museum collection is divided into ten so-called “halls.” It should been noted, however, that only nine are described on the site (the list is mis-numbered, skipping “hall” seven). Moreover, the “halls” described on-line include the aircraft parked in the open-air display [previously described in parts 3-5 of this series] and the two hangars.

Here, I will limit coverage to general descriptions of the types of materials displayed in the five rooms typically located in the Museum’s main building.

Display One: “Development and Growth of Aeronautics and Aviation in Russian to 1917”

Not surprisingly, the first display area in the Museum’s history of aviation exhibit is devoted to the dawn of Russian aviation. Here, visitors are introduced to scientists like the great Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765) who (among other things) conducted early experiments on atmospheric properties and Dmitrii Mendeleev (1834-1907), the inventor of the Periodic Table of Elements, who took part in a hot-air balloon ascent in 1887. More directly, the Museum devotes considerable attention to the life and work of Nikolai Zhukovskii (1847-1921) the pioneering mathematician who founded the Russian study of aerodynamics.

Although the history of aeronautics is covered in sections devoted to the Russian military’s use of observation balloons during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) and the ensuing deployment of military dirigibles, most of the coverage is given over to the development of Imperial Russian aviation. Visitors are introduced to early constructors including Ia. M. Gakkel’, D. P. Grigorovich, and A. A. Porokhovshchikov as well as early Russian airplane firms like Dux and the Russo-Balt Carriage Factory. While most Russian constructors relied heavily on the importation and licensing of engines from foreign companies like Nieuport and Wright, the Museum devotes considerable space to the first Russian-made motors. Early “sportsmen-aviators” including Mikhail Efimov and Nikolai Popov, their airplanes, and the air shows in which they participated are also described.

The first display room concludes with materials relating to Russian aviation during the Great War. Particular attention is given, of course, to Sikorsky’s giant airplanes. Well-worth noting is the section on Russia’s most celebrated WWI aviator Captain Petr Nikolaevich Nesterov (1887-1914). In addition to being the first pilot in history to loop an airplane (1913), Nesterov was the first Russian pilot to down an enemy aircraft. He accomplished this feat in early September 1914 when he rammed the unarmed Albatros he was flying into an Austrian reconnaissance plane. Both he and the two fliers aboard the enemy aircraft were killed in the resulting crashes.

Display Two: “Continuing Development of Aviation to June 1941”

The second room in the Museum’s historical display contains materials relating to the development of Soviet aviation between 1917-1941. The exhibits here address subjects ranging from Civil War aviation and the founding the Society of Friends of the Air Fleet, to the expansion of Soviet aircraft industry during the first Five year Plan (1928-1932) and the earliest years of Soviet civil aviation.

Particularly interesting are the materials relating to aerial propaganda missions like the 1925 “Great Flight” from Moscow to Peking (and then Tokyo) and the visit of the ANT-4 Land of the Soviets to the United States in 1929. Here, too, is where the Museum provides background information (and some rare photographs) relating to famous prestige airplanes such as the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky and the ANT-25 Stalin’s Route. There’s also a good deal of material on “Stalin’s falcons” (including pilots Valerii Chkalov and Mikhail Gromov) and the various world records set by Soviet airmen (and women) during the 1930s.

Displays Three & Four: “The Great Patriotic War”

Not surprisingly, the centerpiece of the Museum’s history exhibit consists of the two separate rooms devoted to the accomplishments of the VVS during the course of the Great Patriotic War.
What may strike foreign visitors as a bit odd is the extent to which the presentation and tone of these materials reveal ideas and attitudes seemingly held-over from the Soviet era. These tendencies are likewise reflected on the Museum’s web site which proclaims, in characteristic fashion, that “the first days of the Great Patriotic War clearly revealed the guiding organizational role of the Communist Party and its close and unbreakable bond with the masses.”²

Even if your knowledge of Operation Barbarossa is limited to a single show that you once saw on the History Channel, you know that this claim is utter nonsense. Those a bit more familiar with the contours (and content) of Soviet history, will recognize statements like this for what they really are: propagandistic boilerplate that Party leaders used to maintain their legitimacy in the years that followed 1953.

In addition to echoing from time to time Soviet-era propaganda, the Museum’s materials occasionally cite misleading figures in advancing dubious claims about the performance of the VVS. For example:

“From the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the enemy encountered the powerful blows of Soviet aviation. In the first three months of combat in the air and at aerodromes upwards of 3,500 fascist planes were destroyed. During this period 250,000 sorties were flown of which 47% resulted in the destruction of enemy tanks, motorized columns, and infantry on the field of battle.”³

While it is certainly true that the fall campaign strained the Luftwaffe to the breaking point, German air losses were closer to 2,500 than to 3,500. Moreover, the Museum’s account glosses over an equally important aspect of invasion: the more than 21,000 Soviet aircraft destroyed between June-November 1941.

Given the vast scope of the Museum’s Great Patriotic War display, it would be futile to try countering all of the questionable statements appearing in the exhibit. It’s also unnecessary. Despite the tendentious language, discerning visitors stand to learn a lot about the wartime experiences of the VVS. Still, you’d be well-served to read-up a bit on the war before and after visiting the Museum. [In an upcoming post, I’ll recommend some good recent books on the Russian Front]. Whatever the case, the Museum’s displays contain a great deal of information with which even aviation junkies are probably not familiar.

Much space is understandably devoted to the USSR’s wartime heroes including Nikolai Gastello who sacrificed himself by flying his damaged plane into an advancing column of tanks in the open days of the War and Aleksei Maresev who went on to become an ace despite having his feet amputated after being shot-down. The stories of other individual pilots are also recounted in detail. Particularly noteworthy were Ivan Kozhedub, Aleksandr Pokryshkin, and Nikolai Gulaev (who lead all Allied aces with 62, 59, and 57 kills, respectively) and the women pilots of the “Night Witches” regiment who played essential roles in the skies over Stalingrad.

Display Five: “Recent Aviation Developments”

The last section of the Museum’s historical display covers the period from the end of the Great Patriotic War to the present day. As one might expect, given the rather long time frame this segment addresses (and, no doubt, state concerns regarding the release of sensitive information), this section lacks some of the found in the previous rooms. Certain subjects are, again, given short shrift (such as the German origins of the Soviet jet program). Still there’s good material here on things like the downing of Gary Power’s U-2 (1961) and the development of Soviet SAM technology.

And there you have it.

If you’ve managed to work your way through all six of the posts in this series, I hope that you found them to be informative and helpful. If so, please let others know about the “field guide.” If there’s something you thought particularly interesting (or, if you have questions about something you read), post a comment and let me know. Likewise, if you’re privy to updated information on the ongoing reconstruction at the Museum, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll post updates as I receive them and will add a bit more during my next trip to Moscow.

Oh, one more thing for those of you who actually have the chance to visit the VVS Museum…

Before heading back to Moscow you might want to stop off at the white tent located in the wooded area between the administrative building and the entrance to the outdoor aircraft display. There’s a counter inside where you can purchase drinks and snacks. The choices are a bit limited, but if you want some water, soda, or are in the mood for ice cream or a candy bar you can get it there.

Most importantly, the snack tent has Baltika Seven on tap (or, at least it did when I was there in late June). They also sell Baltika’s ideal “pairing:” кальмар.

1. For a complete discussion of Sikorsky and his behemoth airplanes, see Dictatorship of the Air, pp. 55-71
2. The Russian reads: “С первых дней Великой Отечественной войны еще полнее раскрылась направляющая и организующая роль Коммунистической партии, ее тесная и неразрывная связь с массами”
3. ”С начала Великой Отечественной войны враг узнал силу ударов советской авиации. За первые три месяца войны в воздушных боях и на аэродромах уничтожено до 3500 фашистских самолетов. За этот же период произведено 250 тыс. самолето-вылетов, при этом 47% всех вылетов совершено на уничтожение танковых и моторизованных колонн противника и его войск на поле боя”

[Alas, all good things must come to an end. Since posting Part IV of my series on the Russian Air Force Museum at Monino, I have returned home from Moscow. My nearly month-and-a-half long stay was, by any measure, a success. I gathered a great deal of material on my next long-term research project, caught up with old friends, made some new ones, and had a great time.

I’ll be spending the upcoming months reading and writing about the materials I gathered in the archives. In the meantime, however, I want to wrap up the “field guide” to the Monino museum that I began at the end of last month. In this, the penultimate post in the series, we take a look at the Soviet Union’s first jet fighters as well as some really big airplanes.]

Directly across from the Lavochkin group and extending along the entire opposite side of the walkway is a long line of planes produced by the Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB

Aircraft of the Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB

Named in recognition of the contributions of its two leading constructors (Artem Ivanovich Mikoyan and Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich), the Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB has been designing and producing military aircraft since its foundation in December 1939. As with the Lavochkin OKB, the bureau’s underperforming first effort (the MiG-1) ultimately served as the platform for a later more successful plane, the MiG-3 [discussed in Part III of this series]. But it was only in the decade or so that followed 1945 that Mikoyan-Gurevich fully emerged as one of the world’s most well-known airplane manufacturers.

Among the bureau’s numerous claims to fame was its success in constructing the MiG-9, the USSR’s first turbojet airplane. The MiG-9 was made possible thanks to the vast amount of “trophy technology” that the Red Army gathered during its post-War occupation of Germany. Particularly important were two captured BMW 003 engines that powered the aircraft prototype. (The Soviets would renamed these RD-20 engines once they began producing them serially).

The USSR officially entered the jet age with the first test flight of the MiG-9 on 24 April 1946. However, the ensuing hasty effort to construct and deploy large numbers of the new planes posed serious challenges to state and industrial officials. As had been the case in the 1930s, Soviet leaders found themselves hamstrung by the country’s insufficient infrastructure. Inadequate maintenance and repair facilities, a lack of qualified turbojet mechanics, and poor navigational and communication resources were but three major problems. In addition, the country’s hundreds of airfields proved utterly unsuited to the needs of the jet age. Too easily and too often, small pebbles and clumps of dirt were sucked up from the runways’ earthen surfaces into the turbojet intakes of the new planes, damaging power plants and forcing costly repairs.¹

The mass production of jet aircraft likewise proved to be a major challenge for Soviet industry. As MiG-9s began rolling out of aircraft factories pilots began warning of serious performance problems. A mid-1947 report issued to the Ministry of the Aviation Industry by VVS Marshall Konstantin Vershinin identified 37 recurring defects with the MiG-9 airframe and 14 with the planes’ RD-20 turbojet engine. The Yak-15 jet fighter (developed simultaneously with the MiG-9 was cited for 71 defects while its engine, the RD-10, was plagued by 12). After months of infighting and finger pointing between the VVS and the Ministry, serial production of the MiG-9 was halted in early 1948. In a pattern that would be repeated later during the Cold War, the troublesome planes were eventually pawned off on the USSR’s “fraternal” allies. Between 1950-51, 372 of the 598 MiG-9s in the VVS inventory were handed over to Mao Tse-Tung’s Communist government in China.

In the meantime, the OKB began work on a second jet fighter. Fortunately for Soviet designers, the engine problems that had plagued the MiG-9 were solved courtesy of the British. In 1947, to Stalin’s surprise and delight, the Labor government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee agreed to give the Soviet Union technical information, licensing rights, and copies of the most advanced turbojet engines then in existence: the “Nene” and “Derwent” by Rolls Royce. Tupolev OKB technicians put the engines to excellent use developing the MiG-15.

The second jet fighter to emerge from the Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB more than compensated for the shortcomings of the first. One of the first swept-wing aircraft in history, the MiG-15 proved its worth as soon as it debuted in combat in the skies over Korea in 1950. The plane routinely bested America’s first generation F-80 and F-84 jet aircraft. Only with the arrival en masse of the newer F-86 Sabre was the USAF able to maintain air superiority. Before production of the MiG-15 was finally ended Soviet factories produced more than 12,000 of the planes in seventeen different versions including the MiG-15UTI, a two-seat trainer represented in the VVS Museum’s collection. An additional 6,000 or so MiG-15s were built under license elsewhere, making the MiG-15 the most numerous jet airplane in history.

Beyond (or, “behind”) the MiG group, in a large field separated by a roadway from the rest of the Museum’s planes, is a “sizable” collection of Military-Transport Aircraft.

Military-Transport Aircraft
Although this group of planes is set back away from the central quad, it’s impossible to miss. Here, the VVS Museum has on display some of the USSR’s largest creations. As I discuss at length in DotA, the “colossalist impulse” in aircraft design is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Russian aviation culture. From Igor Sikorsky’s pre-World War I multi-engine giants the Russkii vitiaz’ and Il’ia Muromets to the largest airplane in history, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, very big planes have been a constant feature of Russian aircraft design.

Civilian passenger planes make up a considerable portion of this sub-collection. One of the more important in this regard is the Museum’s Tu-114, a passenger version of the Tupolev OKB’s famed Tu-95 (“Bear”) strategic bomber. The Tu-114 was massive by the day’s standards. It was just over 177 ft. long and possessed a wingspan of 167 ft. Towering nearly five-stories, it was at the time the tallest aircraft ever built. The plane’s four large contra-rotating turboprop propellers were each capable of generating almost 15,000 hp. They enabled the Tu-114 to cruise at 470 mph and attain a top speed near 540 mph. While the airplane typically accommodated up to 160 passengers, it could be reconfigured to allow as many as 220. [By comparison, contemporary Boeing 707s had a maximum capacity of 179 passengers].

Continuing the longstanding Russian tradition of exploiting aviation accomplishments to score propaganda points, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev insisted on flying a Tu-114 from Moscow to Washington, DC for his thirteen-day visit to the United States in September 1959. Enamored with the plane’s impressive size (he was delighted to learn that the US didn’t have a ramp tall enough to reach the door) and keenly aware that the plane was the only one in the Soviet inventory that could reach America non-stop, the Communist Party chief was convinced that his arrival aboard the aircraft would serve as spectacular political theater. The trouble was that the plane Khrushchev hoped to take had developed microscopic cracks in an engine following its maiden long-distance flight in May. To allay fears that the plane might not be fully airworthy, designer Andrei Tupolev dispatched his own son on the flight to America. Meanwhile, a team of jet engine specialists was also sent along to monitor the Tu-114’s engines using a specially designed instrument that resembled a cross between a stethoscope and heart monitor. As an added precaution, the KGB dispatched a small armada of trawlers, tankers, and freighters into the Atlantic along the plane’s flight path.² These extra measures proved unnecessary. The Tu-114 carrying Khrushchev made its triumphal landing at Andrews Air Force Base on 15 September.

As big as it is, the Tu-114 looks rather small when measured against the enormous Antonov An-22 turboprop parked nearby. Designed by the Kiev-based Antonov OKB (now officially known as the Antonov Aeronautical Scientific/Technical Complex), the An-22 was as a military-transport built to provide strategic heavy-lifting capabilities over long distances. Antonov designers followed established precedent in devising the mammoth creation. As had been the case in the 1930s with the Tupolev OKB’s famous Maxim Gorky, the An-22 was simply an enlarged version of a previously existing model (the An-12) outfitted with a new (twin) tail. Within two years of its 27 February 1965 debut, the An-22 established more than a dozen world airlift records. The most impressive achievement came in 1967 when an An-22 airlifted 225,000 lbs to an altitude of 25,748 feet. Although production of the An-22 ended in 1974 perhaps as many as two dozen of the planes are believed to remain in service as military transports.

Our virtual tour of the outdoor aircraft collection concludes with a return to the group of planes parked in the middle of the central quad. Rounding the walkway clockwise from the MiG group, one finds a row of planes from the Yakovlev OKB.

Aircraft of the Yakovlev OKB

A pioneering figure from the earliest years of Soviet aviation, Aleksandr Sergeevich Yakovlev first earned famed for his contributions to the establishment, development, and growth of Soviet sport aviation. His first aeronautical creation, the motor-less AVF-10, debuted in 1924 and proved instrumental to the rise of Soviet gliderism and modeling circles. Soon thereafter the constructor turned his attention to building true airplanes. His completed his first, the AIR-1, in 1927. Seven years later (1934) Yakovlev was awarded his own construction bureau. During the Second World War, the Yakovlev OKB emerged as one of the Soviet aviation’s “Big Three” (along with Tupolev and Mikoyan-Gurevich). Ultimately, the design bureau was responsible for as many as two-thirds of the fighters that took part in the War. Later contributions included the USSR’s first all-weather interceptor (Yak-25); its first STOVL aircraft (Yak-38) and a host of training and civilian planes. Today, the Yakovlev design bureau continues to play a vital role in the Russian aviation industry.

The earliest history of Soviet jet aviation is preserved in the form of the Museum’s Yak-17. This aircraft was a modified version of the Yak-15 which debuted just hours after the MiG-9 launched the jet age in Russia. A transitional aircraft itself, the Yak-15 was little more than a jet-powered version of the earlier propeller-driven Yak-3. In a similar fashion, the Yak-17 was an only slightly revised version of its immediate predecessor. Aside from having a reworked tail section, the Yak-17 differed from the Yak-15 in one major respect. Whereas the Yak-15 possessed the tail-down landing gear typical of piston-driven aircraft, the Yak-17 was outfitted with a tricycle system in which the third wheel was placed under the nose. Ultimately, these changes did not drastically improve performance. With the arrival of the superior MiG-15 in late December 1947, the fate of the Yak-17 was sealed. Production was halted after only 430 aircraft had been built. Among these, however, a two-seater variant (the Yak-17UTI) provided essential service as the USSR’s first jet trainer aircraft.

In the final installment of our field guide, we’ll take a look at the contents of the Museum’s hangar devoted to “Unique Flying Machines” and its “History of Russian Aviation” display.

[ For the final installment in this series of posts, click here: 6]

1. Игорь Дроговоз, Воздушный щит страны советов, Минск: Харвест, 2007, 53-55
2. William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003, 422-423

Extending the length of the other side of long walkway, directly opposite the aircraft of the Great Patriotic War are more than one dozen craft representing the Sukhoi OKB.

Aircraft of the Sukhoi OKB

For whatever reason, the Sukhoi OKB collection is “book ended” by two aircraft that did not emerge from the design bureau’s drawing boards. However, as neither can possibly escape notice, both are worth mentioning.

The first of these (located on the immediate left as one enters the main gate) is a contraption so big and so ugly that only its inventor could love it. Constructed between 1965 and 1967 by the M. L. Milia OKB, the Mi-12 (NATO designation “Homer”) was a genuine hella copter. Designed to provide super-heavy airlift capacity to the Red Army, the Mi-12 was powered by two 6,500 h.p. gas turbine engines that were, in turn, used to rotate two massive (114 ft diameter!) propellers situated at the opposite ends of the copter’s “wings.” The result wasn’t pretty, but it did manage to fly. In fact, during test flights in 1969, an Mi-12 piloted by V. P. Koloshenko set a world record for helicopters by lifting just over 88,633 lbs. to an altitude of 7,381 ft. The model on display at the VVS Museum is one of only three Mi-12s ever built.

At the far opposite end of the Sukhoi row sits another of Soviet aviation’s qualified successes, the country’s supersonic passenger airplane, the Tu-144. Developed in response to America’s proposed (but never built) Boeing 2707 and the Anglo-French Concorde, the Tu-144 earned the distinction of becoming history’s first SST passenger plane when it took to the air on 31 December 1968 two months before the Concorde. Four and a half years later, the Tu-144 earned the distinction of becoming history’s first SST passenger plane to crash when one went down in a spectacularly public fashion during a demonstration flight at the 1973 Paris Air Show. A total of 17 Tu-144s were manufactured (including a prototype and two production test models). However, limited range, a series of technical problems, and a second deadly accident led to the airplane’s discontinued commercial use in 1978. By then, the 14 production aircraft had collectively managed a mere 102 passenger flights.

In between the Tu-144 and the mammoth Mi-12 are an array of airplanes properly belonging to the Sukhoi OKB.

Chief among these is the Su-35 that is parked near the entrance gate alongside the Mi-12. Designed in response to the development of the American F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon, the Su-35 was intended to give the USSR a lightweight multi-role fighter capable of matching the performance characteristics of US “fourth generation” aircraft. Unlike the F-15 and F-16 which represented significant departures from preceding planes such as the F-111 and F-4, the Su-35 was a highly modified outgrowth of an earlier Sukhoi model, the Su-27. (In fact, the plane was originally known as the Su-27M). Even then, the development of the Su-35 has taken considerably longer than might have been expected. The prototype of the plane only took to the air in 1988 (a full six years after F-15s and F-16s had decisively proven their combat worthiness in the hands of Israeli pilots over Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.) Subsequent modifications (including the development of the Su-37) further delayed the plane’s production. A final production variant of the Su-35 is slated to debut at the MAKS-2007 Air Show later this summer.

Of less recent vintage, though no less significance, is the Su-25 that sits in front of the Tu-144 [see above]. A heavily armed and armored subsonic aircraft, the Su-25 is what the Russians call a “штурмовик” (shturmovik) an airplane designed to provide close air support to ground operations (a role fulfilled in the US armed forces by the famed A-10 Warthog). Ironically, as Soviet officials had effectively abandoned frontal aviation in favor of developing strategic weapons such as ICBMs and intercontinental bombers from the late 1940s onward, the Su-25 was the first shturmovik to emerge from a Soviet design bureau in nearly three decades when its prototype (the “T-8-1”) debuted in February 1975.

The aircraft first flew combat missions in April 1980 when two Su-25s were dispatched to assist in the USSR’s unfolding Afghan operations. The planes performed brilliantly. Soon, full squadrons of Su-25s began operating out of the Soviet airbases located at Bagram and Khandar. Although the eventual arrival of American Stinger shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles seriously undermined the ability of the VVS to conduct aerial operations, the Su-25 proved its worth. According to official figures, by the time Soviet armed forces withdrew from Afghanistan, Su-25s had flown more than 60,000 combat missions with only 23 aircraft lost.

As you reach the end of the line for the Sukhoi aircraft, the path turns to the right (or, clockwise) around the main “quad.” Immediately, to the right as you round the corner is a small group of aircraft from the Lavochkin OKB.

Aircraft of the Lavochkin OKB

First established in September 1938, the Lavochkin OKB was one of the USSR’s leading suppliers of fighter aircraft during the Great Patriotic War. This success may well have surprised those pilots who had been forced to fly the OKB’s first airplane, the LaGG-1. Introduced in March 1940, the underpowered, plodding, and highly erratic LaGG-1 represented all of the worst elements of the Soviet Union’s pre-war aviation industry. Efforts to improve the basic design of the LaGG-1 by lightening the airframe, adding fixed slats, and supercharging the engine led to the development of the LaGG-3 in July of the same year. The results were hardly satisfactory. Although the LaGG-3 was more maneuverable than its predecessor, the plane remained underpowered and was very poorly built. Soviet pilots came to joke that the acronym “LaGG” (derived from the design team Lavochkin, Gorbunov, Gudkov) in fact stood for “лакированный гарантированный гроб (“lakirovannyi garantirovannyi grob” or, “varnished guaranteed coffin”).

Fortunately for Soviet airmen, the LaGG-3 was not the end of the line for the Lavochkin OKB. The development of a more powerful radial engine produced the highly effective La-5. Introduced in late 1942, the La-5 proved to be an excellent dogfighter capable of matching the best German aircraft at low altitudes. Further refinements to the La-5 led to the introduction in the summer of 1944 of the La-7, arguably the USSR’s best fighter of the War. Several of the country’s leading aces (including Ivan Kozhedub, Nikolai Skomorokhov, and Kirill Evstigneev) flew La-5s and La-7s. On 15 February 1945 Kozhedub (the Allies’ highest ranking ace with 62 “kills” and three-time “Hero of the Soviet Union”) was flying an La-7 when he became the only Soviet pilot to shoot down a German Me 262 jet fighter.

By the time hostilities had ended in May 1945, the Lavochkin OKB had supplied more than 22,000 aircraft to the VVS (6,500 LaGG-3s, 10,000 La-5s, and 5,753 La-7s).

Following the death of its founder Semion Alekseevich Lavochkin in 1960, the OKB stopped producing aircraft. Since then a successor company bearing the Lavochkin name has worked on developing space-based technologies.

[ For the next installment in this series of posts, click here: 5]

Getting Down to Business: The Aircraft Collection

The Museum’s outdoor aircraft collection is divided into eight different sections. One of these is devoted to helicopters. Of the remaining seven, two consist of groups devoted to “Military-Transport Aircraft” and “Airplanes of the Great Patriotic War.” The rest are arranged in accordance with the experimental design bureaus (опытнyе конструкторскyе бюро, opytnye konstruktorskye burio, or OKBs) from which the planes originated.

As you enter the main gate to the outdoor collection, the first group of aircraft that you encounter (on your right) are those representing the Tupolev OKB.

Aircraft of the Tupolev OKB:

The Soviet Union’s premier airplane designer during the 1920s and 1930s, Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev was responsible for many of the USSR’s earliest aviation successes. In addition to constructing the country’s first all-metal combat airplane (ANT-3), Tupolev lead the design and construction of such milestone aircraft as the ANT-20 “Maxim Gorky” and ANT-25 (the first airplane to make a trans-Polar crossing).

Arrested at the very height of his success in October 1937, Tupolev continued to design airplanes for the Soviet state while working as a virtual slave laborer in a “special design bureau” run by the NKVD (later, the KGB). Freed in 1941 following the German invasion, Tupolev subsequently played an instrumental role in the development of post-War Soviet military and civilian jet aircraft.

Two airplanes highlight the VVS Museum’s Tupolev OKB collection.

The first is a Tu-4 a Soviet copy of the American B-29 Superfortress. The Tu-4 was reverse-engineered on the basis of three B-29s forced down over the Soviet Far East in the summer and fall of 1944 following bombing runs over Japan. The plane’s inaugural flight took place on 3 July 1947. The existence of the Soviet Tu-4 gave American leaders pause at the outset of the Cold War as they recognized that among the world’s then-existing airplanes, only the B-29/Tu-4 was capable of delivering an atomic bomb. In reality, the Soviet version was considerably inferior to the American original. The Tu-4’s range was so limited that any effort to bomb the continental USA would have necessitated a one-way mission on the part of the plane’s crew. Even then, success was far from certain.¹

A second noteworthy plane is the Tu-16. The Tupolev OKB’s first jet bomber, the Tu-16 debuted on 27 April 1952. The aircraft entered serial production in December of that same year. By the time that production ended in 1963, 1,509 had been built. The Tu-16 proved to be a highly adaptable aircraft. During the four decades that followed its maiden flight, nearly fifty different modifications were made to the airplane. The most significant of these was the transformation of the military bomber into the USSR’s first jet passenger airplane, the Tu-104.

The majority of the aircraft in the VVS Museum’s outdoor collection are parked within and around a large rectangular walkway (or, “quad”) one “short” side of which runs more or less parallel with the row of planes from the Tupolev OKB. As you turn away from the Tupolev planes and look down the “long” path, you see a large group of aircraft situated in an “L” pattern along the “lower right-hand” corner of the central “quad.” These are Airplanes of the Great Patriotic War.

Airplanes of the Great Patriotic War:

Nazi Germany’s surprise launch of “Operation Barbarossa” on 22 June 1941 was marked by the near-complete destruction of the Soviet Air Force. In the first two weeks of combat alone, the USSR lost well-over 4,000 aircraft (as opposed to only 150 losses suffered by the Luftwaffe). The ability of the VVS to weather the storm of the initial German offensive, regroup, rebuild, and ultimately help repel the invading Nazi forces stands as the brightest chapter in the history of Russian aviation.

Not surprisingly, the Museum possesses a wide array of combat aircraft from the Great Patriotic War. Among these is one of the first fighter planes to emerge from the Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB, the MiG-3. Small, nimble, and fast, the airplane represented a major step forward in Soviet aviation design when it was unveiled in the spring of 1940. During early high-altitude test flights the “I-200” (as it was then officially known) was reported to have reached a top speed of 404 mph (651 km/hour) making it, according to Soviet officials, “the fastest fighter plane in existence.” However, in actual combat conditions at lower altitudes the MiG-3 did not match the performance of Germany’s frontline fighter, the Messerschmitt Me-109. Still, the airplane was one of the few bright spots for the VVS in the opening months of the war. 3,500 MiG-3s left Soviet factories before production was halted (in order to increase the output of other aircraft) in November 1941.

The Petliakov Pe-2 is one of the standouts in the Museum’s collection of World War II-era bomber aircraft. First tested in May 1939, the Pe-2 was the quintessential example of the Soviet emphasis on “frontal” bombing operations in the years immediately preceding WWII. The plane was designed to provide close air support and attack capabilities in conjunction with ground offensives. During the War, the Pe-2 served as the mainstay bomber of the VVS (just over 11,400 were produced). Modified versions of the plane played a role in aerial operations from the outbreak of hostilities in June 1941 until the fall of Berlin in May 1945.

The contributions of the Lend-Lease Program to the Soviet effort in the Great Patriotic War are implicitly acknowledged through the presence of several American aircraft in the Monino collection. Chief among these are a P-39 Airacobra and P-40 Warhawk. Considered obsolescent by the Allied Air Forces at the outbreak of World War II, these planes nevertheless provided valuable service on the Eastern Front flying ground attack and air interdiction missions. (Interestingly, three of the USSR’s top four aces recorded the majority of their kills while aboard P-39s.) The Museum also has a Lisunov Li-2. A license-built version of America’s justly famous Douglas C-47 (DC-3), the Li-2 comprised the bulk of Soviet air transport capacity during (and well after) the War.

In Part Four of this series, we’ll take a look at a huge helicopter, a super fast passenger jet, and airplanes from the Sukhoi OKB…

[ For the next installment in this series of posts, click here: 4]

1. For more on the Tu-4 see, Dictatorship of the Air, pp. 276-278.

Getting In:

According to the official website, the VVS Museum is open:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday from 9:30 am until 5:00 pm with a 45 minute break from 1:30-2:15 [Currently, the Museum seems not to be observing the scheduled break on these days]

Saturday the Museum is open from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm

The Museum is closed on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Technically, foreign visitors are required to call ahead to notify the administration of their desire to visit. I did not. As a result, the woman sitting at the registration desk gave me a stern glance. She then called her superior. He subsequently allowed me in without any trouble.

Odds are you’ll get in without the phone call. Given the Museum’s desperate need for cash (more about that in a moment), they’d be foolish to turn away any visitors willing to pay the entrance fee. Still, if you want to do everything by the book, here’s the relevant contact information:

Telephone: 526-33-27
Fax: 747-39-28

I can’t vouch for the English-language fluency of the Museum staff. My guess is that you’ll probably need to know a bit of Russian in order to make the by-the-book arrangements. Alternatively, you can always get a real live Russian to do this for you. (They’re easy to find ‘round these parts). If you’re staying at a nice hotel the concierge would be the one to ask.

The entry fee for foreigners visiting on their own is currently 350 rubles (approx. $14). Children under 15 get in for 200 rubles. If you want to bring along a camera to take still photographs you must pay an additional 200 ruble fee (about $8). There’s yet another charge (250 rubles) for using a video camera.

After settling up at the cashier’s desk, you’ll receive a paper receipt. Exit the door you entered, go back through the gate, and turn right. Across the street you’ll see a big blue metal fence behind which are a bunch of Russian airplanes…

Getting Acquainted:

Under normal operating conditions, the Museum is divided into two separate sections.

The first is the Main Hall (where tickets are purchased). It houses the reception area, cashier, sundry administrative offices, and a seven-room display chronicling the of “History of Russian Aviation” to the present day.

The second section consists of the large aircraft collection parked in the big field across the street. There you will find on display six dozen plus airplanes (and a handful of helicopters) dating from the Great Patriotic War to the present. Two hangars located at the far side of the field opposite the entry gate contain respective displays devoted to “Unique Flying Machines” [Уникальные летательные аппараты] and “Training Aircraft, Sport Planes, and Parachuting” [Учебные и спортивные самолеты. Выставка парашютов].

Here’s a map of the Museum grounds:

In 2005, a fire destroyed most of the Museum’s Main Hall. Little has been done since then to remedy the situation. There appears to be no set schedule for beginning (let alone completing) the necessary repairs. In order to ensure that the remainder of the Museum continues to function, the “History of Russian Aviation” display has been closed to make room for the administrative offices.

Likewise, the hangar which houses the display of “Unique Flying Machines” is currently closed while major repairs are being made to the hangar’s roof. When I inquired as to the date by which the repairs are supposed to be completed and the display re-opened, I was told that, officially, everything will be finished by August of this year. When I asked for a date by which the display might realistically be expected to re-open, I received the expected reply: “Only God knows.” On the bright side, there was actual work being done on the hangar the day I visited.

The qualifier to all of this is that most of the textual information contained in these displays is/was in Russian. So it’s not as if non-Russian speakers are going to miss out on that much anyway. Later in this “Field Guide” I’ll give you a detailed summary of the displays’ contents (in English no less!) as they would normally appear. Next up, a first look at the Museum and its airplanes…

ScP

[ For the next installment in this series of posts, click here: 3]

Specifically, I am going to provide detailed information relating to the Russian Federation’s most important aviation museum: the Central Museum of the Military Air Forces (Центральный музей военно-воздушных сил or, transliterated, Tsentral’nyi muzei voenno-vozdushnykh sil). If you’re a Russian aviation enthusiast, odds are you already know that the VVS Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of Russian military aircraft and that it is, for all intent and purposes, the Russian Federation’s equivalent of the United States Air Force Museum located at the Wright-Patterson Airbase in Dayton, OH.

However, unless you read Russian you may not know much more than that. Accurate and detailed information regarding the Russian Air Force Museum, its history, contents, and operations is rather hard to come by for English-only speakers. The VVS Museum’s official web site contains quite a bit of useful material, but all of it is in Russian. Moreover, it is dated. (The website appears not to have been revised since it went on line in 2001.) In a similar fashion, the smattering of unofficial personal websites that turn up when one Googles “Monino Russian aviation museum” aren’t much more helpful. All contain pictures of planes. Few say much about the Museum itself. Nearly all are grossly out of date (some by more than a decade).

I took the day off from researching yesterday to travel to the VVS Museum. It is located in the Moscow suburb of Monino (about 25 miles due east of the capital). What follows in this and one (if not two) subsequent post(s) is an effort to provide non-Russian speakers with an idea of what it’s like to visit the Museum. The posts are part travelogue, part informational service, part commentary. My purpose is to put together an up-to-date “field guide” that will acquaint non-Russian speaking aviation enthusiasts with what is, by any measure, one of the world’s greatest collections of military aircraft.

If you are considering visiting the Russian Air Force Museum, I hope that what follows will help prepare you for your trip. If you do not have the opportunity to travel there, consider this a “virtual tour” of sorts.

Getting There:

Although there are a number of ways to reach the Museum, the most interesting is via the suburban train service (электричка, or “elek-TREECH-ka”) which departs from Yaroslavskii Station (Ярославский вокзал, “yaro-SLAV-skee vahk-ZAHL”) in the NE sector of the capital. Conveniently, Yaroslavskii Station is located on the Moscow Metro’s “Ring Line” at the Komsomolskaya stop (Комсомольская станция, “kom-sah-MOLE-sky-ya stAHN-see-ya”).

If you’re traveling “clockwise” along the Ring Line toward Komsomolskaya station, the exit will be to your left as you leave the train. If you’re traveling “counter-clockwise,” exit to your right. Alternatively, as you exit the Metro car into the station, you can make use of the illuminated signs (located above) that provide information on how to get out of the underground. You are looking for an arrow accompanied the following Cyrillic text:

Walk in the direction that the arrow points.

At the end of the hall you will find a short flight of stairs. Ascend the stairs. Continue walking through a broad tunnel until you reach the bottom of a set of escalators. Take the escalators up and leave the station.

As soon as you emerge from the bowels of the Metro to the fresh (ahem) air of Moscow, turn immediately to your right. There, you will see the entrance to Yaroslavskii Train Station. It looks like this:

Above the doors, you will find a number of signs. These indicate the time and track numbers of the suburban trains set to depart the station in the next thirty minutes or so. You want an “elektrichka” heading to Monino (Монино).

Enter the doors below the signs and walk into the ticketing office. To your right, built into the wall, you will see a series of glass booths occupied by middle-age women distinguished only by the various hues of their badly dyed-hair and their relative degrees of surliness. Find a woman-in-a-glass box marked “Пригородная касса” (“PrEE-guh-rode-nigh-ya kAH-sa”). [They're the ones numbered 20-28] After you have located one, get in line. You will wait a long time or a short time. Once you are first in line, approach the woman-in-the-glass box, hold up your index finger, and say, “МOE-nee-na ee a-BRAHT-na.”

She will glare at you and bark something in a hostile tone because you have just asked her, “How much for a good time?”

Just kidding.

You actually told her “To Monino and back.”

The current (June 2007) cost of a round-trip ticket from Moscow to Monino is 126 rubles. Place 200 rubles on the counter. Alternatively, if you want to be certain that you’ve covered the cost, just plop down the biggest Russian bill you have (500, 1,000, etc.) Be aware, however, that this will result in yet another guttural utterance from the woman-in-the-glass box (she is now demanding to know if you have smaller bills). Should this happen, shrug your shoulders, shake your head left and right, and look helpless. Inevitably, she will give you a wad of smaller bills (which, trust me, you want anyway) along with a white receipt that looks like this:

Hang on to this, it’s your ticket.

Immediately behind you (as you are facing the woman-in-the-glass box) is the exit that will lead you to your train. Once you have your ticket and change in hand, turn around. Walk forward and exit through the doors.

Before you, you will see a long row of doors/gates under a green roof. The doors lead to the platform area from which the suburban trains depart. They are accompanied by signs. The one you want will look something like this:

After entering the door, you will see a row of turnstiles. Insert the end of the ticket stub that looks like a UPC bar code print-side up into the slot at the front of the turnstile. The gate will open allowing you to pass into the platform area.

Do not lose your ticket. You will need it for the return trip. You may also need it to prove you paid your fare in the event that you encounter a conductor while en route.

[BTW, If you happen to miss the train that you had hoped to board, don’t worry. There’s another one coming along in a few minutes. Monino is a destination frequently served by the suburban train system and your ticket is good for any of the trains departing for Monino on the day of purchase.]

Find the appropriate track and board your train.

If you happen to be lucky (or if you’re thinking strategically) you’ll end up sitting across from a hot Russian dyev (they are everywhere). However, if you’re not so lucky, you’ll end up alongside a wandering schizophrenic (they are also everywhere) who reeks of stale onions and urine. You will ride a long time (in the latter case) or a short time (in the former). Whichever fate befalls you, the trip from Moscow to Monino takes approximately 1h 15m, so plan accordingly. Bring a book to read, a friend to talk to, or an iPod loaded up with your favorite airplane tunes.

During the train ride out to Monino persons of various ages, genders, and personal grooming habits will enter the coach you’re in and begin addressing the passengers. These people fall into four general categories. Each wants something:

1) Budding Russian “capitalists”: distinguished by the broad and eclectic quantity of cheap consumer products that they are trying to hawk (everything from ball point pens and notebooks to mosquito repellant, plastic bags, Russian romance novels, and panty hose.) Odds are very good they have nothing you need.

2) Beggars: among the varieties you may encounter are invalids, impoverished pensioners, disabled Afghan war veterans, young children, and gypsies of all ages (to name but a few)…

3) “Performers”: including senior citizens singing off-key Russian “classics;” young gypsy children armed with accordions; and Russian teenagers performing stand-up comedy, original “poetry,” and/or appalling bad rap songs. All of these people are, in fact, beggars in disguise.

4) Ice cream vendors: clearly identified by the large, insulated containers that they carry in their hands (or wear around their neck.)

Ignore everyone except the ice cream vendors.

Along with quality vodka, Baltika beer, and gob-smackingly beautiful women, ice cream is a Russian product that should be enjoyed at every opportunity. Alert the vendor of your intent to make a purchase. Hold up one or more fingers indicating the quantity you desire and pass him a 100 ruble note. [Note: A typical Russian-made стаканчик (“sta-KAHN-chik”) currently runs about 25 rubles ($1) when bought from a train or street vendor].

After the “elektrichka” arrives at the Monino platform, you still have to make your way to the Museum proper. (It’s a bit of a haul, but then again getting there on your own is half the fun.)

Exit the train. You will see a set of stairs descending into the area beneath the platform. Take the stairs downward. If, when you began your descent, you were facing the rear of the train on which you arrived, turn left at the bottom of the stairs. If you were facing the front of the train, turn right.

Follow the underground passage to the end. Turn right and ascend up the stairs. On your left hand side you will see a long building containing a series of small shops and kiosks [it’s the grey one visible in the picture to the left]. To your right you will now see the platform area from which trains leave the Monino station. Walk forward, parallel to the shops and kiosks on your left and the train platforms on your right.

When you reach the end of the building, you will come to a blue metal gate and vehicle check-point manned by military personnel.

Walk through the pedestrian passage to the left of the checkpoint and proceed forward, parallel with the road, along the tree-lined sidewalk immediately adjacent to the street.

After 15 minutes or so you will reach the main entrance of the Russian Military Air Academy [Военно-воздушная академия, Voenno-vozdushnaya akademiia].

Turn left. Continue walking alongside the brick and wrought-iron fence that surrounds the academy grounds until you have circled half-way around the academy and reached an entrance directly opposite the “Main Entrance” that you initially encountered.

Turn left at this second (“rear”) entrance and walk down the road (with the academy directly behind you). A dirt path will veer off to the right in front of a red and blue marker decorated with two airplanes:

Follow the path until you reach the large blue sign [“Музей ВВС”] marking the entrance to the Museum:

Continue on until you see (on the left) a sign which reads “Касса музея.” Turn left. Make another left at the gate marked “Касса.” The entrance to the museum is located in the small shanty immediately on your left after you have entered through the gate.

Congratulations, you made it!

Next up, the Museum and its grounds…

ScP

[ For the next installment in this series of posts, click here: 2]