The history of aviation in Russia, which began in 1908, knew many victories, pioneers, great names. This path was accompanied by successes and mistakes, takeoffs and deaths of people. About them, conquerors of the sky, compose poems, write books, sing songs and erect monuments to the heroic pilots.
In the cities of Russia and abroad erected many monuments. They can tell about the life and exploits of the people in whose honor they were established.
Monument on Samotechnaya street to V.I. Popkov
Monument to the pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Popov Vitaly Ivanovich was erected in Moscow in 1953 during his lifetime. This honor was awarded to few.
Vitaliy Ivanovich, as a 12-year-old boy, received the certificate of a glider pilot. In 1940 he was drafted into the army, fought in the Great Patriotic War from the first to the last day. He shot down 41 enemy aircraft in person and 6 more in the group.
On Samotechnaya Street, on a high pedestal, there is a bronze bust of the famous pilot, whom the Americans have made to the top ten aces of the world. The artist L. E. Kerbel, the author of a large number of sculptures to military leaders, party leaders, heroes of the Soviet Union and Socialist Labor, showed a fighter in military uniform with state decorations on his chest. On the pedestal is the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council on awarding the captain's guard with the second Golden Star.
Monument to the Novodevichy cemetery V.I. Popkov
Vitaly Ivanovich Popkov died in 2010, having lived a long life. He retired with the rank of general. An unusual monument is erected on his grave. A young pilot in uniform with two Hero stars on his chest stands at a military fighter. Below, as expected, dates of birth and death. And above the airplane propeller in large letters: "We will live." A strange inscription on the grave of a pilot hero.
Just Vitaly Ivanovich, a desperate daredevil, who led the squadron in the middle of the war, organized a jazz orchestra in the regiment. It was he who was the prototype of two heroes at once in Leonid Bykov’s film “Only Old Men Are Going to the Battle”. The Grasshopper, the eternal duty officer at the airport, is Popkov after school. Komesk Titarenko is an as Popkov. And his call sign was “Maestro”.
"Defenders of the sky of the Fatherland"
A memorial with the same name was established in Tula, at the entrance to the city. It was opened in 2015. The author of the sculptural composition M. I. Vishnyakov, the son of the legendary fighter pilot Ivan Alekseevich Vishnyakov, showed a frozen fragment of an air battle in which his father shot down two German planes. For this fight, the hero was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky.
The monument to pilots is two curved supports, these are trajectories from airplanes. A car with a star flies up into the sky, and the one with the swastika crashes into the ground. On the walls of the complex there are almost 2.5 thousand names of pilot heroes who died defending the sky from enemies.
Tula is a nonrandom city for a monument to pilots. Here the 171st fighter aviation regiment was formed, in which I. A. Vishnyakov commanded the “For Oleg Koshevoy” squadron.
