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Monument
pilots
B.V. Kapustin
and Y.N. Yanov

The monument to Soviet pilots Boris Kapustin and Yuri Yanov is dedicated to the heroic feat performed by on April 6, 1966 in the skies above Berlin.

At the cost of their lives, the pilots drove the falling plane away from the city blocks.

Screenshot
Screenshot

MONUMENT TO
PILOTS
B.V. KAPUSTIN
AND YURI YANOV

The monument to Soviet pilots Boris Kapustin and Yuri Yanov is dedicated to the heroic feat performed by
on April 6, 1966 in the skies above Berlin.

At the cost of their lives, the pilots drove the falling plane away from the city blocks.

The sculpture is made in monumental style. The heart of the composition is keel of the jet airplane Yak-28PThe heart of the composition is the keel of the Yak-28P fighter jet falling on Berlin, which is broken on the side by two torn elements symbolizing the interrupted lives of the crew.

In front of the keel of the falling plane at a depth of 1 meter is located a maprecreated from real maps of Berlin from 1966. Thanks to the glass floor, you can see the residential neighborhoodsthat stretched beneath the plane of Yanov and Kapustin in the last moments of their lives when they decided to steer the malfunctioning machine away from the city.

At the monument there is an information stand with a symbolic inscription: "The huge sky is one for two.".

The monument deliberately does not use figures or portraits of heroes. The monument is filled with symbolism and allows any viewer to become a participant of those events, to feel the heroism of the pilots.

1 out of 10

This, comrade, cannot be overlooked.

This, comrade, cannot be overlooked.

The small, unremarkable Kapustin Street sits in the shadow of the North Reservoir, one of the main...

Kapustin Street is a small, inconspicuous street in the shadow of the Northern Reservoir, one of Rostov's main vacation spots. A dense branching grove, walking areas and beaches neighbor with open summer cafes and a pier for rowing enthusiasts. Not so long ago, few people in the city could say for sure who Boris Kapustin was and why this street was named in his honor. But this man's name was once known throughout Germany. However, in just a few decades the situation has changed radically. And the memory of the feat of Soviet pilots was consigned to oblivion. With the beginning of the new millennium, thanks to the educational work of community members, it was restored. Now, at the very beginning of the avenue, the monument to the feat of Kapustin and Yanov pilots, committed on April 6, 1966 in the skies above Berlin, takes its place.

2 out of 10

The big sky is one for two

The big sky is one for two

Many years have passed since that tragic day when in the skies above Berlin, the crew of a Soviet airplane...

Many years have passed since that tragic day when, in the skies above Berlin, the crew of a Soviet airplane, commanded by Captain Boris Kapustin, 1st class pilot, and navigator - Senior Lieutenant Yuri Nikolayevich Yanov, made a decision, at the cost of their lives, to divert the crashing airplane away from the densely populated neighborhoods of the city. The West was shocked by the courage and heroism of Soviet pilots. In Germany they were recognized as National Heroes and posthumously awarded the "Golden Badge". The pilots died, but saved the lives of civilians in Berlin. The memory of this feat should be immortal.

The work of an international team of enthusiasts of different ages and professions, from social activists to politicians of various ranks from Russia and Germany, allowed to preserve the feat of Kapustin and Janov in the memory of the two nations.

3 out of 10

Story of an exploit

Story of an exploit

On April 3, 1966, five Soviet aircrews of the 668th Aviation Regiment of the Soviet Forces Group...

On April 3, 1966, 5 Soviet crews of the 668th Aviation Regiment of the Soviet Forces Group in Germany were ordered to transfer Yak-28P aircraft from Novosibirsk to the airfield of Köthen (GDR). All planes were unexpectedly landed at an intermediate airfield in Finov, not flying to Köthen 15 minutes. Kapustin and Yanov's crew was serving in this city.

Kapustin's widow recalled that Boris Vladislavovich himself spoke then about the malfunction of one of the airplanes. For almost 3 days the technicians tried to fix the engines. Finally, on April 6, all 5 crews flew to their destination. The day was overcast, the sky was covered with clouds. On the 12th minute of the flight at an altitude of 4000 meters in the plane of Kapustin and Yanov's crew both engines failed. From the command post came the order to eject. But the pilots decided to break through the clouds and find out the situation. Having made a maneuver, they saw under them densely populated Berlin. Immediately it was decided to take the plane away from the city and land it in a clearing. But altitude and speed were lost, and a dam and a cemetery suddenly appeared on the way. On April 6, 1966, Easter was celebrated in Germany, and the cemetery was crowded.

Boris Kapustin gave the navigator the order to eject and decided to steer the falling plane away from the crowds. However, Yanov refused to abandon his comrade.

An eyewitness to the events, Jürgen Schrader, who was working at the construction site that day, described the events as follows: an airplane suddenly emerged from under the clouds with a plume of smoke trailing behind it. It moved in jerks, apparently the pilots were desperately trying to start the engines. The plane passed over two residential high-rise buildings, almost brushing the fuselage on the antennas on the roof. Eyewitnesses noted that by inhuman efforts the plane lifted off and circled the dam and the cemetery. After that it fell into the lake Stössensee with a stone, burrowing into the silt for 2 meters. A German pilot who happened to observe the maneuver said: "...He did the impossible..."

For twenty-four hours the British (the plane went down in their sector of West Berlin) refused to indicate the place of the crash. And when the bodies of the pilots and the fighter were handed over to the Soviet side, it turned out that the aircraft's secret technical developments had been dismantled. As a result, the declassified Yak-28P did not go into production and was not adopted into service as planned.

It was for this reason that the pilots were posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and not awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union (as follows from the response of the Ministry of Defense to the pioneers of School No. 75 in Rostov-on-Don). The secret fighter plane fell into the hands of the potential enemy, who modernized its aviation at the expense of this.

4 out of 10

The burial of the remains of the pilots

The burial of the remains of the pilots

Very solemnly handed over the remains of the pilots to the Soviet side. The ceremony was attended by the British royal...

Very solemnly handed over the remains of the pilots to the Soviet side. The ceremony was attended by the British royal troops, Scottish riflemen. The top leaders expressed their gratitude and condolences to the relatives and friends of the heroically killed pilots. The GDR government offered to bury the pilots in Treptow Park, and to provide their families with apartments in the center of Berlin with lifetime state support. However, the widow Galina Kapustina insisted on burial in her native Rostov-on-Don. On April 11, 1966 in the GDR solemnly bade farewell to the heroes. Every town and village sent delegations and flowers.

In Rostov-on-Don another terrible news was waiting for the Kapustin family: the father died after learning of his son's death - his sick heart could not stand it. The coffins of father and son were placed in the Palace of Builders to bid farewell to delegations, friends, relatives and residents of the city. On April 12 the traffic was stopped in the city and two coffins of Kapustin's, which were carried on hands, were brought to the Bratsk cemetery. A solemn meeting was held there, and with military honors father and son Kapustin were buried in one grave.

5 out of 10

Boris Kapustin

Boris Kapustin

Boris Vladislavovich Kapustin was born on December 11, 1931 in the Otradnensky district of Krasnodar Krai...

Boris Vladislavovich Kapustin was born on December 11, 1931 in Otradnensky district of Krasnodar region in state farm No. 28 of Urupskaya zootechnical station. Today it is Plemzavod Urupsky LLC. One of the organizers of the farm was his father Kapustin Vladislav Alexandrovich, an agricultural specialist, professor, holder of the Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labor, gold large and small medals of the All-Union Exhibition of Economic Achievement.

The Kapustin family moved to Rostov-on-Don when Boris was 3 years old. He attended 1st and 2nd grades at school No. 45, and 3rd-7th grades at school No. 51. Then he graduated from Rostov Industrial Technical School, was engaged in sports, liked to "walrus" with friends, swimming across the Don River in both directions in any weather. In winter they even pounded ice to make their way across. As a teenager, Boris liked to race motorcycles.

When in the late 1940s the country announced the "Stalinist draft" to aviation, Kapustin made his decision immediately. And at the age of 18 he entered the Kirovabad Military Aviation School named after V.S. Kapustin. V.S. After graduation he served in Ukraine (Ivano-Frankivsk region, Khmelnitsky region).

In 1957 they married Galina Andreevna, who accompanied Boris in every move to a new place of service. A son Valery was born into the family.

Service in Germany began in 1960 in the town of Finow, 38 kilometers east of Berlin, where the bomber aviation regiment of the 24th Air Army of the Soviet Army Group in Germany was stationed, and continued until the tragic events of April 1966.

Boris Kapustin excelled in flying - he flew all types of aircraft, was an instructor of navigators. He had a well-deserved authority and was respected by his comrades in the service, for 5 years he was elected chairman of the officers' honor court of the regiment, was secretary of the party organization of the 2nd squadron, a member of the party committee of the military unit. One of his students was Yuri Yanov. Together they served in Kolomyia, in Starokonstantinov (Ukraine) and in the group of Soviet troops in Germany.

6 out of 10

Yuri Yanov

Yuri Yanov

Yuri Nikolayevich Yanov was born on August 2, 1931 in Vyazma, Smolensk region, in the family of a railroader...

Yuri Nikolayevich Yanov was born on August 2, 1931 in Vyazma, Smolensk region, in the family of a railway worker. In 1950 he graduated from secondary school No. 1 in Vyazma and volunteered for the army. Vyazma and volunteered for the army. In 1953 he graduated from Ryazan Military Automobile School, in 1954 - Chelyabinsk Military Aviation School of navigators. Yuri had the first class in flight training, he flew more than 1000 hours. He served in Ukraine and Germany. Yuri Yanov has been a member of the Party since 1962. He with love and great interest led political classes with the soldiers of the squadron. He was fond of chess, taught his wife and daughter to play, and often played in competitions. He was the best chess player and the best scorer of the regiment. As a chess player, he was often invited to competitions by German comrades, and often played for the local team in competitions between GDR districts.

After the tragic events of April 6, 1966, Yuri Yanov was buried in his small homeland, in Vyazma, at the Catherine Cemetery. Yanov was survived by his wife, daughter Irina, 8 years old, and a very young son Igor. On September 1, 2001 a memorial plaque was installed on the building of Vyazemsky secondary school No. 1 in honor of Yuri Yanov.

As ten-year-old boys, the future pilots experienced the horrors of the Great Patriotic War and remembered the German air raids, explosions, burning houses, stuffy bomb shelters for the rest of their lives... It so happened that they were the ones who led the falling airplane away from the busy streets of Berlin.

By Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 10, 1966 Kapustin and Yanov were awarded the Order of the Red Banner posthumously.

7 out of 10

An attack on the memory of a heroic deed

An attack on the memory of a heroic deed

In the 90s, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article called "How could the third...

In the 1990s, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article called "How World War III Could Have Begun". In it, the authors questioned the exploits of Kapustin and Yanov. They accused the dead pilots of air hooliganism in the sky above Berlin, without finding out all the circumstances of the tragedy and without having real ideas about what happened, as evidenced by the presence of more than ten factual errors in the article. The place of service of the pilots, the awards received for the feat, the name of the airplane and others are distorted. Galina Andreevna Kapustina sued the newspaper. And after nine sessions in Moscow the Kapustin family won the process. Boris Vladislavovich's son Valery obtained a certificate in the archives about the cause of the accident, which was a malfunction of the engines. They were produced by the Moscow Aviation Plant, which later admitted guilt. Lieutenant Colonel A. Tarudko, a leading specialist of the Air Accident Investigation Inspectorate of the Flight Safety Service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, was engaged to establish all the circumstances of the accident. It took two years to defend the good name of father and husband. At the ninth court session the feat was confirmed, and Komsomolskaya Pravda was ordered to publish a retraction.

8 out of 10

Remembrance of the feat

Remembrance of the feat

In the USSR, as part of the military-patriotic movement of youth in the 1960s and 1970s, druzhiny appeared...

In the USSR, as part of the military-patriotic movement of young people in 1960-1970, there appeared druzhiny, detachments, labor brigades, clubs named after pilots Kapustin and Yanov. An example is the druzhina named after B. B. Kapustin and B. Yanov. Б. Kapustin and Yu. Yanov of the boarding school No. 40 in Leningrad, where the club "Tremendous Sky" and a museum were established.

In Rostov-on-Don, one of the streets in the Voroshilovsky district was named after Kapustin, and school No. 51 (now Lyceum No. 51) was named after the pilot. A museum was organized in the school, where the Kapustin family gave personal belongings and documents. Thanks to the work of the guide Marina Yurievna Antipova in the 1990s in the military-historical museum of the Officers' House of the Southern Military District was opened an exposition about the feat in the skies above Berlin.

A large-scale movement developed in the GDR. In the town of Sassnitz, one of the brigades at the fishing industry enterprise has borne the name of Captain Kapustin since 1968. The brigade album contains letters of the hero's wife, newspaper clippings, numbers of the wall newspaper about the heroic deed. Monuments were erected in the towns of Finow and Eberswalde. A memorial plaque was unveiled at the place of the crew's death on the dam. An open-air aviation museum was created in Finow, where two dozen military and civil airplanes and helicopters, rocket launchers are collected. Here stands the very Soviet supersonic fighter-interceptor Yak-28P. Nearby is a memorial stone, on the slab of which is carved in German: "To all victims of the Cold War. You gave your life for the lives of others. Senior Lieutenant Yanov, Captain Kapustin. April 6, 1966."

The Brandenburg Society for Friendship and Monument Protection, under the leadership of Waldemar Hickel and journalist Friedemann Gillert, is doing invaluable work to commemorate the heroic deeds of the Soviet pilots in Eberswalde. In Germany, an alley dedicated to Soviet soldiers who died on German soil has been created, in the center of which a memorial plaque in memory of Kapustin and Janov is placed, and regular rallies and flower laying are held. Heinz Zinke and Dietmar Wünsche were active in Bernau in keeping the memory alive. Communication with German activists is maintained thanks to the enthusiasm of former Rostov residents Nonna Ivashchenko and Eleonora Polunina.

9 out of 10

The song "Big Sky."

The song "Big Sky."

Another memorial to the feat of Soviet pilots was the song "Huge Sky". In 1968, the poet...

Another memorial to the feat of Soviet pilots was the song "Huge Sky". In 1968, the poet Robert Rozhdestvensky read an article in one of the newspapers about the feat of flying and was so inspired that he soon wrote the ballad "Huge Sky", the music to which was written by Oskar Feltsman. It was immediately included in the repertoire of Nikolai Gnatiuk, Mark Bernes, Muslim Magomayev, Eduard Khil. And Edita Piekha went to the IX Festival of Youth and Students in Sofia the same year and sang it there out of competition. The hall gave her a standing ovation, although no one knew then that the heartfelt lines were dedicated to the exploits of two real people. The young singer won the Grand Prix and first place for the song "Huge Sky".

10 out of 10

Monument in Rostov-on-Don

Monument in Rostov-on-Don

In 2015, Galina Andreevna Kapustina spoke to the participants of the regional student gathering...

In 2015, Galina Kapustina spoke to the participants of the regional student gathering in one of Rostov universities. The guys did not let her go for a long time, asking her many questions. And they were shocked when they learned that in Germany there are several memorial places dedicated to Kapustin and Yanov, but in Russia - none. "We will do everything to have a monument," the young activists, who later created the regional public organization "Common Interest" and initiated the installation of the monument, promised Galina Andreevna.

The installation of the monument was made possible thanks to the hard work of a large international team of enthusiasts - public activists, local historians, museum workers and journalists. From Germany to Russia, they conducted large-scale information and educational work, rediscovering the feat of Soviet pilots for millions of Russians and Germans.

On September 15, 2021, a stone was laid in Druzhba Park at the site of the monument. On November 21, 2022, the monument was inaugurated with the participation of Galina Andreevna Kapustina, Vladimir Medinsky, Assistant to the President and Chairman of the Russian Military Historical Society, and Vasily Golubev, Governor of the Rostov Region. The monument is a stele stylized as the keel of a falling Yak-28P fighter plane, which rises above the site made in the form of a map of Berlin. The monument to the heroic pilots appeared thanks to the financial support of the Russian Military Historical Society. The author of the project is Russian sculptor Vitaly Ivanovich Kazansky.

The great feat of self-sacrifice will forever remain in the monument and in our memory, to light the way through the decades for people who have become on the path of service.

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