// 09.11.2006
Paths to freedom
Escape from the USSR was undoubtedly no less risky and possibly more difficult than trying to overcome the Berlin Wall. The fact is that in the Soviet Union along the borders there was also a border zone tens of kilometers wide. In order to get there, a special pass was required. Citizens who did not have business trips to those places or relatives living there could practically not get such a pass. Those who nevertheless penetrated there were obliged to know that they should avoid any meetings, since the local population was obliged to immediately inform the authorities not only about suspicious, but also all unfamiliar persons.
Nevertheless, such attempts were made constantly. The author knows about a number of successful ones. However, we will not disclose the names of most of the heroes for one simple reason. Most of these people, having experienced with all the evidence of terrible stress, did not want and still do not want to reveal their names. Many have changed their first and last names. Many do not speak Russian with strangers. One of my fellow fugitives never speaks Russian at all. They all spoke very sparingly about the circumstances of their escape. Details from them had to be literally fished out with pincers. But all these stories, except one, I know first-hand. With the same one, with the hero of which I am not familiar, perhaps, I'll start.
First story. You cannot enter the same sea three times
In the fall of 1975, I accompanied the mother and sister of my friend Boris Mukhametshin to the Perm region. There, in the Chusovsky district, in the 35th zone, Boris was serving time for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.
Times were nasty, but not the most bloodthirsty. The women were given a personal meeting for three days. Corruption existed even then, and they let me into the visiting room with them for three hours. It cost a block of then scarce American cigarettes and a package of no less scarce Finnish chewing gum. It was then that I learned from Boris, who was telling about his prison and camp life, the story of a man with whom he had been together for several days in the prison hospital.
In the early 70s, this young man firmly decided to leave the USSR. Then there were two legal ways to do this: to marry a foreigner or to leave for permanent residence in Israel. Our hero, however, chose to flee. He went to Batumi, built a small raft and, choosing a day, or rather a night, when the sea was restless and the wind was fair, sailed to Turkey. On his way, he came across border boats several times, but every time the light of their sweeping searchlights approached, the fugitive dived, and his raft was not spotted. In any case, he safely reached Turkey, and after a while ended up in the United States. Everything would be great, but he realized that he could not live without his beloved, who remained in the socialist fatherland. And he did not think of anything better than to go back to Turkey, build a raft and again violate the state border of the USSR. The most striking thing is that this attempt was also successful. He got to his hometown, found his beloved, and together with her again went to Batumi.
Alas, his girlfriend swam very badly, and, going back to Turkey, they put a life jacket on her. This vest, of course, did not allow to completely submerge under the water when the light of the searchlight approached. The fugitives were discovered by the very first border boat ...
The second story. Nine days at sea
In 1976 I was allowed to go to Sweden to live with my wife. A few years later, I visited friends in New York, missed out on the way and got a job as a mover, that is, a loader, in a wonderful company called something like Moving Allways, whose owner, an enterprising ex-dissident refusenik, gladly used cheap immigrant work. My partner turned out to be a well-knit, tucked-up, ruddy barbel named Oleg, who at first refused to speak Russian with me. As it turned out, he believed that all Russian-speaking citizens unfamiliar to him were potential KGB agents. I must admit that I hardly spoke English. Movers, if they work in pairs, should, of course, exchange at least a couple of phrases from time to time. But in vain I appealed to Oleg. He was adamant. True, after a couple of days, either after making inquiries or taking my word for it, he changed his anger to mercy and began to speak to me in Russian. It was the famous Oleg Sokhanevich, sung in the song of Alexei Khvostenko.
Oleg also decided to flee by sea, also Black, also to Turkey. But he rightly feared the border boats and worked out an escape plan that allowed him to avoid meeting them. Having put in a suitcase an inflatable rubber boat, a container with water and meager provisions, he bought a ticket for the motor ship "Russia" en route Odessa-Sochi. On a pre-selected night, he just jumped overboard with his luggage. Making sure that his jump went unnoticed and "Russia" was safely leaving in the direction of the Caucasus, Oleg, already in the water, blew out his boat and cellar to the south, to Turkey. He rowed for nine days, but he got there. According to him, the most difficult thing was to convince the Turks that he succeeded, but I dare to assume that Oleg was slightly flaunting.
Third story. A five-year getaway
Most of the "overland escapes" were carried out, apparently, through the Finnish border, although there was an agreement between the USSR and Finland on the extradition of the fugitives. However, the people who carefully prepared their escape knew that in case of a successful transition, they should not relax, but move on to Sweden, and surrender to the authorities there. Alexander K. did not know this. He lived in a small Central Russian town, but unlike most of its inhabitants, he did not drink alcohol. Well, it happens. When his fellow countrymen and friends were drinking, Alexander listened to the radio, including Western voices, and decided to go abroad.
It was in the mid-60s. He bought a ticket to Leningrad and there he already wanted to buy to the station nearest to the border. At the box office they asked him for a pass to the border zone. Patting his pockets, he said that he had left the badge at home. Then he went to the information desk, said that he was going fishing, and asked where in Karelia one could go without a pass. Having received the names of several settlements, he took a map out of his backpack and, choosing the station closest to the border zone, bought a ticket.
Having reached the place, he boldly went west and, in a little more than a day, having overcome the border zone, went to the border, quickly found a hole and ended up in Finland. But, apparently, he "inherited". As it turned out later, just a few hours after he crossed the border, the Soviet side notified the Finnish police that a dangerous criminal, a fugitive killer had made an illegal border crossing. Alexander, not hiding at all, got to some Finnish town and, having entered the bank, asked him to exchange several tens of rubles for Finnish marks. A few hours later he was back in his homeland. After it turned out that Alexander was more of an eccentric than an anti-Soviet, he was given a relatively short term, and four years later he was even released ahead of schedule due to exemplary behavior and amnesty. But he was not going to give up, and while still in the camp he began to learn English from some kind of polyglot prisoner.
Having freed himself and arriving in his hometown, he continued his studies, saved up money and several times traveled to Leningrad, where he bought Finnish stamps from the farmers. Considering that the necessary amount had been saved, he set off along the familiar route. Very quickly he discovered that in five years the border had become strongly fortified. The stretch that he had covered in a day five years earlier took him a week. And the border itself seemed generally insurmountable. True, when crawling along it, he found a passage in the wall about a hundred meters wide. But on each side of the passage, border guards constantly watched. For another day, Alexander, hiding, waited. And he waited. One of the soldiers decided to go to another to light a cigarette. While he was lighting a cigarette, Alexander crossed the USSR state border for the second time. In a forest lake, he washed his clothes thoroughly. Then for several days, bypassing the settlements, he walked to Helsinki. I walked to the port and bought a ticket to Stockholm at the ticket office.
I met him almost a decade later. He lived with his Swedish wife and two children in a small town. He worked, as in Russia, at a factory. After much persuasion, he told me his story. Swedish. After the second border crossing, he never spoke Russian again.
The fourth story. Talkative policeman
Dmitry V. also "inherited", crossing the Finnish border. He could not help but inherit, as he climbed over the wall and barbed wire along the trunks of fir trees, which he sawed down and laid on the obstacle. He was quickly detained and taken to the police station.
The police officer, a middle-aged man, spoke Russian. After listening to Dmitry's confused story, he shook his head and said something like this: “I can't do anything. The Soviet side has already informed us that a dangerous criminal has violated the border. We are obliged to hand you over. I understand that you were very close to the goal, because there is a railway not far away. And freight trains often stop at the siding. These trains go to Turku, and from Turku there is a ferry to Sweden. You do not need a ticket to get on the ferry, because you can buy it on board and check it at the port of arrival. But that won't help you. I am obliged to hand you over to the Soviet side. True, I’ll go home first and have lunch. I do not lock the door, but please, sit here and wait for me, because when I return, I will have to hand you over to the Soviet side. " Having said all this, he winked at Dmitry, smiled and left without even closing the door.
On December 13, 1974, the most daring and famous escape from the USSR took place. Ocean scientist Stanislav Kurilov jumped overboard from a passenger steamer in the Pacific Ocean and, having covered a distance of over a hundred kilometers by swimming, reached the Philippine island.
By profession - an oceanographer, by nature - a romantic, by vocation - a citizen of the Universe, Slava Kurilov was declared restricted to travel abroad in the Soviet Union, but he did not want to come to terms with it.
The steamer "Sovetsky Soyuz" made a cruise across the Pacific Ocean from Vladivostok to the equator and back. Due to the fact that for Soviet tourists a 20-day voyage took place without a single (!) Call to foreign ports, the travelers did not need to issue visas. For Kurilov, who was not allowed to travel abroad, participation in this cruise was the only way to break out of the borders of the USSR and try to carry out his plan of escape from this country. No one believed that one could escape from the Soviet Union, no one except Kurilov.
The cruise ship on which Stanislav Kurilov purchased the tour sailed from Vladivostok on December 8, 1974. He was least of all adapted to escape. At the bottom, the sides were rounded. These were tanks of the passive roll stabilization system. In addition, this system included underwater metal wings about one and a half meters wide. So it was impossible to leave the ship by jumping from side to side. They should have jumped only in one place, behind, into the breaker behind the propeller blades. That is what Slava Kurilov did on the night of December 13, when the ship sailed about 100 kilometers west of the Philippine island of Siargao.
He swam 100 kilometers in a little less than three days. How did you survive? Because of your health? Or the ability to stay on the water is no worse than the mythical Ichthyander? Or willpower did not allow him to get scared and go astray, to get lost among the waves? Or did the right equipment help? It seems that everything is taken together. And Slava Kurilov was very lucky. The ancient Greeks would say that the great Poseidon fell in love with him. And the storm passed by, not covering the lone swimmer with huge waves. And for two days the sun hardly appeared because of the clouds, so Slava was burned just a little. While swimming, he barely touched a cluster of jellyfish, touching which caused paralysis. And the sharks, of which there are a lot in these parts, passed over Glory. On December 15, 1974, solid ground turned out to be under the feet of Slava Kurilov. The Philippines was not on friendly terms with the Soviet Union and the fugitive was not given back.
A little later, in the USSR, where Kurilov lived for 38 years, a commission met about his escape, which decided to imprison him for another 10 years, "for treason." But Slava Kurilov was no longer worried about this, he began to live and realize everything that he dreamed of for many years - he studied the ocean, made travels and expeditions, including to the North Pole.
From the book "Alone in the Ocean" by Slava Kurilov:
« ... Just one jump separated me from this attractive beauty and freedom. But there was nothing to think about leaving the ship in full view of hundreds of eyes in broad daylight - the boat would be lowered instantly. Night is the time of the runaways! Prison escapes at night ...»
A person's heart is born to be free - you just need to have the courage to hear his voice.
Stanislav Kurilov died on January 29, 1998 while diving on Lake Tiberias in Israel. Freeing the equipment installed at the bottom together with his partner from the fishing nets, Kurilov got entangled in the nets and exhausted all the air. Buried in Jerusalem in a little-known cemetery of the German Templar community.
We hope that will interest both those who are born in the Land of the Soviets and those who are much younger.
Quite often in discussions about the USSR, a generally logical question is asked: "the author, if everything was so good in your scoop, then why did people try to escape from there to the decaying West?"
And they really did run. Whoever could. By plane, by swimming or on foot while traveling abroad. If we consider the stories of escape, then sometimes people risked their own lives and the lives of other people (like the Ovechkins) to find themselves in the coveted West. One gets the impression that there was such a hell in the USSR that citizens were even ready to die - just to get out of it. But!
To begin with, let's start with the fact that the author never claimed that everything was fine in the USSR. There were enough problems in the USSR. In the economy, there is insufficient commodity coverage of wages (deficit), in politics, there is no mechanism for the change of power, in the social sphere, there is alcoholization of the population and low motivation to work. These are just some of the problems that faced Soviet society in full growth in the late USSR. They arose, of course, not in the 80s, but much earlier, however, they acquired a well-known scale just before perestroika. Perestroika did not arise out of nowhere. Many people understood that it was necessary to decide and change something. As a result, what was “decided and changed” is another question.
Nevertheless, all the shortcomings of the Soviet system were not comparable to its merits. It's just that citizens stopped noticing these advantages, taking them for granted. Hence the idea that "in the West everything is the same as in the USSR, only people live much richer and there is no shortage." Why? Because they have a capitalist world, and we have a socialist camp. "
The Soviet people, of course, had no idea how the Western world really worked. At best, they saw his windows, and often did not even see him personally, but heard stories about them. Nobody believed the official propaganda, but they believed a friend of his wife's sister, who brought a Japanese Fisher tape recorder from an overseas business trip. It is clear that "there" everyone lives well, since they have such tape recorders !!! With approximately this level of competence in the matter, especially gifted Soviet citizens decided to flee.
Was such a phenomenon widespread? No, it was not. Out of the 300 million population, I'm not sure that there will be a hundred people who fled to the West. It's just that every such escape had a serious public response. The generalization that they say “everyone who could have fled” is another anti-Soviet tale. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet people went abroad for one reason or another (including to Western countries), while only a few of them fled. Moreover, many of those who fled have never been abroad. They, as in a joke, "Rabinovich sang."
A truly massive emigration began with the fall of socialism, when, excuse the expression, a fierce scribe began throughout the territory of the former USSR. National conflicts, crime, the collapse of the economy ... In the early 90s, citizens were forced to literally switch to subsistence farming, since there was simply no money for food. And then many really fled abroad. But not at all from socialism, but from the nascent capitalism, which everyone longed for during perestroika. At the same time, the runners were firmly convinced that they were fleeing precisely from the scoop, and that it was the communists who brought the country to such a state.
We will not deny that highly qualified specialists had every chance to find a job in the West ten times better than they lived in "developed socialism" and, moreover, in the "holy 90s." First of all, because education in the West is paid. To become this most highly qualified specialist, you must first give a lot of money. Not only everyone can afford this. Therefore, local specialists are expensive for an employer. It is cheaper to hire, for example, Russian engineers, whom the USSR trained for free in marketable quantities.
And now a Russian engineer, in whose upbringing the country has invested a lot of money (starting from kindergarten and ending with a university), but who is firmly convinced that it is he "all himself", finds a great job somewhere in the USA or Germany. It was in a stupid scoop that they did not value him so educated, and some miner could get more than a Person with a Higher Education. And here is a completely different matter. Own house, two cars for a family, carriages of any food and mountains of junk without any queues. If only there was money.
In general, if you have money, then in the West you will feel great (our elite will confirm). The whole society there is built for people with money. There was nothing of the kind in the USSR. Even the richest Soviet citizens such as Antonov or Pugacheva could not come close in terms of living standards to their counterparts in the West. Simply because there was no such social stratification in the Soviet Union as in the capitalist world. The income was distributed like butter on a sandwich: plus or minus an even layer among all members of society. The same Soviet "leveling" that infuriated People with Higher Education so much. Western society, on the other hand, has a distinct pyramid structure. Naturally, all other things being equal, the standard of living at the top of the pyramid will be incomparably higher than in a Soviet sandwich. That is why Soviet specialists, finding themselves in Western society on the upper steps of the pyramid, simply wrote with delight. Oh, what a service they have! Oh, what are their houses! Oh, what cars!
Today I will tell you one story. About the USSR. Rather, about the very final of the USSR. Everything stated here is pure truth. And, however, it looks partly absurd. Rather, strictly speaking, this is not entirely about the USSR. Since many of the events described took place outside the USSR. But a citizen of the USSR took part in them. Who did not want to be a citizen of the USSR and therefore dreamed of running away from the USSR almost from childhood. And he ran away. I’ll tell you about this now. So sit back and listen.
Everything that is described here happened to my childhood friend. Since he is "widely known in narrow circles," I will call him by another name. Let it be - Lyokha.
Lyokha began his journey in the same year as me. And almost in the same month. So we are full of the same age. During his school years, Lyokha distinguished himself by mockingly drowning his pioneer tie in the toilet. In the years of adolescence, when I went to the 9th grade, Lyokha went to vocational school. During these years he was a member of one of the evil youth gangs in our area and with his friends made a lot of all kinds of fights in a drunken shop. However, there was nothing special in his life path. In the late 70s - early 80s, it was the usual leisure of Soviet vocational school students, that is, a huge mass of Soviet youth.
When Lyokha turned 16, his friends beat a policeman in civilian clothes on the bus. “I am a police officer, stop the attack,” the officer shouted, pulling out his ID, but his response was a cannon blow to the face for which Lyokhin's friend Galkin was so famous - a blow with which Igor of small stature knocked out opponents of much larger size. The son of an officer transferred from Kakhakhstan to Moscow, Galkin, when pumped up with port, was a fighting machine for killing. And sooner or later something like that had to happen. And again, there was nothing special about that. A lot of my weathermen, who went to vocational schools, then ended up in places not so distant. Of course, Galkin and another friend of Lyokha, Andros, went there. And Lyokha was left alone.
I met Lyokha in 1983 in the basement of the locksmiths of our ZhEK, who put the locksmith at our disposal in the evenings for rehearsals of the rock group in which I played. The difference between our group and all other yard teams was that we sang not only "Sunday", "Car" and "Cruise", but also songs of our own composition. In this connection, our basement very soon became a kind of club, in which all the surrounding punks gathered on winter evenings to drink port and cuddle the girls.
Lyokha, who was the best guitarist in the region, somehow quickly became something of our producer. Having found a common topic for conversation through music, we somehow quickly became close to him. As it turned out, despite his brutal lifestyle, Lyokha was stuffed with all sorts of ideas that he took from some books inaccessible to an ordinary Soviet person. It was from Lyokha that I first heard the word "Sovdep" in the context that I still use today. Lyokha told all sorts of things. And about Carlos Castaneda and about Solzhenitsyn, for keeping books of which they expelled from Moscow State University some kind of Lyokh's friend. The attitude towards the Soviets in my family has always been critical. Both my mother and all her girlfriends / friends talked a lot about the "delights of the USSR" at different festive feasts. However, I think this was nothing unusual for the second half of the 70s. But what Lyokha uttered was the most real anti-Sovietism with all that it implies.
By and large, Lyokha had a philosophical mindset. He was just stuffed with all sorts of alternative knowledge. And he had one dream. He really wanted to get out of the USSR. He hated the USSR with every fiber of his soul. Together with his mother, he lived in a one-room apartment in a two-story barrack-looking red brick house in a quarter of exactly the same squalid houses - a workers' quarter. Everyone around was drinking port and getting into drunken fights. And Lyokha, in general, led the same life up to some point. But, as it turned out, this life was burdensome. Lyokh simply did not see any prospects for himself in the USSR. It was 1984.
In November 1984, I joined the army. It was the apotheosis of a wretched soviet grayness. To convey the feeling of the USSR in 1984 on the canvas, you just need to throw more gray paint onto the canvas - it will be an authentic image. I remember that even films in cinemas began to show some extremely poor ones. Well, that is, such a gray soviet filth that at least shoot yourself. The only bright spot that I remember was the American film "Spartacus", which for some reason suddenly began to be shown in Moscow cinemas in the fall of 1984. Lyokha did not go to the army - he received a "white ticket" (for those who are especially interested: simulation of sluggish schizophrenia).
I came home on November 7, 1986 - it was a completely different Moscow. Joyful, cheerful, elegant. And it wasn't just 7 November. It was just that the dull Scoop seemed to retreat somewhere. Various cafes began to appear on the streets of Moscow, the pedestrian Arbat appeared - then it was really unusual. The main thing is that there has been some kind of change in people, they have become more cheerful, more relaxed, and look to the future with greater optimism. By the way, it was during this period that there was an outbreak of the birth rate, which now the scoops like to show as the antithesis of the demographic collapse of the 90s. True, the scoops forget that, firstly, until 1985 in the RSFSR, on the contrary, there was a decrease in the birth rate, and secondly, the people somehow perked up precisely because they believed that real improvements had begun. But I digress.
Nevertheless, Lyokha did not abandon the dream of escaping from the USSR. But it became somehow more realistic, or something. Lyokha worked as a projectionist (I regularly watched all the new films from his booth) and studied English intensively - he was sure that everyone in Europe speaks excellent English.
As time went. Lyokha began to seriously prepare. He began saving dollars. And the Soviets, meanwhile, were slowly falling apart. We have repeatedly discussed his escape, I asked: is it worth it? After all, little is left of that Scoop. But Lyokha was adamant. In 1990, the air smelled of something painfully familiar. On central television, they began to show cartoons of the 60s about crazy abstractionists and the training of soldiers of the division. Dzerzhinsky. Lyokha said: “It's time. The scoop is back. "
His plan was as follows: he buys a tourist ticket to Hungary - fortunately at that time it had already become very easy - in Hungary he goes to the Hungarian-Austrian border, which he crosses at night and gets to Vienna. From Vienna he goes by train to Brussels, where he comes to a transfer center for emigrants (I don't remember its exact name), asks for political asylum and - voila. There was, however, one weak point in this regard - at the end of 1990, asking for political asylum, when the whole of Europe reveled in democratization and glasnost in the USSR - was somewhat strange. But Lyokha decided to take a chance.
We saw off Lyokha noisily. It was the early spring of 1991. There were many people. Some agreed with him that as soon as he settled in Europe, he would immediately send them a challenge. I never intended to emigrate anywhere, and therefore said goodbye to Lyokha forever. It was somewhat sad.
And Lyokha left for Hungary. By train.
1991 was a difficult year, so to speak. Besides, I had to write a diploma. So I didn't think about Lyokha often. And suddenly one day, the phone rang at my house. I picked up the phone and heard a familiar voice: “Hello. Do you recognize? " “I’ll know,” I replied, wondering why this is a Moscow call when calling from abroad. “Where do you think I am?” A voice asked with a grin. “Judging by the call, it looks like it’s in Moscow.” “That's right,” Lyokha answered. "If you want, come to me." And I rushed off to listen to a fascinating story about Lyokh's wanderings.
During the years of the existence of the USSR, it was difficult to get abroad. Soviet citizens traveled on tourist vouchers to the countries of the socialist community. These are Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania. As for the capitalist countries, only party members could go there. Only a party card made it possible to see Western Europe. But the exchange of rubles for currency was carried out in very small amounts.
Along with tourists, there were people in the USSR who dreamed of going abroad forever. Some of them tried to leave the world's first state of workers and peasants for ideological reasons, while others put material interests at the forefront. But in any case, such citizens believed that the capitalist system is better than the socialist and therefore, by any means, sought to find themselves in the West.
During the years of Soviet power, many stories of escapes from the USSR have accumulated. They went abroad with the help of hang gliders and scuba diving, sailors left ships in foreign ports, artists and athletes did not return from foreign trips. But the capitalists did not show much interest in such people. Another thing is when an intruder arrives in a modern air combat vehicle. That is, a military pilot turned out to be a defector. So we will consider stories of escapes from the USSR on airplanes.
In 1967, on May 15, the pilot Vasily Epatko, flying a MIG-17 aircraft, flew from the airfield of the Soviet airbase located in the GDR to an airfield in the Federal Republic of Germany. He was granted political asylum and residence in the United States.
But much more interesting is the escape of the senior lieutenant on May 27, 1973. Evgeny Vronsky... This man had no flying skills. He served as a technician at a military airfield. He was located 200 km from the western border. But for a military aircraft, this distance was not a hindrance. Therefore, Vronsky, who was hatching plans to escape from the USSR, decided to flee in a combat vehicle.
He became friends with the officer who was in charge of the simulator class. He began to regularly visit the class and, in general, mastered the skills of piloting on a simulator. Of course, Vronsky never sat at the controls of the plane, but, as they say, risk is a noble cause. Having become adept at the simulators, the senior lieutenant chose Sunday for his daring escape.
On weekends, the personnel were always engaged in cleaning the territory and preventive maintenance of technical equipment. And when, an hour and a half before lunch, the roar of the turbines was heard, no one was alarmed - you never know why the pilots started the engine.
Everyone realized it only when the SU-7B plane rolled out of the hangar. He drove towards the runway, picking up speed. A car with the duty officer and his assistant rushed after him. But the plane managed to enter the runway. He accelerated and lifted off the ground. Acceleration and takeoff itself were extremely uncertain, and anyone could guess that the pilot was not sitting at the helm.
The hijacker was favored by the fact that the direction of takeoff exactly coincided with the course to the border. Therefore, when the plane took off into the blue sky, there was no need to turn the car, take it to the desired direction. Vronsky had just reached a certain height and, clutching the steering wheel with his hands, drove the car straight. He didn’t even remove the chassis.
And on the ground, a military alert was announced. Several fighters took off to intercept the hijacked aircraft. But the hijacker flew low above the ground, so it was not detected. Within 23 minutes, he left the airspace of the GDR and ended up in the skies of West Germany.
Fuel was tending to zero, and there was no chance of a safe landing. And then Vronsky decided to eject. He never jumped with a parachute, and he knew the procedure for using a catapult only in theory. And yet the hijacker dared to eject. He landed safely 50 km from the border, and the plane crashed into a meadow without causing any harm.
The senior lieutenant ended up with the West Germans. The Soviet government demanded to return the hijacker, but was refused. Only the wreckage of the SU-7B was returned. Vronsky himself did not make any political statements. He only said that he left the USSR of his own free will and deliberately.
Senior Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, who hijacked a plane to Japan
Another senior lieutenant, 29, fled his country in a MiG-25. It happened on September 6, 1976. On that ill-fated day, the officer took off from the Sokolovka airfield in the Primorsky Territory at 6 hours 45 minutes. Its task was to carry out a combat mission to intercept a conditional target.
But within a minute the plane disappeared from the radar screen. Belenko flew over the hill, dropped to a height of 50 meters above the ground and in this mode flew 130 km, heading for the Japanese island of Hokkaido. There he landed at one of the airfields.
The senior lieutenant had carefully planned his escape. He knew that during his flight he would not be in place of the anti-aircraft missile system on duty. He was having breakfast at that moment, but he did not have a replacement. Units in the Soviet army were mainly cropped, that is, staffed according to the peacetime staff. And so there weren't enough people.
2.5 hours after the fugitive reached Hokkaido, Japanese radio announced that a Soviet MiG-25P aircraft, onboard 31, piloted by Belenko, had landed on Japanese soil. Later it was announced that the pilot had asked for political asylum, and on September 9 he was flown to the United States. The hijacked plane was returned to the USSR. They began to use it as a teaching aid in one of the flight schools.
The last fugitive on the plane - Captain Alexander Zuev
The stories of escapes from the USSR using airplanes ended on May 20, 1989. On this day, the Air Force captain flew to the MiG-29 to Trabzon (Turkey). The plane was returned at the request of the Soviet government, and the pilot himself received political asylum in the United States. But life abroad did not last long. Zuev died in a plane crash on June 10, 2001, crashing on an airplane during a training flight.
In conclusion, it should be said that any person has the right to live where he wants, and with the political system that suits him. But you cannot treat every escape abroad with understanding. In the above cases, military people fled abroad. They took an oath and vowed to defend and defend the borders of their homeland.
Their escape, and even on military equipment, can be regarded as a betrayal. If they so wanted to be in a foreign land, then first they had to quit the army, buy a scuba gear, build an airplane, and only after that leave the USSR as civilians. However, these people chose a different path, which, according to the law of any country with any political system, is regarded as treason. And traitors deserve only one thing - a military tribunal trial.
