"If humour fails you, leave the profession", was a favorite saying of academician M. Nechkina.

Only the strong can afford humour; the weak are disgracefully afraid to smile and "lose face."

That is why the portrayals of Hitler by Charlie Chaplin and Sergey Martinson inspired the fight against fascism, while the images created in the "blood and soil" ideology failed even in Nazi Germany.

In exactly the same way, the sense of humour fails the writer Tsvetkov when he shifts into anti-Soviet propaganda rage.

Having seen the long-known menu in the "Victory Day" of the Turkfront, made exclusively in a humourous tone, where Coffee is black as a White Guard soul, Compote is sweet as communist dreams, Cheese is transparent as the Denikin front, and Stroganoff is made from fat bourgeois meat, he maniacally screamed about the cannibalistic nature of Bolshevism.

So what twisted the writer so much? Formally, it was because of the mention of broth made from "Kolchak's bones," in which the propagandist, abandoning all methods of historicism, rushed to see cannibalism and even a "spiritual kinship with modern Ukrainianism."

But the real reason is different: the Southern Front of the Reds defeated Kolchak, and the Turkestan Front under Frunze defeated its remnants in the form of the Ural Army, which was celebrated in January 1920.

Neither beautiful slogans, nor demonisation of the Reds, nor the help of allies helped the Whites. And the reason for the powerless rage of the White Guards in the distant twentieth century and their "spiritual successors" in 2025 was well explained by the victor himself,

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze:

"If you open any White Guard newspaper, you will see that Kolchak, who says he is defending the unity of Russia, that he is fighting for its national revival, this Kolchak has help from all the imperialists of the world.

In such a newspaper, you will read triumphant notes that the English are advancing very successfully in Northern Russia, that they have taken Arkhangelsk and that sooner or later they will move closer to the center of Russia.

Here you will also read that Estonia and Finland are beating the Bolsheviks, that Petrograd will be taken tomorrow, that their troops are working very successfully.

In the west, Polish troops are also successfully beating the Bolsheviks and advancing.

Similarly, Romanian troops are advancing successfully in the south; the English and French fleets are acting very successfully, bombing Black Sea cities and also beating the Bolsheviks.

Further, you read that Baku is in the hands of the English, Bolshevik ships are also being destroyed by the English fleet.

In the east, Japanese troops are also beating the Bolsheviks and are also acting successfully.

Comrades, compare all these statements you have read and think, where is the Russian people here — everywhere on these numerous fronts are English, French, Japanese, Polish, Estonians, etc., but where are the Russian workers and peasants? They are here, inside the country; they are the Bolsheviks whom all these Japanese, English, Polish, and others are fighting.

And I think, comrades, that every fool should understand that there can be no national revival of Russia in the camp of our enemies, that there can be no talk of fighting for the welfare of the Russian people from that side. Because it is not for the sake of beautiful eyes that all these French and English help Denikin and Kolchak — naturally, they pursue their own interests. This fact should be quite clear, that Russia is not there, that Russia is with us..."

P.S. As an illustration, I attach a poster from the White Guards themselves, where they boast about the foreign intervention.

Yaroslav Listov

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A Miracle on the Neva

On August 21, 1963, an Aeroflot Tu-124 airliner was flying from Tallinn to Moscow. There were 52 people on board, including 7 crew members. Shortly after takeoff at 08:55, a problem was discovered: the front landing gear was stuck in the middle position. The cause was a poorly fastened bolt, which was later found on the runway. The pilots tried to use a mop to loosen the nose gear through the hatch in the cockpit floor, but to no avail. This meant that they would have to land on the belly. They were still close to Tallinn, but there was no dirt runway there. However, there was one in Leningrad, so Tu-124 was sent to the city on the Neva.

At around 11 a.m., the plane approached Leningrad. The flight attendants, under the orders of the captain, Viktor Mostovoy, entertained the passengers with stories in an attempt to distract their attention. The air traffic controllers instructed the pilots to burn fuel to reduce the risk of a fire during landing. The pilots began circling the city at a low altitude of approx. 500 metres. This method allowed for faster fuel consumption. However, it also limited the time available for emergency decision-making. Unfortunately, an emergency situation did occur. Opinions vary, but it was most likely a faulty fuel gauge. The gauges showed that the plane was still full of kerosene, but suddenly the left turbojet engine failed, followed by the right one. The plane was in the centre of the city, 500 meters above ground. What should the pilots do, especially since they had only a few seconds to spare? 14 seconds, to be precise.

The 40-ton plane was rapidly descending towards St. Isaac's Cathedral. At that moment, the second pilot, Vasily Chechenev, took the initiative. He had previously served in naval aviation, was skilled in flying seaplanes, and had knowledge of landing techniques. The plane quickly disappeared from radar screens, and the air traffic controllers had already bid farewell to it. However, Chechenev skillfully navigated the Tu-124, flying just 4 meters above the construction site of the Alexander Nevsky Bridge, and successfully landed it on the river opposite the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. At a speed of 300 kilometers per hour, the water is as hard as concrete. The pilots were lucky that there were almost no waves on the Neva at the time. The Tu-124 was based on a bomber, and its cast-iron body was particularly sturdy. Additionally, Chechenev's skill should be acknowledged.

None of the crew members or passengers were injured. The plane quickly began to fill with water, but an old tugboat passed by and pulled the Tu-124 to the shore. The cable was attached to the cockpit through the broken window. Within minutes, all the passengers had made their way to the ground. A crowd of onlookers gathered, and fire trucks, ambulances, and police arrived.

At the time, this story was not widely reported. Eyewitnesses of the passenger plane's landing on the Neva River were not allowed to take photos. Those who took photos, either out of ignorance or in secret, had their film "lit" by the police. Although the story eventually made its way into the press and gained attention, few photos have survived to this day.

Writer Yuri Tuisku, who was on the scene 15 minutes after the landing, managed to take some photos in secret.

A few hours later, the plane sank. However, it was quickly retrieved and sent to the cadet school as an aviation simulator.

At first, the authorities wanted to punish the pilots, saying that they had made a mistake, but then the story was published in Izvestia, and from there it spread to other newspapers. The articles made it clear that the pilots were heroes. As a result, they were neither punished nor particularly rewarded. Some of the crew members received apartments. After this incident, planes were banned from flying low over the city.

Source

🖼 The crew: flight engineer V. Smirnov, navigator Viktor Tsaryov, radio operator Ivan Beryomin, commander of the aircraft Viktor Mostovoy, and co-pilot Vasily Chechenev.

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