"There is one MiG in my past and the future or Why are monuments to planes established?"

Denis Gazutdinov I.

Lyceum No. 123, Ufa

As a part of the historical and cultural environment monuments has impact on formation of the identity of each person. That’s why this work is connected with aircrafts, which having honestly served on air open spaces of the Motherland in a military and peace time,  on vacation became monuments of fighting and labor glory, museum pieces and simply sights of the different Russia cities.

The purpose of this work was definition of the main reasons for installation of memorial planes-monuments in Russia in different years and research of the received classification.

In the first section of work the review of events and the phenomena promoting installation of aviation monuments during the various historical periods of our state was made on the basis of various information sources. It was revealed that at the present time the revival of the lost symbols and installation of new sculptural compositions was begun in Russian cities.

In the second section the analysis and classification of the reasons of installation more than 800 aviamonuments were made. The information sources such as the Internet, personal meetings with directors of the Ufa technical museums and the staff of the Ufa airport, periodicals were used during research. It was defined that the majority of monuments are museum pieces.

In the third section the collected information about aviamonuments was ordered according to the name of aviation developmental bureau. The interesting facts about planes - "leaders" were found out. As a result of such systematization was revealed that more than a half of planes – monuments are fighting MiG and SU. There are considerably fewer civil An, Il and Tu.

The fourth section was devoted to memorial planes of Ufa. This section information was collected in archives of aviation university and the Ufa airport museums. During research it was found out that each of them personifies achievements of Ufa residents in various fields of activity and unique on its own way.

As a result of work it is established that Russia is proud of its world aviation records, air fights victories during the Great Patriotic War battles, achievements of peace aircraft in research of the novel. There are planes – monuments to all this.