Stalin's hockey team. How the Air Force hockey team died. See what "Air Force Air Force Plane Crash" is in other dictionaries
On January 7, 1950, while landing at the Sverdlovsk Koltsovo airport, the C-47 plane, known as the Douglas, crashed, the passengers of which were 11 MVO Air Force hockey players, their doctor and masseur. But only now we have become aware of the exact cause of the tragedy.
Only 19 (!) years later, the author of these lines, with a lot of perseverance, persuaded Glavlit to give permission to publish the very first information in the country about the tragedy in Koltsovo. As a result, on the pages of the weekly "Football-Hockey", then the Sunday supplement to the newspaper " Soviet sport”, in the issue of January 26, 1969, a correspondence appeared in which it was first reported that on January 7, 1950, the Air Force team crashed, the dead hockey players and the doctor and masseur accompanying them were called by name. But the crew of the dead car was not presented, at that time I did not yet know the names of the pilots.
Silence is the norm
Complete silence in connection with the plane crash near Sverdlovsk was not accidental. For decades, censorship has forbidden reporting on earthquakes in our country, or train wrecks, or crashed planes. We even learned about Chernobyl (already under Gorbachev) later than the whole world. And what about 1950? On the radio, from movie screens, from books, it sounded that Soviet aviation was the best in the world, and then a red-star plane perished (the crew was military pilots), however, of foreign production. In addition, the catastrophe occurred two and a half weeks after Stalin's widely celebrated 70th birthday.
Later, I had the opportunity to tell about the death of an aircraft with an Air Force team on board on the pages of the previously published weekly Sports Moscow and the magazine Sport life Russia". Sovetsky Sport repeatedly turned to this topic, becoming the only newspaper that last year remembered the loss that befell domestic hockey on the day of the 50th anniversary of the death of the Air Force team.
The publications evoked responses. One day Evdokia Illarionovna Zotova, the wife of the commander of an airship, called me. She said that 38-year-old Major Ivan Zotov was a participant in two wars - the Finnish and the Great Patriotic War, he was awarded two Orders of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War II degree, and the medal "For Military Merit". He left behind a daughter. But the main thing that the widow told me was the names of the crew members. In addition to Zotov, this is the second pilot V. Taranenko, navigator captain A. Ponomarev, flight mechanic captain M. Fomichev, radio operator lieutenant M. Demchenko and mechanic senior sergeant D. Lukyanov. Then Soviet Sport published these names, adding them to the sad list of the Air Force team: goalkeepers Harriy Mellups and Nikolai Isaev, defenders Robert Shulmanis, Boris Bocharnikov (playing coach) and Evgeny Voronin, forwards Ivan Novikov, Zdenek Zikmund, Yuri Tarasov, Yuri Zhiburtovich , Alexander Moiseev and Vasily Volodin, doctor Mikhail Alperin and massage therapist Alexei Galkin.
The responses were varied. The same Zotova believed that the son of the leader, Vasily Stalin, whom she called a petty tyrant, was primarily to blame for the death of the plane. Knowing that it was impossible to fly from Kazan to the Urals (at first the course was taken to Chelyabinsk) due to weather conditions, he nevertheless gave the command to take off, and her husband, as a military man, could not disobey the general.
Bocharnikov's fatal initiative
All this is so. Vasily Stalin really allowed the flight to continue, despite the bad weather, but he did this at the urgent request of Bocharnikov, who, as soon as the Douglas landed in Kazan, ran to call the Master, as the Air Force athletes called the aviation commander of the Moscow Military District. Why did you call Moscow? Hockey players knew that the Urals were closed due to weather conditions, and therefore they would have to “wait for the weather” for who knows how long. As a human being, it is not difficult to understand defender Bocharnikov, who, just before the flight, was appointed by General Stalin as a playing coach. Hockey players did not want to languish in the Kazan airport, they wanted to quickly arrive at their destination. Moreover, by air from Kazan to Chelyabinsk, as they say, at hand. No one will ever know why Bocharnikov needed to get to Chelyabinsk by plane. The Air Force team would not have been late for the match if they had taken the railroad.
Zotova blamed the death of the plane and Vsevolod Bobrov, whom the hockey players waited in vain for two hours before leaving Moscow. Like, if there weren’t this delay with the flight, you look, they would go straight to Chelyabinsk, the sky over the Urals was still clear. But history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood...
Unfortunately, until recently it was not possible to find out the exact cause of the death of the Si-47. The wife of the commander of the crashed airship believed, according to her husband's colleagues, that the Douglas had collapsed due to a loss of alignment. Zotov was unable to level the plane allegedly at an altitude of 200 meters. But why? What happened to the pilot from the government communications regiment? It was said that, in all likelihood, a panic broke out on board, for some reason, the passengers, apparently, rushed to the tail of the car. Because of this, a loss of centering could occur ...
Honored Lawyer of Russia, retired colonel Andrei Sukhomlinov, author of the book “Eduard Streltsov. The tragedy of a great football player ”, recently released another book “ Vasily son of the leader ”, having worked a lot in various archives, using previously unpublished documents and photographs (at his request, I wrote one of the chapters in this book). Thanks to the help of Sukhomlinov, it is now possible to put an end to the history of the death of the Air Force hockey team and thus complete the search, which has lasted more than three decades, the cause of the disaster is known!
Lethal negligence
It turns out that the investigation of the disaster near Sverdlovsk was carried out immediately after the incident. A detailed act was drawn up, but it was safely hidden (now it is stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense). And they hid it because of secrecy, which, as I have already noticed, in the country was shrouded in reports of catastrophes, earthquakes, natural disasters.
NORP unsatisfactory organization of flight management is what on January 7, 1950 led to the death of 19 people, including 11 hockey players, many of whom were rightfully considered the strongest in the country.
Near the Koltsovo airport near Sverdlovsk there is another airfield Aramil. Due to negligence on the ground that day, the homing radios at both airfields operated on the same frequencies. Ponomarev, the navigator of the Zotov Douglas, got on the frequencies of Aramil's radio stations, and the plane landed in Koltsovo. Zotov directed the aircraft along the course and glide path given to him by Aramil, and followed the commands of the radio stations of this airport. In aviation, this is called the "golden arrow".
Veterans of the USSR Air Force, the most famous aces, explained to Sukhomlinov and me that if you strictly follow the instructions from the Earth, then you land as expected. Even with zero visibility. But if you build a landing approach route using the frequencies of one radio station, and land on another airfield, then a disaster will occur, as with Zotov’s plane: from 30 meters it crashed to the ground outside the airfield, losing spatial orientation.
All this is reflected in the act of investigation. There is no fault of General Stalin in the death of the Air Force team.
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Igor Marinov says:
When in December 1992 the country celebrated the 70th anniversary of the birth of Vsevolod Bobrov, we, as usual, lamented how untimely this unique athlete left us. And suddenly I remembered: after all, his death could have turned out to be much earlier, if fate had not had mercy on Vsevolod Mikhailovich at some mysterious moment and pulled him out of the chain of comrades who, on a frosty morning on January 5, 1950, were climbing the Douglas ladder at the Central Airfield Moscow...
It was almost all the hockey players of the Air Force team. And they all died when the Douglas C-47, which landed six times at Koltsovo Airport near Sverdlovsk, crashed on the edge of the airfield on its last attempt to land.
The chief of flights, Colonel Vasilenko, reporting on the causes of the disaster, immediately emphasized that the idea of \u200b\u200bthe insufficient qualifications of the crew should be completely dismissed. The commander, Major Zubov, an experienced pilot, led equally wise and skillful professionals. His crew was part of Grachev's division, which served members of the government. Shortly before the tragic events, "Douglas" Zubova returned from Tehran, where he took, it seems, Vyshinsky.
Colonel Vasilenko said that as a result of the investigation, the commission had six versions of the death of the car. Here are two of them that are considered the most likely.
It was dark, the snow was falling… The crew was heading for two radio beacons, located one after the other. But it turned out that, having hit the first radio beacon, they could not go to the second one. "Come out to the hangars!" - dispatchers repeated to them from the ground. For the sixth time - again to the hangars. It turned out that the turnovers were dropped. The commander turned on the afterburner, the car climbed up, but it was too late - there was not enough traction: the Douglas lay on the wing, rolled over and crashed into the ground ...
There is another version of what happened. It has already been mentioned that the snow was falling that day. White-white was around. As they approached to land, the crew turned on powerful searchlights to illuminate the landing strip. Suddenly brightly lit, the flowing veil of a blizzard could seem like flames flaring up. The guys probably thought that the plane caught fire, and they rushed to the tail all at once, in a herd. The plane lost control and crashed.
These versions were recorded by me from the words of Nikolai Grigorievich Puchkov, one of the best goalkeepers in the history of Russian hockey, who, after the disaster, took the place of the main goalkeeper of the Air Force team. Together with another famous hockey player, Viktor Grigorievich Shuvalov, he helped the author to tell about the team of land "pilots" who were overtaken by the death of aeronauts.
Who was on board the Douglas on that tragic day? Before going through all the names and going into more detail about some, let’s go back to the early 1950s…
Spacious at that time, Arbat Square, near which, depending on the season, we played a ball or puck, not dug by tunnels, opened up to the eye right up to Vozdvizhenka. From there or closer, from Znamenka, where the Ministry of Defense is, and at the end of the street is the Kremlin, a foreign car burst out at high speed - maybe a Packard, or maybe a Horch - and rushed, obliquely cutting off the space of the square. Passers-by shied away, guards stood up, saluting; next to the driver flashed a general's epaulette, a cap with a high crown, and rustled after him, foamed with admiring exclamations: “Vasya, Vasily Stalin scratches! In gives, boys! The car dived under the lindens of the boulevard and rushed straight to such a cunning mansion behind a green fence, which is on the right hand if you drive from the center. The unlucky child of the "father of peoples" Vasily Stalin was amused and reminded himself of himself.
Air Force - it was he, Vasily Stalin, who passionately, unrestrainedly and despotically loved sports, to manage which he transferred many traits inherited or learned from his father. Vasily Stalin was obstinate, capricious, he fully felt his belonging to an omnipotent father and, probably, in some way felt his chosenness as a call for various activities, choosing sports. He established teams of "pilots" in almost all sports, using one, but reliable method of staffing: he promised blessings and gave them, the blessing of his own hand is the lord; he was commander of the Air Force of the Moscow District, first with the rank of major general, then lieutenant general. And the benefits then, after the war, were rare, very rare. The majority yielded to admonitions. That is why the Air Force in those days was deciphered as follows: “they took the whole of Spartak”, “they took all the athletes”, “Vasily Stalin’s gang” ... All of his teams either became champions or firmly settled in the prize-winners - water polo players, basketball players, volleyball players, equestrians and who else is there ... Hockey players also looked decent. Only capricious, as always, football was not given, which was then firmly "saddled" by the teams of two departments unfriendly to Vasily Stalin - CSKA (Ministry of Defense) and Dynamo (MVD-MGB).
... Together with six members of the Douglas crew, 13 members of the Air Force team were killed: goalkeepers Khariy Mellups and Nikolai Isaev, defenders Robert Shulmanis, Boris Bocharnikov (playing coach) and Evgeny Voronin, forwards Ivan Novikov, Zdenek Zikmund, Yuri Tarasov, Yuri Zhiburtovich, Alexander Moiseev and Vasily Volodin, doctor Mikhail Galperin and massage therapist Alexei Galkin.
The main goalkeeper of the Air Force in the national team of the country was then Hariy Mellups, who previously played for the Riga Dynamo - an extremely colorful figure. Goalkeepers then played some in a cap, some in a cap, and Khariy - in something like a cap with a long visor, like baseball players. From him subtly breathed something foreign. I liked his game with a club, sharp attacks with it, swift exits from the gate. In the stands, he was also loved for his calm flashiness. Despite his youth (he was barely 22 years old), Mellups managed to find a bright sports biography. He was actively involved in boxing, in 1945, in the ring, installed on the stage of the Riga Opera and Ballet Theater, he won the final fight against the pre-war Latvian champion in the bantamweight Jaaks Keistersis. Mellups also distinguished himself in football, where he acted as a striker. He played in the Riga Dynamo, then in the Air Force. He supplemented mobility and speed of reaction with patience and equanimity, a strong nervous system - after a missed puck he acted even better than before the failure.
There were also former Spartacists on that plane who joined the Air Force as a whole trio - Novikov, Zikmund, Yuri Tarasov. BBC radio reported in those days: "... the famous Soviet tennis players Novikov and Zikmund died." Ivan Novikov, who was not yet 25 years old, really began his sports career like a tennis player. In 1949, he was considered the fifth racket of the country. In hockey, Novikov was famous for his breadth of maneuver, possessed high speed, strong wrist throw.
Zdeněk Zikmund was in his 32nd year. The son of a Russified Czech (in the 1920s, his father was among the leaders of the Moscow Institute physical education), Zdenek had a solid tennis reputation, he was especially successful with the multiple national champion Nikolai Ozerov: he excelled in doubles together with the future sports commentator from 1944 to 1949.
27-year-old Yuri Tarasov fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War until 1944. The younger brother of Anatoly Tarasov, a famous hockey coach in the future, he was known as a bold, energetic and fast left winger. Together with Zikmund and Novikov, they formed a well-coordinated trio. Kind, accommodating, "his boyfriend", Yuri acted especially successfully and energetically when he had to oppose his older brother ...
Nikolai Puchkov: “They sent a car for me, brought me to the Sokol, there was the headquarters of Vasily Stalin. In the room I saw Shuvalov, Chaplinsky, Striganov, Afonkin, and someone else, they gathered everyone who remained in Moscow, even those who had finished or were about to finish playing. We were all ordered to immediately leave for Chelyabinsk.
The calendar games of the championship continued. In Sverdlovsk we went to the hangar where they were lying. Everyone was there: parents, wives. Anatoly Tarasov, Vladimir Nikanorov, Mikhail Orekhov arrived from Moscow - TSEs members. Earth, everything is mixed, the bodies are sifted with metal. A brand new epaulette flashed, major, Boris Bocharnikov, the title had just been awarded ... "
... Bocharnikov was in his 31st year, on this tour it was assumed that he would act as both a captain and a playing coach. Bocharnikov was considered one of the most experienced defenders of our hockey, by that time he had been playing for the Air Force for a year and a half, changing the white and blue Dynamo uniform to the yellow-striped team of pilots. It was a dashing hockey player, strongly knocked down, standing firmly on his feet. He, perhaps, possessed all the qualities of a classy defender.
Victor Shuvalov: “There were 19 people who died, but the remains were placed in 20 coffins, tightly closed, then they were placed on 10 Studebakers and buried. Now there, near the Koltsovo airfield, there is an obelisk. When I had to visit Sverdlovsk, they always brought flowers there. I remember the horror my parents went through. After all, they thought that I had crashed with the team, they did not believe the telegrams that they sent from Moscow. Until they saw me on the platform of the station in Chelyabinsk, until they felt me with their hands - safe, alive, unharmed! - all did not believe. And no wonder: after all, no official announcements followed, the names were not named. I didn’t get on the plane then because Vasily Stalin, our boss and chief, found it inconvenient for me to speak in Chelyabinsk in front of the fans of the local Dzerzhinets, from where I transferred to the Air Force. So I stayed in Moscow. It turns out that he remained in life.
Those times are probably hard for today's young man to even imagine. Moscow courtyards were full of rumors: the plane was icy and crashed into the ground… Bobrov was late and survived… Sabotage is not ruled out!.. And not a sound from the official, military, civil or sports authorities. Not a sound! The veil of secrecy, the state secret, which in those years was diligently put on not only on catastrophes, on any insignificant trifle in the greatest vigilance before the intrigues of world imperialism, bordered on idiocy.
About the unannounced death of the Air Force team, people were lost in a variety of conjectures. And then, when a team in familiar yellow-striped shirts rolled out at Dynamo and the announcer announced all the completely familiar names: Bobrov, Vinogradov, Shuvalov, Zhiburtovich, Moiseev ... - here many people were confused. Soon, of course, it turned out that Pavel Zhiburtovich was the brother of the deceased Yuri, Anatoly Moiseev was the namesake of Alexander, and Bobrov ... Until now, the old-timers of the stands retell big and small legends about his miraculous salvation. One of the most popular - Vsevolod Bobrov went on a spree with friends in a restaurant.
I will give the floor to his then teammate. Nikolai Puchkov: “Bobrov never led an ascetic life. But I reject the suggestion that the feast helped him miss his plane and stay alive. Vsevolod, it should be noted, like others, did not like to fly. Whenever possible, I preferred the train. And at that time, all the more so: he had not yet corrected the transitional documents in the Air Force in all forms. That's why he ended up not on the plane, but on the train.
That season in 1950, the new "ice pilot squadron", which replaced the one that had sunk into oblivion, finished in 4th place. But then ... The transformed, reborn Air Force team, headed by Bobrov, the captain and playing coach, showed sparkling hockey, tactically witty, which already then revealed Bobrov's coaching talent. She invariably beat all rivals. For three seasons in a row - from 1951 to 1953 - the pilots finished the national championship in first place. The glory of Bobrov, his team, the trio Babich-Shuvalov-Bobrov thundered unusually ...
The first prominent functionary in the history of Russian hockey was Vasily Stalin - the son of the leader of all peoples, the creator of the famous Air Force team.
The main historical fact that is now associated with the Air Force team is the 1950 plane crash, in which most of its members died. Before the plane crash with the players of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, it was the largest such tragedy in our hockey.
Such stories always attract attention, including because of the various myths and mysteries surrounding them. Especially if they are associated with legendary personalities like Vsevolod Bobrov (why wasn’t he on the plane - overslept, went on a spree or was the transition not formalized?), Wolf Messing (did he predict the tragedy or not?) and two Stalins at once - the leader himself (he learned about the death of the team or didn’t recognize?) and his son (guilty of the accident or not guilty?). All this adds mystery to the case and leads away from the sport somewhere into the wilds of conspiracy theories.
As a result, much less is said about other events that made up the history of the “pilots”. But in the next three seasons after the disaster, the renewed team invariably became the champion of the USSR! Three victories in a row - a real dynasty. At that time, it was the second such case in the history of the national championships - after the CDKA. And the third and last (not counting the army hegemony) will be recorded after the collapse of the Union - in the performance of the Moscow "Dynamo".
The Air Force team owed its landmark achievement primarily to the unique tandem consisting of Bobrov (team leader and playing coach) and Vasily Stalin, who actually acted as the owner and general manager.
But if Bobrov was recognized as a living legend in the course of his brilliant career, then the sports activities of Stalin Jr. were always perceived ambiguously. Just like his personality as a whole. He was a very extraordinary figure, by virtue of his very origin. For the first time in a long time, the leader of our state had an active son - and I must say that in terms of the ability to take everything from life, the “red crown prince” gave odds to all the princes from the Romanov dynasty.
An aviator, a motorcyclist, an officer, a reveler, a womanizer - why not a hussar of the mid-twentieth century? He seemed to serve as a living embodiment of the famous father's phrase about "life has become better, life has become more fun." In the role of a sports functionary, such a person was simply doomed to originality. It is no coincidence that later a completely non-Soviet word “philanthropist” was very often used to characterize him.
Among high-ranking fans, Stalin's son really stood out. He was sincerely interested in sports, not paying tribute to the new fashion, in contrast to the members of the Brezhnev Politburo, who suddenly immediately became interested in hockey after the Secretary General. Even in his school years, Vasily proudly reported to his father about his achievements on the football field, which usually happened more than in the classroom. And later, falling in love with the sky, planes and girls, he did not forget about sports attachments. After the war, two great hobbies bizarrely merged, and when Stalin's son took over as commander of the MVO aviation, sport Club The Air Force found a powerful patron.
The facts show that Vasily did not have much closeness with his father. But this did not interfere with the realization of his sports ambitions. Why, one unchanging telephone password “Comrade Stalin will talk to you” (and go and figure out which one) helped to solve almost all issues. And the aviation resources themselves were considerable - they did not save on the "Stalin's falcons" then.
Where to spend them. Almost simultaneously, the young general was in charge of football, hockey, basketball, motorcycle racing and even equestrian (hussar!) teams. There were also cyclists and athletes... The first Olympic winner in the history of the USSR, discus thrower Nina Ponomareva, represented the Air Force.
“My teams should have the best,” Stalin Jr. briefly formulated his managerial credo.
Naturally, these best were taken not from somewhere, but from other teams. But it is precisely from the selection that the extremely simplified perception of the activities of the “aviation patron” originates. This manifested itself literally immediately, in those very years. Bulk purchases by the Air Force led to the fact that the fans began to change the name of the team - "They took all the Athletes", "They took the whole Spartak", "Vasya Stalin's gang" and even "Vasya took Seva (Bobrov)". Now, probably, it would sound like "Vasya Bought Everyone."
Of course, the general actively used his opportunities to attract strong athletes who put on shoulder straps with a blue edging and received increased allowances. But here he played on a competitive field - the CDKA with Dynamo had similar "power" recruiting resources. For example, most of the football stars of these two then top clubs (invariably won the championships of the USSR from 1945 to 1951) could not be lured into aviation. Yes, and from Spartak, which fell into the proverb, the players used to refuse to move - like the then prominent scorer Nikita Simonyan. So the "aviators" in football have not risen above fourth place.
In hockey, things were going much better - both with the composition and with the results. Suffice it to say that seven future world champions-1954 managed to play for the "pilots".
But at the same time, the Air Force still did not win its championships in the style of Tikhonov's CSKA of the 80s. In 1952, an additional match was required to determine the champion (the “pilots” beat the CDKA - 3: 2), and a year later, the gap between the “Stalinists” and the main competitors was minimal (from the CDKA - 1 point, from the Dynamo - 2).
“No one else had such a team. And it's unlikely to be. The people were all completely different. They were united by one thing - something that so many lack now. This is decency. I don’t remember a case where someone acted dishonestly towards each other.
In sports, and in particular in hockey, I have come a long way. I crossed paths with many people, and in any team, both from the older and from the younger generation, at least someone, in purely moral terms, fell out of the team, committed certain ugly acts. The Air Force didn't have that! Why? Because the team was selected not so much by skill as by human qualities.. (Nikolai Puchkov, "Soviet Sport", 2003).
In addition, unlike later times, the creation of an aviation superclub was not justified by the highest state necessity. The time had not yet come to observe the "interests of the national team" - they were in no hurry with the entry of Soviet hockey into the international arena. But they didn’t even talk about the “base club” even for the future. The victory in the USSR championship was a value in itself - an amazing time for our hockey.
In the first place for Vasily Stalin was always a personal interest, sometimes maniacal. He knew his players by name, with some he even maintained friendly relations (especially with Bobrov, whom he bowed to in his own way - later they would even make a pretty good film about this) and was always ready to help.
Therefore, the essence of the "Stalinist selection" was, first of all, not in proposals that could not be refused (refused, who really wanted it), but in creating conditions for the players. For Soviet sports, this was not such a novelty, but thanks to the Air Force, its main contradiction - amateurism on paper and professionalism in practice - became especially noticeable. “You can’t set records and win matches after 6-8 hours of work at the factory,” the leader’s son urged. His methods of motivation will later be condemned, but in the end everyone will tacitly agree that for big victories Soviet athletes should be professionals, receiving a good salary and other benefits.
At the same time, in the Air Force empire, it was not about achieving any momentary results and nothing more. There was an understanding that for further growth our sport needs an infrastructural breakthrough. In hockey, the issue was very acute - there simply were no decent arenas with artificial ice. It got to the point that the leading clubs went to the pre-season in the GDR, where they trained on a skating rink built at some large meat processing plant. Vasily got excited about the idea of building a large indoor palace, but he did not have time to bring the project to life, unlike a number of other training facilities. Later, other high-ranking "chiefs" of army teams will also deal with infrastructure a lot - for example, Marshal Grechko.
Of course, the situation in which the son of the leader paid increased attention to sports had - with his explosive nature - another side. Send a guilty player to a guardhouse or send him to a distant garrison? There was such a thing (although anger was usually quickly replaced by mercy). Fire a coach for allowing himself to lightly praise an opponent? Necessarily. To give the team an installation for the game? Why not, what's so tricky here - circled and scored. Arrange a dressing after the defeat? And don't lose, the Air Force must win!
What kind of person was Vasily Stalin? I'm not going to judge. I was then, in essence, a boy and did not delve into anything in particular. Certainly only one. He was extremely intolerant of objections.Even Vsevolod Bobrov, whom Vasily Stalin literally idolized, did not dare to object to him. Yes, it was pointless.
Now, in hindsight, I think that Vasily Stalin did not have what is commonly called a sense of proportion. Probably, the lack of control, to which he had become accustomed for years, corrupted him. He could give, having removed from his hand, a gold watch, or he could unexpectedly unfairly and even rudely bring down reproaches ... "(Viktor Tikhonov, "Idols. Secrets of death").
And yet, the majority of the former "pilots", even years later, had mostly positive memories of their former "squadron leader".
“In feature films, he is shown as a fool, a despot, a petty tyrant. I will not talk about his relationship with the regular military.But he sincerely loved his athletes, knew well about the needs of everyone, tried to provide everything necessary - as far as possible. And he really had a lot of opportunities.”(Viktor Shuvalov, Trud, 2013).
“He was a great sports manager. He treated us just like a senior comrade. Never made rude remarks. I tried to give advice, but did not impose my opinion, realizing that we, hockey players, know better how to play.
Bobrov usually asked his opinion, and Stalin expressed it. And when he felt that he was saying the wrong thing, he asked: “What, Vsevolod, am I talking wrong?” He shrugged his shoulders like that and heard in response: “Well, then you continue further, I will be silent.” Nobody was afraid of Vasily Iosifovich, and at the same time everyone respected him immensely.(Nikolai Puchkov, "Soviet Sport", 2003).
Vasily himself foresaw that not so much was measured out to him - both in sports and in general. “I am alive as long as my father is alive,” he often said, and he was right. The death of the generalissimo drew a line under both the “hussar” and the bright history of aviation sports, including the hockey superclub. It was disbanded already in May 1953, almost immediately after the arrest of its curator, who at one moment lost his power. Among other sins, Stalin's son was accused of overspending on sports - probably, this was the only such case in the entire history of the USSR.
“In an effort to popularize his name, Stalin V.I. achieved the creation of 8 full-time sports teams of up to 300 people under the Air Force of the Moscow Military District, for the maintenance of which more than 5 million rubles were spent annually. These sports teams were recruited from among professional athletes who were poached from other sports societies.
For the athletes of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District, a privileged position was created, they were first of all provided with apartments, were assigned officer ranks, issued flight technical uniforms and released significant funds for bonuses and satisfaction of their other whims, which infringed on the interests of the personnel of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District.(from the investigative file of Stalin V.I., "Vasily, the son of the leader", Sukhomlinov A.V.)
The investigation, predictably ending in a guilty verdict, lasted two and a half years (a characteristic touch - the former athletes-“pilots” willingly chipped in for transfers to the boss who fell into disgrace). During this time, the USSR national team - with a considerable number of former Air Force players in the composition - managed to make a victorious debut on the international arena. A new era began in Soviet hockey, where there was no longer any place for either the “aviation philanthropist” (who eventually served his eight and then quickly died), or his main brainchild.
The "orphaned" players, led by Bobrov, joined the CDKA. Having absorbed a powerful competitor, the army club, having changed several names, remained the main force in the USSR championship until the end of the 80s. During this time, no other team managed to win gold medals even twice in a row.
The end of the hegemony of the army, as in the case of the "pilots", happened due to major political changes in the country. The fall of the Iron Curtain led to a mass loss of the best players who rushed abroad, and a natural loss of leadership in Soviet hockey, which itself was already living its last days.
This is the main danger for the superclubs being created in Russia, no matter under what regime. Given the close connection between hockey and the state machine, the slightest fluctuations in it can threaten the existence of any dynasty.
- Ivan Zotov- ship commander, major
- V. Taranenko- second pilot
- A. Ponomarev- navigator, captain
- M. Fomichev- flight mechanic, captain
- M. Demchenko- radio operator, lieutenant
- I. Lukyanov- mechanic, senior sergeant
- Boris Bocharnikov- defender, playing coach; Moscow team player (1948)
- Vasily Volodin- striker
- Evgeny Voronin- defender
- Nikolai Isaev- second goalkeeper of the Air Force team
- Yuri Zhiburtovich- striker
- Zdenek Zikmund
- Khary Mellups- goalkeeper; Moscow team player (1948)
- Alexander Moiseev- striker
- Ivan Novikov- forward; Moscow team player (1948)
- Yuri Tarasov- forward; Moscow team player (1948), brother of Anatoly Tarasov
- Robert Shulmanis- defender
- Mikhail Alperin- Air Force doctor
- Alexey Galkin- masseur of the Air Force team
- Pakhomov V. Stalin's fault in the death of the Air Force team is not // Soviet sport. - April 19, 2001. - S. 11.
During landing
Plane crash in Sverdlovsk on January 7, 1950- an aviation accident with a Li-2 aircraft that occurred on January 7, 1950 near Koltsovo Airport in the vicinity of Sverdlovsk.
Catastrophe
At 6 o'clock in the morning, the plane took off from the airfield on Leningradsky Prospekt from Moscow (with an intermediate stop in Kazan) to Chelyabinsk. On board, in addition to 6 crew members, there were 13 people. hockey team MVO Air Force, heading for a match with the local Dzerzhinets. At the time of the disaster, the Air Force was one of the strongest teams in the country - the vice-champion of the USSR in 1948/1949 in ice hockey.
Being in the air and having information about the impossibility of landing due to bad weather in Chelyabinsk, the aircraft commander Ivan Zotov decided to land at the alternate airfield in Sverdlovsk. In difficult weather conditions (blizzard, strong wind), the plane crashed - it collided with the ground during the landing approach.
The investigation of the disaster was entrusted to F. F. Prokopenko, who served in the combat training department of the Moscow Military District. According to Prokopenko, the disaster occurred due to a number of unfavorable factors. In addition to non-flying weather, the negative consequences of the departmental approach led to the death of the aircraft: local air traffic controllers started landing first of all “their own”, passenger planes. In order for the military Li-2 not to interfere with these "sides", he was sent to the waiting area, to the upper echelons.
The wait was quite long; during this time, it got dark, intense turbulence persisted, passengers on board began to show anxiety, and the crew became nervous. Hockey players strayed into the tail, which created certain problems in piloting for such a small aircraft. A few kilometers from the Koltsovo airfield there was another, poorly equipped runway of the Aramil military airfield, which had its own radio drive with frequencies close to the frequencies of the Koltsovo airfield, and with a close approach course. The Li-2 navigator, Captain Ponomarev, was mistakenly tuned in to him. Major Ivan Zotov, an experienced pilot, passing this drive, did not find the runway and went to the second circle. Having descended again, he turned on the searchlight, which, in conditions of intense snowfall, created a “screen” that looked like a luminous wall. This was the last, fatal circumstance. A total of three landing approaches were made. The plane crashed in the area where the current new runway of Koltsovo airport was later built.
After the fall, there was no fire, but the blow was so strong that no one managed to survive. According to eyewitnesses, the bodies were terribly mutilated and could not be identified. All the dead were buried in the cemetery of the village of Koltsovo in a mass grave.
Some time later, a monument was erected on the mass grave in memory of the dead.
Crew
Deceased members of the Air Force hockey team
Surviving members of the HK VVS MVO and the consequences of the tragedy for the team
In the days following the disaster, an urgent recruitment to the Air Force command was announced. Andrei Chaplinsky, Alexander Striganov, Alexander Afonkin returned, a number of newcomers came - goalkeeper Boris Tropin, defender Evgeny Rogov, forward Anatoly Arkhipov. Together with Vinogradov (who was promptly annulled) and Shuvalov, they were put on a train and sent to Chelyabinsk, where they were to play the first game. As a result, the team went to the match, Vsevolod Bobrov was announced as the coach. At the same time, the main leaders of the team were included in the list of survivors. The game ended with a score of 8:3 in favor of the Muscovites. After the game, the team members arrived in Sverdlovsk for the funeral of their fallen comrades.
Information about the crash was not distributed - for the first time it was mentioned by journalist Vladimir Pakhomov on the pages of the weekly "Football-Hockey" in No. 4 of January 26, 1969.
In the reports on the matches of the MVO Air Force in the central press, it was not mentioned who scored the goals, if it was not Vsevolod Bobrov or Viktor Shuvalov. Zhiburtovich was also mentioned, but his name and initials were not indicated, since the brother of the deceased, Pavel, now played for the Air Force of the Moscow Military District.
In the 1949/1950 season, the team finished the season with a truncated squad. However, up to last game HC VVS MVO retained chances to take a prize. Only the defeat in the last match, which took place under heavy snowfall, with Dinamo Riga with a score of 3:4, deprived them of bronze medals - only one point separated the team from third place.
In the off-season, the team strengthened through the efforts of Vasily Stalin and in the next three seasons was the champion of the USSR. In 1953, after the death of Joseph Stalin, the team was disbanded, merging with the CDSA ..
In the sky near Sverdlovsk
The death of the Air Force hockey team
The Air Force hockey team (Moscow) was the favorite brainchild of Vasily Stalin and was considered one of the strongest in the country. But especially great prospects appeared for the team at the very beginning of the 50s, when Vsevolod Bobrov moved there. The “pilots” were quite capable of fighting for the championship title, but unforeseen circumstances stood in their way to the “gold” medals.
On January 7, 1950, the Air Force team on a Douglas SI-47 aircraft flew to Chelyabinsk for the next calendar game. Together with six crew members and two attendants, there were 11 hockey players on board the aircraft: Khariy Mellups, Nikolai Isaev, Robert Shulmanis, Evgeny Voronin, Boris Bocharnikov, Yuri Zhiburtovich, Vasily Volodin, Alexander Moiseev, Zdenek Zikmund, Yuri Tarasov, Ivan Novikov (the last three moved to the Air Force from Spartak with the whole trio). However, the plane never reached its target. At Koltsovo airport near Sverdlovsk, due to bad weather conditions, the Douglas could not reach the second radio beacon and tried to land six times, but in the end, during the next approach, it did not have enough thrust, and it collapsed on the edge of the airfield. All people on board the aircraft were killed.
It is worth noting that several of the best players in the Air Force remained in Moscow only by a lucky chance. For example, Bobrov and Viktor Shuvalov. The first did not have time to draw up documents on the transition, was late for the flight and was traveling by train (according to another version - by the way, the most common one - on the eve of the flight he just went on a spree), the second Stalin considered it unethical to put up in the game against the Chelyabinsk "Dzerzhinets", from where he recently transferred to the Air Force .
This is how direct witnesses remember this tragedy.
N. Puchkov (goalkeeper): “They sent a car for me, brought me to the Sokol, there was the headquarters of Vasily Stalin. In the room I saw Shuvalov, Chaplinsky, Striganov, Afonkin, and someone else, they gathered everyone who remained in Moscow, even those who had finished or were about to stop playing. We were all ordered to immediately leave for Chelyabinsk. The calendar games of the championship continued. In Sverdlovsk we went to the hangar where the dead lay. Everyone was there: parents, wives. Anatoly Tarasov, Vladimir Nikanorov, Mikhail Orekhov arrived from Moscow - TSESC members. Earth, everything is mixed, the bodies are stitched with metal. A brand new epaulette flashed, major, Boris Bocharnikov, the title had just been awarded ... "
V. Shuvalov: “There were 19 people who died, but the remains were placed in 20 coffins, tightly closed, then they were placed on 10 Studebakers and buried. Now there, near the Koltsovo airfield, there is an obelisk. When I had to visit Sverdlovsk, they always brought flowers there. I remember the horror my parents went through. After all, they thought that I had crashed with the team, they did not believe the telegrams that they sent from Moscow. Until they saw me on the platform of the station in Chelyabinsk, until they felt me with their hands - safe, alive, unharmed! Everyone didn't believe. And no wonder: after all, no official announcements followed, the names were not named ... "
The official commission, which was appointed to clarify the circumstances of the death of the aircraft, immediately dismissed the version of the insufficient qualifications of the crew. According to her conclusion, the commander, Major Zubov, was the most experienced combat pilot, and all the other crew members had no less experience than he did (the crew was part of Grachev's division, which served members of the government). What then caused the tragedy? There were two versions. According to the first, the plane was heading for two radio beacons located one after the other. However, by a fatal coincidence, the crew managed to reach only the first radio beacon. They were commanded from the ground: go out to the hangars. This went on for six rounds. On the seventh "Douglas" tried to follow the command from the ground, but the momentum was already lost. Zubov turned on the afterburner, but it was too late - there was not enough traction. After that, the plane fell on the wing, rolled over and crashed into the ground.
The second version looked different. According to it, it turned out that, when landing, the crew turned on powerful searchlights. But the veil of the blizzard gave a sudden reflection, which the crew took for a flame. It seemed to everyone that the plane caught fire, and people rushed to the tail section. The Douglas lost control and crashed.
Meanwhile, despite the tragedy that befell the Air Force team, the national hockey championship continued. Vasily Stalin was too ambitious to allow the team to give up even after such a loss, so he persuaded the surviving players to continue the championship. And the team of "pilots" performed a miracle - they took 4th place. And a year later, once again gaining strength and power, the Air Force regained the championship title. Vasily was at the pinnacle of happiness. Calling his players "Stalin's falcons", he immediately instructed the head of the team, Dmitry Teplyakov, to write down all the personal requests of the hockey players. After that, someone got an apartment, someone - another military rank, someone - a car. By that time, Bobrov was already “packed” - he had both a car and a luxurious apartment in the “Air Force House” on Sokol.
V. Tikhonov recalls: “What kind of person was Vasily Stalin? I'm not going to judge. I'm only talking about what I remember, what happened then. I was, in fact, a boy and did not delve into anything in particular. Certainly only one. He was extremely intolerant of objections.
Even Vsevolod Mikhailovich Bobrov, whom Vasily Stalin literally idolized, did not dare to object to him. Yes, it was pointless. Now, in hindsight, I think that Vasily Stalin did not have what is commonly called a sense of proportion. Probably, the lack of control, to which he had become accustomed for years, corrupted him. He could give, having removed from his hand, a gold watch (as he noted the fantastic game of Vsevolod Mikhailovich in the match against the team of the city of Kalinin, when Bobrov scored six goals), or he could unexpectedly unfairly and even rudely bring down reproaches ... "
About the same words of A. Belakovsky: “Vasily Stalin was a very impulsive person. Even Bobrov somehow gave in the face. I was removed from my post twice and reinstated (in 1950, Bobrov lured Belakovsky to the Air Force with Far East. – F. R.). He often made a decision on the first call: "Belakovsky is a bastard, he must be removed." - "Fire!" Then new information: “No, he’s a good guy!” - “Yes, you go three letters,” Vasily Iosifovich boiled up, “cancel the order!”
In 1952, the Air Force hockey team again won the championship title and won the USSR Cup. The attacking trio of "pilots" - E. Babich, V. Shuvalov, V. Bobrov - again became the most productive.
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