(Image: Theo van Vliet; abandoned MiG-29 Fulcrum air superiority fighters)
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built hundreds of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, many of them low-tech but rugged and highly maneuverable warplanes, in a bid to take on NATO forces. But despite some tense times, the uneasy conflict never truly turned hot, and following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, thousands of ageing combat aircraft were grounded and left to rust, many of them strewn far and wide across the vast expanses of Russia.
(Image: Theo van Vliet; the gutted Fulcrums sat on the eastern side of Moscow)
Today, aircraft graveyards are a common feature of decaying Cold War airfields across the country, bases that are as abandoned as the corroding shells of planes that, somewhat eerily, still occupy their weed-strewn dispersal pans. But there are other aircraft cemeteries too, sometimes in more unlikely places like the suburbs of major cities.
(Image: Theo van Vliet; early model MiG-29s poised for scrapping)
At Dolgoye Ledovo on the eastern side of Russia’s capital, the Moscow Engineering Institute maintained a small collection of former air force jets and helicopters. The long-grounded machines were for years used as instructional airframes, but are understood to have been scrapped in recent years. If the pictures are anything to go by, engineering students didn’t go easy on the airframes.
(Image: Theo van Vliet; the Moscow Engineering Institute also has a couple of antiquated MiG-21 Fishbeds
When photographer Theo van Vliet paid them a visit around 2011, he found a battered collection of thoroughly abandoned hulks, some of them little more than gaunt shells plundered for parts and discarded to the elements.
(Image: Theo van Vliet; the Institute’s MiG 23 Floggers, however, appear to have fared better)
Among the warplane carcasses were several Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21MT Fishbed-Js, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23ML Floggers and a handful of formidable Mikoyan MiG-29A Fulcrum air superiority fighters. At least one of the MiG-29s was understood to have been an early pre-production airframe used for testing purposes before the main fleet became operational.
(Image: Theo van Vliet; abandoned MiG-21s and helicopter in a corner of the overgrown complex)
Like so many others, this intriguing little aircraft graveyard reflects the fate of many Soviet Russian-era fighters and attack jets built during the Cold War and more recently. Though many have been scrapped, and many others ultimately will be, the rusting shells of hundreds more survive on forgotten airfields across the Eurasia’s forbidding steppe and tundra.
(Image: Theo van Vliet; a third MiG-29, a shadow of the air superiority fighter that it once was)
Related – Abandoned MiGs & Other Aircraft: Former Soviet Hardware From Iraq to Russia
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