(Image: Eric Lusito – website)
Those who are fascinated by abandoned aircraft and Cold War military relics, especially those that endure across the vast expanses of the former Soviet Union, may already be familiar with this atmospheric photograph by Eric Lusito. Framing the stripped out carcass of a MiG-21 Fishbed fighter jet against the backdrop of an abandoned Soviet airfield, the image is part of a wider series – compiled into book form – called After the Wall: Traces of the Soviet Empire, documenting the fate of many decommissioned facilities across the former Eastern Bloc.
The scene here reveals an abandoned Soviet air base in Mongolia, which is understood to have been built in the 1970s. According to Lusito’s caption, the facility had a vast runway of two miles in length, and units stationed there maintained a high level of readiness in the face of a possible threat from neighbouring China. The base eventually closed, and this venerable old warrior was left behind.
Almost 11,500 MiG-21 fighter jets were built in a production run spanning 26 years, from 1959 to 1985. A product of Moscow’s famed Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau, the supersonic warplane has served with the armed forces of some 60 countries across four continents, with more than 10,600 produced in the former USSR alone.
And though it remains in active service with several nations, many surviving MiG-21s are rusting, empty shells of their former selves. The aircraft pictured here had been mounted for display as a gate guardian at the Mongolian airfield, but when the base closed at the end of the Cold War, the once-formidable jet – the distinctive red star still visible on its tail fin – was abandoned and left to rot, like the derelict airfield around it.
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