MONINO MUSEUM

Aeronautical Museum from Cold War Period

I had luck last year (April 2011.), because i visited Monino Aeronautical Museum. If you only visit Russia and Moscow, without Monino, you will have full impressions of totally different culture, history...but if you plus like airplanes, helicopters, military things, you will be absolutely delighted. Moscow have lot of military museums, and historical monuments, but lets back to main point.

Monino is small place, suburbs of Moscow, capital of Russia, some 40km from the city. It is not so hard to find museum if you are travel from Moscow, just go to M7 road out of Moscow, but its not so easy to see the gate from the road. Anyway, GPS device is today almost in every pocket, so use it :) Coordinates are +55° 49' 52.64", +38° 11' 15.50"  - parking.

There was former Soviet air base. Museum is founded in 1958. and opened in 1960. All planes are mostly in good shape. Displayed planes are mostly from Cold war era.

On gate will be Russian soldier, guard, which, in my case, speak only Russian. But he will understand you if you just say magic word ``Museum``. Gate guard asked me from where I am, which country, and after I told him, he showed me the way and opened the gate. I am not sure if there are some limitations for some countries, but I entered :) I read somewhere that people from Nato countries have to set up visiting by phone few days before they come. I am not sure if this is true. There look like no limitation.

When you enter into base, just follow the board instructions on trees. There is a parking lot on the right side for cars and touristic buses. On the left side are some old and some new buildings. From parking side you already can see some tails of bombers. First you need to find ticket shop, which is across the parking, little bit on the right side. It is one very old and dilapidated building. When you enter inside, you will step on old mixing of parquet floor and plastic quadrants which covering holes I guess. Ticket room look like some engineering office, with lot of desks with rulers, technical drawings. Inside was also MIG-21 nose and canopy, and G suit, and lot of other flight things. You will have feeling that you back in 1960.-1970., i.e. in Cold war era. Old lady will sell you the ticket. There are more people inside the room, but no one know English, so you must to try hard hand explanation if you have more questions after buying ticket.
After buying ticket, you can go to your lovely planes, which are in area near parking.

The first thing,where you will be shocked at start, is biggest helicopter in the world, Mil Mi-12. You will notice Mig-29 at firts place (left of Mi-12) in museum, but, after Mi-12, you will only notice it, and nothing more:) Just compare Mig-29 or Su-35 with Mi-12 on photo

Mil Mi-12 between Mig-29 and Su-35

Later you will find yourself that you cant decide where to go, what to picture first, what to touch. But after few seconds, you choose to go by order, one by one. Best choice! 
So, on left side you will see Mig-29, Mi-12 in the middle and Sukhoi Su-35.
Just to mention that there is always board with details about showed plane, on English and Russian language.

TU-128

If you follow to go straight, you will see bombers line on the right side, like Tupolev Tu-16, Tu-22, Tu-22M, and at the end of the line Tu-128 (on photo).

After Tu-128 is hangar, and inside are also planes, unfinished projects, models, photos on boards,some unique crafts like Turbolet, Bi-1, Triplan,ANT-2 (Tupolev), ANT-25 and USSR-1 stratospheric balloon for investigating the atmosphere and stratosphere balloon Volga used for experiments in the 1960s. Very interesting hangar

TURBOLET

When you choose to get out from hangar, you can back to bomber line, but opposite side where are Il-10M, Il-28, Myasishchev M-50 ``Bounder``3M , and amazing Sukhoi T-4.

Bounder and T-4

There is also part of Helicopter area. Lot of them, totally mixed by purpose, color, size without order, but here you can see MIl Mi-24A (basic version), Mi-24V (later verzion), Mi-8, Kamov Ka-25, Mi-4, Mi-6,Mi-10, Yak-24....see photo:

When you pass this Heli part, there is also one closed hangar. After that building, you will meet 3 huge helicopter from Mil family Mi-6 PZh, Mi-6AYA, and Mi-26. Very huge 3 brothers in special area.

There is also part of transport aviation with Antonov projects: An-8, An-10, An-12, An-22, An-24, also from Ilyushin company Il-12, 18, 62, and Tupolev Tu-104,Tu-114, Tu-124, Lisunov Li-2, Yakovlev Yak-40 and Yak-42. For this area, you will need more time than for other because of plane sizes.

Transport and civilian aviation part of museum

And now, for me, most interesting part in museum where you can see displayed almost all from Mig and Sukhoi jet family, like Mig: 9, 15bis and UTI, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 29, 31...
Sukhoi: Su-7B, experimetal S-26, Su-7BKL, Su-17UM3, Su-11, Su-15,T-6-1 (initial prototype for the Su-24), than Su-24, Sukhoi T-10-1 (initial prototype for the legendary Su-27),Su-25... 
Yakovlev: Yak-23,Yak-25,Yak-25RV, Yak-27R,Yak-28L,Yak-36, Yak-38 and Yak-141,
Tupolev: civilian Tu-144, Soviet Concorde, UAV Tu-141
Lavochkin La-250 Anakonda, La-15
Lisunov Li-2
........

First prototype Su-27

In the middle of open area you can see few experimental planes, some are already mentioned. There is also MIG project E-166, Mig-105,  Myasischev 3MD heavy jet strategic bomber - one of the biggest plane here, and Tu-95 Bear same size.

Interesting is that you can see here American B-25 Mitchell, but with some changes like Soviet engines and props, and Douglas A-20G Boston.

Beriev Be-12 is most strange look plane here, by my taste very ugly but on same way very interesting.

Beriev Be-12

There is one more hangar which you have to see. Inside are displayed Il-2 Sturmovik, Yak-9U, MIG-3, Polikarpov I-16, American Bell P-63 Kingcobra, Petlyakov Pe-2, Lavochkin La-7,...and more and more....

More some photos:

M-17

Mi-6PZH

TU-22M

Yak-38

Mig-29

Sukhoi road

M-141 Strizh (UAV)

Mig-31

Experimental E-166 (Mig)

Su-25 & Tu-144

Antonov An-22

Yak-36

SUKHOI T-4

Bombers line

T-3 & T-4

Under the Mig-25

Mig-25

Mig-15 BIS

I am 100% sure that i didnt mentioned some 20% of displayed planes, but believe me, the only reason is quantity of planes. You do not have enough time to see detailed all of them. Space is too big, tons of planes, and must be honest with you, i was there in April month, but it was -10 C temperature outside. One more reason for me to hurry up.

From Monino museum, you can not go out unsatisfied. There is almost whole Soviet/Russian aero history. From pioneer days till today.








For some help and information, you can visit webpage http://www.moninoaviation.com/ 
To see how museum look from satellite eye, you can see this wikimapia page http://wikimapia.org/#lat=55.832952&lon=38.1850957&z=18&l=0&m=b&v=1&search=monino

I hope i made you interested for this golden museum. Its really joy to be there.
Regards from Nikola :)

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