Monument
to the stratonauts who died in 1934. «Stratonauts»
In the 1930s, people dreamt of flying into outer space. In this regard, the first tests were carried out, extremely dangerous. So, in 1933, a successful flight of the USSR-1 balloon was made in the Soviet Union, which reached an altitude of 19,000 kilometers, and a new project was being prepared at that time – Osoaviakhim-1. The Osoaviakhim-1 stratostat was launched on January 30, 1934 at 9 a.m. with the following crew: Pavel Fedoseenko, Andrey Vasenko and Ilya Usyskin. This was the first winter flight of the stratostat in history. Despite the fact that Fedoseenko, who led the preparation of the stratostat, was a very experienced aeronaut, flew back in the Civil War, participated in flights with Friedman, the risk was great. About 12 hours after reaching an altitude of 20.6 km, communication with the pilots was lost. The dented gondola was found at 17 o’clock near Saransk. Judging by the log entries, the device reached an altitude of 22 km. Equipped with the best equipment at that time, the stratospheric balloon on January 30, 1934 break a record to reach an altitude of 22 kilometers, but the descent was too fast, the gondola with the crew broke away from the balloon, as a result of which the hero stratonauts Pavel Fedoseenko, Andrei Vasenko and Ilya Usyskin died. The heroes are buried on Red Square in Moscow. According to the official conclusion, the cause of the disaster was exceeding the maximum safe flight altitude for this device (about 20.5 km). The memorial to the fallen stratonauts “Osoaviakhim-1” is located on 88, Volokolamsk highway. The memorial includes a monument to the lost crew, an airplane, a helicopter. A tank and a pre-war truck are installed nearby.
Address: Moscow, Volokolamsk sh., 88
