A team of British pilots will fly World War I and World War II aircraft, landing in Ukraine to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Crimean War
Volodymyr Hrybanov, Deputy Chairman, Head of the Aviation Department, Ukrainian Defense Relief Society, Vice President, Aviation Sport Federation of Ukraine, says HRH Prince Michael of Kent and the UK Flying Squadron Club came out with the initiative and contacted the Ukrainian government.
According to preliminary arrangements, 15-20 aircraft will fly to Ukraine. The first group will be composed of VIP class (PILATUS, TBM 700) models, making direct UK-Ukraine flights, delivering distinguished guests. The second group (World War II medium range Yak 52-type Spitfire, Yak-1, 3, and 7 models) will fly from Europe to Lviv and then land at Chaika Airfield near Kyiv, after clearing customs. The third group made up of World War I Tiger B-2, Po-2 models will fly with stopovers in several European countries to join the main group.
The Crimean News Agency, referring to Ukrinform, reports that the visit program envisage HRH Prince Michael meeting with Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, a visit to the Antonov Aircraft Design Bureau, taking part in a small air show, demonstration flights at Chaika, whereupon the British pilots will fly to the Crimea. There they visit the Livadiya Palace and Mt. Klementyev, which is a well-known site with international glider pilots. Back in 1923, it was where the first domestic glider pilots took off, among them Antonov, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Korolyov...
As previously reported, President Kuchma signed an edict in March 2003, titled On the 150th Anniversary of the Eastern (Crimean) War of 1853-56. It reads that the government of Ukraine and Crimean authorities will work out measures aimed, among other things, at modernizing Sevastopol and the rest of the autonomous republic, tiding up burial sites of Crimean War combatants and war memorials. Sevastopol and the suburbs accommodate a British, French, and Italian cemeteries, also the First Battlefield Memorial dedicated to the Crimean War. Cemeteries with common graves of Russian soldiers are found in Simferopol, Bakhchisarai, and Yevpatoriya. International workshop seminars, art exhibits, monographs, educational and fiction publications are planned. On September 11, 1996, the Russian community in the Crimea revived its old tradition of marking the Day of Remembrance of Fallen Orthdox Warriors (cut short [by the Bolsheviks] in 1917). That same year the Supreme Council [Parliament] of the Crimea proclaimed September 10, marking the end of the siege of Sevastopol, the Crimean War Soldiers Remembrance Day, and set up a commission to perpetuate the memory of their feat of arms during the defense of Sevastopol (1854-55).
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is expected to visit Sevastopol in September 2004 to attend the festivities commemorating the Crimean War of 1853-56, Crimean First Vice Speaker Vasyl Kyseliov said at a recent meeting of the governmental commission, stressing that there was marked British interest in preserving memories of Crimean War heroes. After the British Queen expressed her desire to visit Sevastopol, the British, French, Italian, and Russian ambassadors, knights of the Royal Victoria Order, members of the British and French history lovers societies, and international uniformist clubs followed suit, added Vasyl Kyseliov.
The Crimean autonomous republic’s draft 2004 budget program envisages UAH 215,000 in appropriations for tidying up the military cemetery of Simferopol and UAH 75,000 for the restoration and installment of memorial plaques on former battlefields. The Crimean Republican Committee for the Protection of the Crimean Cultural Heritage insisted on such subsidies as a separate budget expense item, lest the other committee programs suffer.
Meanwhile, it transpired that the public knew very little about the Crimean War, so scholars proceeded to search for archival documents. “The history of the Crimean War of 1853-56 will be written anew,” declared Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the Council of the Federation for International Affairs, at a round table dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the military campaign in Moscow. The Crimean News Agency quotes ITAR-TASS as saying that the round table participants stressed the preparedness of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the siege of Sevastopol (1854-55) on a broad scale this year. Arrangements for the festivities will be discussed at a meeting of regional leaders in three countries, scheduled to be held in April-May in the Crimea. Mikhail Margelov said that “new documents discovered in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry warrant a revision of the causes, events, and consequences of that war for the national security of modern Russia.” He further stated that the newly discovered documents point to a dispute between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox clergy, causing the so-called Eastern War; “archival materials provide sufficient evidence allowing us to refute what has been generally alleged as Nicholas I’s aggressive policy bringing about the Eastern War; they further prove St. Petersburg’s scientifically motivated and practically principled stand with regard to the holy [Eastern Orthodox] places [it could not allow to give up]... We have an opportunity to revise our school textbooks.”
