By Vestnik Kavkaza
In May the bust of the legendary pilot, double Hero of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Odintsov was erected at Poklonnaya Hill. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Head of the Republic of Ingushetia, said at the opening ceremony that “memory is probably the most important thing in life. I remember five or six years ago I saw Mikhail Odintsov at an event. He was so young. I thought he had been to Afghanistan, so youthful and fit he looked.”
Odintsov began his military service in 16, considering his outstanding flight skills and personal requests. He graduated from the Perm Military School of Pilots and the Engels Military Flying School. His first battle flight took place on June 23st, 1941. Once he was heavily injured. After seven months in hospital, Odintsov was found unserviceable. But he decided to go to a regiment without permission and serviced more than a year with hurt arm. By the end of the war he got 215 battle flights and was recognized as the master of fighters.
“This is the anniversary, the tenth bust of this outstanding person, outstanding patriot, outstanding commander, this courageous, brave man who took the difficult path, including being convicted, but at the same time proved who he is to his most radical opponents,” Director of the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Vladimir Zaborowski, said at the opening ceremony of the bust. “Today, we are faced with a paradox when schools that bear the names of heroes are closed, a hero's name, which the school had and of which its students who were proud of, I'm sorry, is put into oblivion. This is completely not right. The revival of naming schools after heroes, preservation of the memory of heroes in busts - this will, no doubt, be our common task.”
Yunus-Bek Yevkurov said that “being here when we celebrate the memory of this pure man, good ideas are being born. And we came up with an idea to pass on to this museum a bust of the legendary pilot, the first Hero of Russia, Sulumbek Oskanov.”
