Children's cinema in a written off aircraft for several years worked in Vitebsk near the Technological Institute on the Moscow Prospect. Read and see the latest news of Vitebsk, Vitebsk region and Belarus on the website of the independent media VKURIER.INFO.

How in Vitebsk a children's film Flying appeared and what happened to him

37 years ago, in 1984, in Vitebsk on Moskovsky Avenue, in place, where the new building of the University of Technology and the Church of St. Tatyana is now, a unusual film Flying appeared.

Cinema Flying. Source: Vitebsk Encyclopedia

The unusual of the cinema was that he was located in the Tu-134 written off by the turbojet airplane, produced in Kharkov in 1969 and flying until 1983. Interestingly, in June 1977, this aircraft bought air terrorists to Finland, but then returned to the Soviet Union.

Cinema Flying in a written off plane. Source: Vitebsk Encyclopedia

For the first time about the new cinema told citizens of the newspaper Vitebsk Worker on May 31, 1984:

The Executive Committee of the Vitebsk City Council of People's Deputies is preparing an interesting gift for young residents of the regional center. On a small platform in front of the technological institution of light industry, departing his term, landed 76-seater silver airliner Tu-134. In the spacious comfortable cabin of the aircraft is equipped with a children's cinema.

1980s. Moscow prospectus at the Institute of Technology and Flight Cinema. Photo from the network Odnoklassniki

In the 1980s, cinemas in the written off airplanes acted not only in Vitebsk, but also in other Belarusian cities, for example, in Minsk and Mogilev. This is what Yuri Evgeniev told about the transportation of Tu-134:

My father was responsible for the transport of aircraft from the Raven and the subsequent assembly. The plane was transported without wings. It was 1983 or 1984. Father was a military airliner. The plane stood in the corners at the civil airfield. There they removed the wings and carried military tractors early in the morning in the city. Then the wings attached back. When transported, the column was accompanied by the GAI machines. All work was done by the military from Zhevhevo.

1973. Tu-134 in Paris at Le Bourget Airport. Subsequently, this aircraft will become a Flight cinema in Vitebsk. Photos from the site Old Vitebsk.rf

The reader shared his memories of the aircraft under the cinema with us:

Experts from the civil airfield Vitebsk-East were engaged in the landscaping of the salon, in Prosonarody Crows. With my own eyes, I watched the Pilot Cabin elements and the closure of the cabin with protective glass. I managed to even sit in the chair of the aircraft captain before the destruction of the salon by vandals.

For citizens, the appearance of an airplane on the wasteland on the Moscow Prospect was a surprise.Pavel Sarapen told about it:

When I saw him first time, I refused to go at the bus stop, I thought – what kind of nonsense, some kind of plane!

The first sessions passed in flight in the summer of 1985. Here were mainly demonstrated by the collections of cartoons for about 40 minutes. The plane was considered a branch of the East cinema on the proletarian square.

Next to the Flight cinema. 1980s. Photo: Pasha hare

It was possible to climb the Flying on the side of the house number 74 Corps 1. Immediately at the entrance was Cashier. The seats in the cabin were turned to the tail of the aircraft, in the tail itself there was a booth of a film mechanic. The image was projected onto the screen on the reverse side. In the interruptions between sessions, the cinema was carried out due to the fact that the fuselage was very hot.

Children's cinema Flying. Photo from the newspaper Vitebsk worker for 15 August 1990

Flying worked just a few years. On August 15, 1990, the Vitebsk Worker newspaper wrote about his fate.

Sometime in the cabin of this airliner was equipped with a children's cinema. He really liked boys and girls. But the joy was short: the cinema was closed, because the room did not correspond to the standards of fire safety. And the plane became a street. There were some claims on him from the public services, the October District Executive Committee. But the matter there and stood.

On the fate of an unusual child cinema, everyone who knew him speaks in one voice: in the early 1990s, the flight turned into a public toilet, it was crushed, and in 1992 the plane was fenced by the fence, sawed and taken away. Parts from him subsequently saw in a landfill in the area of ​​the fifth communal. Someone from the children jammed with magnesium wheels for homemade explosion packages.

Saint Tatiana Temple at the Flight Cinema. Photo Sergey Martinovich

Near the cinema aircraft loved to be photographed by residents and guests of Vitebsk both alone and with children. Perhaps our readers have such pictures?