Now I can't remember exactly when it was, in the fall of 1986 or in the spring of 1987. There was still or no snow, so it definitely wasn't winter and we were returning from school, so it definitely wasn't summer. We were walking down Uralska Street (now Chumatska Street) towards Nauka Avenue, discussing what seemed to be the last Dynamo match. The level of Dynamomania after the team won its second Cup Winners' Cup and the unpleasant defeat by Steaua Bucharest in the Super Cup final was simply incredible, we almost constantly discussed football. And then we suddenly heard this...
Kyiv teenagers were used to the sound of airplanes, despite the weak air traffic in the USSR, they constantly flew over Kyiv, where one of the largest aircraft factories of the Soviet Empire was located. Mostly cargo planes, although there were also enough military ones. But the sound that we heard then was different from everything else. It seemed that somewhere behind the clouds a large heavy beetle was slowly flying, and it was humming furiously with tension. We stopped, started looking around and finally saw the plane itself, it really looked like a strange beetle, slowly crawling through the clouds and also... it was somehow very strange.
So it was definitely an An-22 Antei, something like that, and we knew these planes well, but it was not like that. It seemed to have not two, but three stabilizers, and in addition, some huge thing was "tied" to the back of the plane... The wing of another plane!
Antei slowly pulled over the Holosiivskyi forest somewhere to the northwest. Today I would say for sure that it was coming in for landing at the Svyatoshyn airfield (ICAO: UKKT), the service runway of the Antonov plant, from where all the newly built Ukrainian Ans take off. In 1986/87, I was not so good at navigating in space, and in general, detailed topographic maps in the USSR were a thing of official use only. By the way, this airfield was founded back in 1913 by the outstanding aviator Staff Captain Nikolai Kokaev. According to one version, this is the same Syretske Field (or it was located somewhere nearby) from which on August 27, 1913, Captain Pyotr Nesterov's Newport-4 took off, performing the first aerobatics figure that earned its pilot.
We waited until the plane disappeared behind the trees and walked on, discussing not football, but the Antey and its cargo. In the end, we decided that it was most likely a wing for the An-124 Ruslan. They were also made in Kyiv, at least the first prototypes and the first production machines, the rest were already in Tatarstan. Thanks to my father, who worked with the Antonov plant as a representative of the supplier of the Identification friend or foe, I knew this well. We did not know then that an even larger plane, the future An-225 Mriya, was being built in Kyiv.
As for the aircraft we saw then, it was indeed a non-standard modification of the Antei - the An-22PZ (Carrier), designed to transport large-sized parts of the An-124 and An-225 on external suspension, namely the wings, which were manufactured at the Tashkent Aviation Production Association named after V.P. Chkalov (now JSC Tashkent Mechanical Plant) in Uzbekistan. In 1980–1983, three Antei were converted into An-22PZ.
Perhaps the An-22PZ, which reminded us of a Khrushchev, was pulling the wing for the An-124, but I want to believe that it was the wing for the An-225 Mriya, because a year or two later (depending on whether it was autumn or spring in my memories), on December 21, 1988, Mriya took to the air, and on May 13, 1989, it began its long working career.
On February 27, 2022, during the battle for Gostomel, the An-225 Mriya was destroyed by Russian-racist invaders. The last An-22A Antei in Ukraine "died" with it.
Now the An-225 Mriya can be lifted into the virtual air only in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, or seen in an old chronicle. And although at the beginning of the full-scale invasion frankly unrealistic projects of the revival of the aircraft were discussed, most likely there will never be a second Mriya. But as a symbol of Ukrainian aviation, as a symbol of our victories and struggle, the An-225 Mriya will remain with us forever. A huge beetle buzzing somewhere out there, behind the clouds.