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The monument to Valery Chkalov is located in Chkalov Park on Honchara Street in the city center. The park is a favorite hangout spot for Kyivans, but few of them know the story of the Soviet aviation hero. Iryna Prymachyk Editor’s Note: Have you ever walked by a park statue or an engraving of a person on a building’s facade and wondered who is the person being depicted and what made him or her worthy of immortality? We have, too. So, the Kyiv Post today proudly kicks off a periodic series called “Know Your Heroes” (Soviet or Ukrainian or another) to answer these vexing questions.

What:

Chkalov monument in Chkalov Park on Honchara (formerly Chkalov) Street in Kyiv, facing the former Army Air Corps that today houses the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Who:

Valery Chkalov (1904 – 1938) was a Hero of the Soviet Union and Russian aircraft test pilot. In 1936 and 1937, Chkalov commanded several ultra-long flights. Those included a 63-hour flight from Moscow to Udd Island (today named after Chkalov) and another long trip from Moscow to Vancouver, Canada, via the North Pole on a Tupolev ANT-25 plane. Chkalov received the Hero of the Soviet Union award in 1936, after his Moscow – Udd non-stop flight of 9,374 kilometers, which later became known as the “Stalin route.” For his second, non-stop 8,811 kilometers flight (Moscow – Vancouver), Chkalov was decorated with Order of the Red Banner in 1937.

Chkalov died on Dec. 15, 1938, while testing a Polikarpov I-180 fighter aircraft. The circumstances are still disputed. According to the official version, the engine stalled because of the cold, minus 24 °C. Chkalov was also believed to have miscalculated his landing approach, falling short of the airfield, only to have his engine fail and his plane strike a power line after he attempted to correct his approach. Chkalov was ejected from the cockpit and died a few hours later from his severe injuries. The sequence of events leading up to crash is not entirely clear.

According to the documentary “Hunters: Chasing for Chkalov,” Chkalov’s daughter, Valeria, claimed that a plan to assassinate her father had been in the works by Josef Stalin and leaders of the NKVD (a forerunner to the KGB) in the months preceding his death. After the crash, Polikarpov I-180 designer Dmitry Tomashevich was arrested along with several other officials. You can learn more at www.civilization-tv.ru.

Chkalov’s burial urn is in the Kremlin Wall necropolis on Red Square in Moscow. In 1937, the Russian village of Vasilyovo, where Chkalov was born, was renamed to Chkalovsk. Since the 1970s, a street in Vancouver was named Chkalov Drive. The subway systems of Moscow and St. Petersburg have Chkalovska metro stations. In 1987, a short documentary called “A Flight Through Memory” was made about Chkalov’s flight from Moscow to Vancouver. Assistance came from Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and included participation by Shirley Temple, the American actress who came to fame as a little girl.

You can find more about Chkalov at www.warheroes.ru or the Chkalov museum’s official website www.vchkalov.ru.