On November 18, an EWCS dedicated to the 125th Birth Anniversary of M.Vodopyanov, an aircraft pilot, a Hero of the Soviet Union, was put into postal circulation in the framework of the “On the 80th Anniversary of Victory in the GPW of 1941–1945” series

Mikhail Vodopyanov (1899–1980) was a Soviet aircraft pilot, a participant in the Chelyuskin expedition rescue operation in 1934, one of the seven first Heroes of the Soviet Union (1934), a Participant of high-latitude Arctic expeditions. He was a Major General of Aviation (1943).

Mikhail Vodopyanov was born on November 6 (18), 1899, in the village of Bolshiye Studyonki (presently, part of the city of Lipetsk) of the Lipetsk Uyezd, Tambov Province. In 1929, he graduated from the Moscow Aviation Technical School and worked in the Transaviation Far Eastern Air Lines Directorate of the Dobrolyot Company in Khabarovsk. On January 10 of 1930, onboard the plane Junkers F-13 (flight number SSSR-127) he laid the air route Khabarovsk - Okha - Alexandrovsk-on-Sakhalin named the Route of Heroes, which is 1,130 kilometers long. In 1934, he insisted on being sent to participate in the rescue operation of the team of the Chelyuskin steamship. Onboard an R-5 airplane, he made a flight of nearly 6,500 km from Khabarovsk to Vankarem accompanied by V. Galyshev and I. Doronin. In March of 1935, he made a flight along the route Moscow - Sverdlovsk - Omsk - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk - Chita - Khabarovsk - Nikolaevsk-on-Amur - Okhotsk - Magadan - Gizhiga - Anadyr - Uelen - Cape Schmidt in order to lay a new air path for the arrangement of postal and passenger communications.

In 1936-1937, he made flights to the Arctic; he was the aircraft division director. On May 21, 1937, onboard the ANT-6 aircraft (an Arctic version of the TB-3 plane), during the first high-latitude Soviet expedition Sever (North) he made the world's first ice landing the vicinity of the North Pole, using a braking parachute. M. Vodopyanov's plane delivered a group of winterers who organized the first drift station Severny Polyus (North Pole) (SP-1).

Mikhail Vodopyanov was a participant in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 as the commander of the TB-3 heavy bomber. He performed several combat sorties. He participated in the Great Patriotic War: from July of 1941, he was the commander of the 81st Long Range Bomber Aviation Division. Since February of 1946, Vodopyanov was in the reserve in the rank of Major General of Aviation. In 1948-1950s, he participated in the military high-latitude expeditions Sever (North) and Sever-2 (North-2).

M. Vodopyanov is the author of two dozens of biographical books about the conquest of the sky, a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR. Among his writings there are The Pilot’s Dream, From Plough to Airplane, The Pilot’s Way, Valery Chkalov, The Tale of the First Heroes, On Wings to the Arctic, Polar Pilot, Navigator Frosya, The Sky Begins from the Ground.

The envelope with a commemorative stamp provides a portrait of Major General of Aviation Mikhail Vodopyanov against a panorama of Berlin and flying TB-7 airplanes; the commemorative stamp features the emblem of the 80th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

In addition to the issue of the envelope with a commemorative stamp, JSC Marka produced special cancels for Moscow, Tambov and Lipetsk.


Design Artists: A. Moskovets and R. Komsa.
Quantity: 500 thousand envelopes.

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