Popovich, Marina Lavrentievna

Marina Lavrentievna Vasilieva was born, according to official data ^[4] , on July 20, 1931 in the Velizhsky district of the Western region (now Smolensk region ), on the Leonenki farm, in the family of Lavrentiy Fedosovich Korovkin-Vasiliev and Ksenia Loginovna Shcherbakova ^[5] .

Marina’s childhood passed in the village of Samusenki ^[4] . The family had five children, but after the accident with her older sister Zoe, who died tragically, Marina became the eldest ^[5] .

My father drove rafts along the Western Dvina , but at the same time he was fond of musical art, he himself did violins and played well.

“My dad was a violinist, from childhood I performed with him at concerts (played on small cymbals), and Uncle Karp played the button accordion. Such was our family instrumental ensemble. Therefore, parents and relatives were sure: my future is music, ”she later recalled ^[6] .

Sister Marina Valentina graduated from the conservatory, later became a conductor in the theater. The two mother brothers were pilots; the war prompted her to make a choice in favor of flying art ^[7] . At the beginning of World War II, the family was evacuated to Novosibirsk , but later she recalled:

We lived near Smolensk, in the small town of Velizh . We were constantly bombed, and then I saw enough of the horrors of war ... After that, my cousins ​​Misha and Volodya Ivanutins, who were 9-12 years old, went into the partisans . The memory of the war is very strong ... So, why I wanted to fly. I wanted to take revenge on the Nazis. Take revenge. But while I was growing up, the Nazis did not die, and the desire to learn how to fly remained ^[7] .

For admission to the aviation school, in 1947, she had many obstacles, one of them was small growth (1.50 meters).

“My legs didn't reach the pedals. Then I set a goal - to stretch my legs. I found climbing herons and asked me to be hung upside down. As a result, I either grew up (I was 16 years old), or my classes helped, but my height increased to 1.61 meters and the path to the flying club was opened. At first I jumped with a parachute, and then I began to fly, ”she recalled ^[7] .

Another obstacle was gender: although during the years of World War II many women flew, but after the war the era of jet aviation began and women were no longer enrolled in aviation schools.
The third problem was too young - 16 years, for which Vasilyeva “attributed” to herself an extra 6 years. Marina obtained a reception from the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR K. E. Voroshilov and received permission to enroll; so she gained the opportunity to become a professional pilot ^{[8] [9] [10]} .

Marina Vasilyeva began flying in 1948 . In 1951 , she graduated from the Aviation College in Novosibirsk , after which she worked as a design engineer at the Komintern factory (1951-1953). After graduating from the DOSAAF Central Flight Technical School in Saransk (later the Moscow branch of the Kiev Aviation Institute ), she worked there as an instructor for some time, and since 1958 she became a flight instructor at the V.P. Chkalov Central Aero Club . In order to gain the right to control a fighter , she secured admission to military service ^[11] , and later graduated from the Leningrad Academy of Civil Aviation ^[12] .

In 1955, Marina married the future USSR pilot-cosmonaut Pavel Popovich , whom she had been married to for 30 years ^[13] .

Since 1960, Marina Popovich began to master the technique of piloting in jet aircraft ^[11] . In 1962, she was invited as a candidate for cosmonauts and underwent a medical examination as part of the second group of cosmonauts, but was not taken into the squad ^[11] .

In 1964 , M.L. Popovich became the only military test pilot of the 1st class in the country. She became the commander of the An-12 ship at the Air Force Research Institute . It was she who was the first of the Soviet female test pilots MiG-21 to overcome the sound barrier (for which she was nicknamed "Madame MiG" in the Western press ^[9] ). Over the next few years, she set 102 world records, in particular, on the RV plane ( Yak-25 RV ^[14] ). The first of them, at speed, was installed in Brno on a Czech L-29 aircraft, after which, according to ITAR-TASS , “the records became the 'usual work' of a pilot” ^[11] .

In the summer of 1965, on a Yak-25RV airplane with two turbojet engines, she set a world record for the flight speed of aircraft of this class, following a closed two-hundred-kilometer route with an average speed of 737.28 km / h. On September 20, 1967, Popovich broke the world record of the American Jacqueline Cochran by flying the Yak-25RV plane on the route Volgograd - Moscow - Astrakhan - Volgograd 2510 km and exceeding the record by 344 km ^[4] .

13 of her records are registered with the International Aviation Association ( FAI ) ^[4] . Ten world records were won by her as the commander of the giant air ship An-22 Antei ; she became the only woman pilot in the world to pilot a plane of this class ^[9] ) ^[12] . In the last record flight, the crew, led by Popovich, covered a distance of 1000 km at a speed exceeding 600 km / h, with a cargo of 50 tons.

In 1969 she defended her thesis for the degree of candidate of technical sciences . The theme of the dissertation is “Increasing the flight range due to laminarization and the methodology of flight tests of aircraft with control over the laminated flow” ^[3] .

In 1979-1984 Popovich worked as a leading test pilot at the Antonov Design Bureau in Kiev ^[12] . At the age of 53, she completed her flying career ^[9] , during which she flew 5600 hours, mastered more than 40 types of airplanes and helicopters, tested aviation equipment at the Civil Aviation Research Institute named after V.P. Chkalov and Design Bureau O.K. Antonov (including for five types of aircraft - as a leading test pilot).

Later she served as president of the VERSTO flight association in Tushino, headed the Converse Avia airline at the Ministry of Aviation Industry , worked at the center of A. Ye. Akimov , engaged in the study of “ torsion fields ” ^[12] .

Writer, author of 14 books ^[9] . An enthusiast and researcher in the field of ufology ^{[12] [15]} .

In recent years, she lived with her husband in the Mostovsky district of the Krasnodar Territory , where the couple bought a plot of land in 2013 and built a house. She led an active lifestyle, took part in the life of the district. On the morning of November 30, 2017, she was hospitalized in the interdistrict cardiology center of Krasnodar ^[16] . Died on November 30, 2017 in Krasnodar ^[17] . She was buried with military honors on December 4, 2017 at the Federal War Memorial Cemetery ^[18] .

Community Activities

• M. L. Popovich was an activist of the Communist Party , a member of the women's movement "Hope of Russia."

  Now being in the Communist Party is like in a partisan detachment. My goal is to defend domestic aviation. The communists have the same goals. Today's time is barren, its symbol is the destroyed Buran . ^[19]

She said in an interview with Soviet Russia .

• From 2007 to 2013, M. L. Popovich was vice-president of the International Center of the Roerichs .
• Popovich held the post of vice-rector of the Institute of Management (Arkhangelsk) for the patriotic education of youth.
• She was a full member of the Platonov Academy of Sciences (France), the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts (St. Petersburg), the International Theological Academy and a member of the Academy of Security, Defense and Law and Order ^[12] .

Personal life

• First husband - Pavel Romanovich Popovich (1930-2009), USSR pilot-cosmonaut . Divorced in the 1980s.
  • Daughters (both graduated from MGIMO ):
    • Natalya Pavlovna (born 1956) and
    • Oksana Pavlovna (born 1968).
    • M. L. Popovich has two granddaughters and a grandson:
      • Tatyana,
      • Alexandra,
      • Michael (born in England) ^{[5] [20]} .
• The second husband is Boris Alexandrovich Zhikhorev (born 1948), a military pilot, retired major general ^[9] . Deputy Chairman of the Central Council of the Union of Soviet Officers, Chairman of the Moscow Regional Organization of the MTR.

• 1985 - Order of the Red Banner of Labor (02/12/1985)
• 1961 - Order of the Badge of Honor (07/31/1961)
• Honored Master of Sports of the USSR
• 1972 - FAI Gold Aviation Medal - for the dissemination of aeronautical knowledge ^[12]
• 2004 - Laureate of the Olimpia National Prize for Public Recognition of Women's Achievements, Russian Academy of Business and Entrepreneurship ^[21]

A number of newspaper and Internet publications indicate that Popovich had the title Hero of Socialist Labor ^[22] , and the pilot herself appeared in public and took pictures for printing with the Hammer and Sickle medal on her chest. In fact, the title of Popovich was not awarded the title of legitimate authority of the USSR, and she received the award with that name in 2001, on her 70th birthday, from the hands of Sazha Umalatova ^{[8] [23] [24]} .

M. L. Popovich - member of the Union of Writers of Russia ^[12] . Among the books she published:

• "Jump into the sky"
• 1972 - “Life is an Eternal Rise” (a collection of poems, co-authored with T. Kozhevnikova.)
• “Walking in two swings”
• "Icarus Sisters"
• “Start above the clouds”
• "An autograph in the sky"
• 2003 - "UFO over the planet Earth"
• UFO-Glasnost
• 2007 - The Magic of Heaven
• "Alone with Heaven" (co-authored with B. A. Zhikhorev)
• “Information Transmission System” (co-authored with V. Popova and L. Andrianova)
• “Letters from Extraterrestrial Civilizations” (co-authored with V. Popova and L. Andrianova)
• “I am a pilot. Memoirs and Reflections ”(2011) ^[25]

M. L. Popovich - screenwriter:

On May 7, 2018, a monument dedicated to Marina Popovich was opened on the territory of the test center located at the Chkalovsky military airfield in the Moscow region ^[26] .

The star in the constellation Cancer is named after Marina Popovich ^[4] .

Her name will be called the street of the district center of the Mostovsky Krasnodar Territory ^[27] .

The documentary "Separated by the Sky." Channel One , Meeting Studio, 2010 ^[28]

• Photos with Marina Popovich on the portal “History of Russia in Photos”
• Marina Lavrentievna Popovich . www.roerichs.com.
• Interview M. L. Popovich . www.drugg.ru.
• “I can't help but believe in UFOs . ” - Interview in AiF.
• Military childhood of Marina Popovich . An article in the Rodnik newspaper dated 12.5.2010
• Vice President of the International Center of the Roerichs
• “Overcoming” Documentary about Marina Popovich
• “M. Popovich is gone”
• Marina Lavrentievna Popovich (Vasilieva) // Marina Lavrentievna Popovich (Vasiliyeva)
• T. Sapegin. Alone with heaven (neopr.) . The Red Star (02/20/2009). Date of treatment July 15, 2012.