Proletarians in Rome

    

    Tupolevs in the Roman Sky

    Di Luigino Caliaro
    (traduzione di Leonardo Pavese)

    Recently, I had a chance to scan a few pictures that belong to a collector friend of mine, which, if at first, were not very interesting to me, because they were not pictures of Italian aircraft. But, after looking at them in detail they revealed a link to Italian aviation history that I did not expect.

    Examining some of the pictures, I realized that in them there appeared some Regia Aeronautica’s officers, while other photos revealed backgrounds that were not, after all, totally unknown to me.

Thanks to a 1934 copy of the publication Le Vie dell’Aria, I was able to trace the event pictured in my friend’s photos: It was the August 1934 visit to Rome by three Soviet Tupolev bomber aircraft.

It must be said that that was not the first time that such exotic aircraft had visited the Eternal City. On September 1, 1926, Soviet pilot Michail Gromov and mechanic Yevgeny Radzevich landed at the Roma Centocelle airport with the Tupolev ANT-3 christened Proletariat, and registered RR-SOV. They were welcomed by the Italian military authorities and returned to Russia the day after, completing a 7150 km (3860 nautical miles) European tour in a little more than 34 hours. They had departed from Moscow, Russia, on August 30 and stopped in Konigsberg, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Prague and Warsaw.

The Proletariat during a stop in its European Tour.
 It was powered by a 450 hp Napier engine

The ANT-3 Proletariat at the Rome Centocelle airport

    The second Soviet airplane to reach Italy, in July 1029, was the Tupolev ANT-9 URSS-309, christened Wings of the Soviets, which was the protagonist of a long European propaganda flight from July 10 to August 8, 1929, with a route from Moscow and back, landing in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Marseille, Prague and Warsaw.

The Tupolev ANT-9 Wings of the Soviet. The aircraft is in the livery of Dobrolet, the airline precursor of Aeroflot.
The cover poster of this post is an advertisement that invites people emphatically to buy shares of Dobrolet.  

     The Soviet legation met with the then Minister of Aviation Italo Balbo at the Littorio airfield, visited the Aeronautical Research Institute at the Montecelio Airport and ended their visit with a meeting with the Head of Government, Benito Mussolini, at his residence.

    But the object of my photographic discovery was the third visit by Soviet airplanes in August 1934. 

    On Sunday August 5, 1934 three VVS’ squads, consisting each of three Tupolev ANT-6’s, took off from Moscow headed to Rome, Paris and Warsaw. They were returning the courtesy visits made by the Italian S.I.A.I. S.55 seaplanes to Odessa, on the occasion of their Eastern Mediterranean Cruise, and by French and Polish aeronautical missions to Moscow.
    All the three flights, which comprised nine heavy Tupolev ANT-6 bombers built and adapted specifically for that task, had been organized in detail and made a great impression on the European public, demonstrating the high level reached by the Soviet aviation industry.

    The three airplanes that arrived in Italy constituted the first squad. They were the ANT-6 registered 2240, 2241 and 2242. The aircraft landed in the late afternoon on Tuesday August 7 at the Rome Ciampino airport.

    The three aircraft presented themselves in the sky of the Italian capital at 7:15 PM, and they paraded for a few minutes in a wedge formation before landing at 7:30 PM. 

    Afterwards, they taxied to the large hangar of the G.B. Pastine airport after hoisting the Soviet and the Italian flags and pennants with the colors of the Air Force of the U.S.S.R. on the forward part of the fuselage.

    Welcoming the Soviet aviators there were the Italian Royal Air Force Lieutenant General Fernando Silvestri, commander of the III Territorial Air Zone, representing the Under Secretary of the Air Force General Giuseppe Valle, who could not be present because was occupied with important large scale miliary maneuvers. Among the civilian and military authorities there were the Soviet ambassador in Rome Vladimir Petrovič Potëmkin, the naval and aeronautical military attaches to the Soviet Embassy, several other officers of the Italian Royal Air Force, and a delegation representing the diplomatic personnel of the embassy of the U.S.S.R. 

    A company of the Italian Royal Air Force presidium battalion and the officers of the units based at the airport made up the honor guard together with the Music Corp of the 81st Italian Infantry Battalion providing the music for the occasion.

    After the engines were shut off, the Chief of the Soviet Mission, General Eidemann, disembarked from the first aircraft, followed by a group of officers and the crew. Altogether, eleven people who were promptly welcomed by General Liotta and General Pellegrini and by the other dignitaries. They reviewed the Italian Royal Air Force honor guard, while the band played the Soviet national anthem, the Marcia Reale and Giovinezza. Then General Eidemann introduced the members of the crew to the military and civilian authorities before being accompanied to the hotel for a well-deserved rest.

    Besides the chief of the mission General Eidemann and General Todersky as his vice-chief, the Soviet group included General Socolov as commander of the Air Squadron, the head of the Soviet Air Academy General Lavrov, General Levin, commander of the flight schools, General Petrov, inspector of the Air Forces and the aircraft designers Yakovlev and Chyetverikov. On the three aircraft there were twenty-three other crew members.

    On the following day, the Soviet mission had a chance to visit the Montecelio airport and participate to an official dinner offered by Italian pilots at the Casa dell’Aviatore. On the third day of their visit, the Soviet mission was a guest of Benito Mussolini, who received the Soviet officers at Palazzo Venezia, in the presence of Ambassador Potëmkin, the Italian Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Hon. Suvich and the Undersecretary for the Italian Air Force General Valle.

General Valle reviews the Soviet crew members

    The visit of the Soviet legation continued for a few more days and they returned to the Soviet Union on August 14,1931.

    Below there are a few more pictures of the Tupolevs with their crews preparing to depart from Rome Ciampino airport.

    

    This article was taken from the issue n. 147 of the Italian magazine Ali Antiche. The magazine is a publication of G.A.V.S. (Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici), an Italian organization dedicated to preserving Italian aviation heritage.

    

    I hope you found it interesting.

    Your comments will be gratly appreciated.

    Thank you,

    L. Pavese

    04/02/2026