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Flieger (1989) 

Kyiv - Where helicopters were born 

KYIV DESTINATION: Yaroslaviv Val 

On Yaroslaviv Val St, about 400m away from the Golden Gate square you will come across an empty 19th century building on the left. Currently awaiting renovation, the Kyiv photography archive has used the windows as a place to display portraits from the era.
If you walk through the archway in that building you will come into a courtyard with a further derelict yellow building. It was in this courtyard where the very first helicopter flight in the world took place (see last photo of the machine).
The yellow building was the home of Igor Sikorskiy and his parents. He was home tutored here by his mother who was a scientist. His father would take him on business trips to Europe and here he first learned of the Wright Brothers success in manned flight. This inspired him back in Kyiv to replicate their experiments.
 
The yellow building also has a built-in arch, and here you will find a make-shift museum of posters in Ukrainian and in English which explain his story and feature photos of some of his inventions.
 
 By 1903 Sikorskiy went to study in St Petersburg and he travelled to the USA after the Russian revolution in 1919. By 1923 he set up his own aviation business, and Russian composer Rachmaninoff invested in the company. There he designed many famous planes and helicopters, some which still bear his name to this day. In 1942 Sikorskiy produced the first production line helicopter.
Do you know of any other links to Kyiv with aviation?
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