Central museum of armed forces of the Russian federation.

On August 29th 2019, Alain, Levie and Tim visited the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in northern Moscow.

The museum displays the history and progress from the Soviet armed forces from the Russian Civil War (1917-1923) till the present day.

In this museum is a large collection of hardware that the Russians used throughout their military history. In this report we focus on the aviation side of the museum. The museum can be split in 2 pieces, exhibitions inside the building and outside.

The biggest part from the airframes that the museum has in its inventory are displayed outside but they are sadly placed really close together which makes it really difficult to get some decent pictures from those displayed aircraft, some of them even are impossible to photograph. Below a small impression from the things that we managed to photograph.

Inside the museum there are mostly small weapons and vehicles and uniforms on display, but in one hall of the museum there’s something that you wouldn’t expect it to be there.

In this hall also a plane is on display, or at least what remains of it as it is a wreck. What makes it even more rare is that this wreck is actually from an American made aircraft.

Displayed here are the remains from the Lockheed U-2C that was piloted by Francis Gary Powers when it was shot down by an SA-2 (Russian name: S-75 Dvina) surface-to-air missile while it was on an aerial reconnaissance mission above the Soviet Union on May 1st, 1960.

Both the remains of the U2-C and a copy of the S-75 are displayed together. 

Although photography is quite difficult in this museum, it is definitely worth a visit. Certainly if you’re interested in military history in general and not just aviation as there are also a lot of items displayed from the Russian Army and Navy.

Text: Alain Meykens

Pictures: Tim Van den Boer