The Photos section on Violity has a separate subsection dedicated to technology. Just a week ago, the most expensive item sold there was an album of an appendix to the certificate of registration of the ship Ivan Moskalenko built in Kherson. It was bought for 3,500 hryvnias on November 6 this year, and on the same day the Mriya came to the auction.
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An original photograph of a Ukrainian airplane, and more importantly, with the autographs of its designers and test pilots, was sold on November 12 for 10200 UAH. During the bidding, users placed 33 bids for the lot.
The AN-225 Mriya is the largest transport airplane in the world. It was designed by the Kyiv Antonov Design Bureau for the Soviet space program, including the transportation of the Buran spacecraft. The AN-225 has been in service since 1989. In the late 1990s, it was modified for commercial heavy cargo transportation. The airplane holds 240 world aviation records.
bibliograf18 / violity.com
The seller did not specify the exact size of the photo in the description, but assures us that it is "huge." On its front side, one can see more than two dozen signatures, and in the lower left corner, the date is marked: 28.08.1989.
bibliograf18 / violity.com
It is not known what exactly happened that day, but shortly before that, in June, Mriya was demonstrated at the 38th International Aerospace Salon in Le Bourget, France.
According to the official website of the state aviation enterprise Antonov, the famous aircraft made its first flight from the factory airfield in Sviatoshyno on December 20, 1988. The crew consisted of the following members: commander O. Galunenko, co-pilot S. Horbik, navigator S. Nechayev, flight engineers O. Shuleshchenko and V. Husar, flight engineer V. Bilousov, and leading flight test engineer M. Kharchenko.Mriya crew membersGovernment Courier / ukurier.gov.ua
At the beginning of the large-scale invasion, on February 27, 2022, the AN-225 burned down in a hangar during the fighting for the Gostomel airport. As Ukroboronprom CEO Yuriy Husyev later noted, "the russians destroyed our Mriya, but the dream of a Ukraine free from the occupier cannot be destroyed."
