In museum's hanger: Sukhoi ANT-25RD dwarfs Polikarpov I-16.

From: Hans Ostermuenchner (Hans.Ostermuenchner@t-online.de)

There is a little museum in Tschkalows home town Tschkalowsk, where they exhibit his record plane the ANT-25 and an Iljuschin 16 [RAP comment: Or is it Polikarpov I-16] as well as a Polikarpow 2. Tschalowsk is about an hour north of Nishnij Novgorod on the river Wolga. I personally visited the museum a year ago. It is part of a small complex were they show the house Tschkalow was born in and grew up.They have moved the house a bit, because where it was earlier, there is a artifical lake now. And in the big garden surrounding the house, they have put up a hangarlike nice building. The ANT-25 that is on display there, is the one Tschkalow used for his flight over the north pole to Vancouver in 1937 and not a mockup. The director of the museum is an old and nice fellow and also authored a book covering Tschkalows live.The title is " Krylatoe Imja- Tschkalow". He even gave us a tour on Monday, the officially closed day, since we were >from Germany. Right on the south side of the property is a monument in form of an old Mig-21.

Some additional information in russian. Two years after Chkalov's death, in the house where Valerij Pavlovitch was born was established a memorial. In 1957, hanger was added which hosts small collection of the aircraft among which is ANT-25 flown by Chkalov, Belyakov and Bajdukov.