Life is like a flight. To the 120th anniversary of Pavel Sukhoi's birth

July 10 marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of our countryman – the brilliant Soviet aircraft designer, Doctor of Technical Sciences, one of the founders of supersonic jet aviation, Pavel Sukhoi.

Pavel Osipovich was born in Glubokoye. His childhood and youth coincided with the childhood and youth of aviation. The future designer was fortunate to grow up in a family where labor, knowledge, and interest in art were always respected. His father, Osip Andreevich, was from a peasant family, but thanks to the support of his fellow villagers, he graduated from a teacher's seminary and worked for twelve years at the Glubokoye public school. He married his countrywoman, Elizaveta Yakovlevna. Two daughters and a son, Pavel, were born to the Sukhys in Glubokoye. The boy was baptized and registered in the metric book of the Glubokoye church in the presence of Natalia Gisich, a peasant woman from the village of Gaputy. The future designer's mother voluntarily taught girls needlework, for which she received gratitude from the school administration at the end of the 1892-1893 academic year. Only excellent assessments of Osip Sukhoi's professional qualities were noted in the reports of the Vilnius Directorate of Public Schools and in the cover letter for his transfer to a new job. In 1900, the family moved to Gomel: his father got a job at a railway school. Thus, five-year-old Pasha said goodbye to his small homeland forever.

Fate and talent eventually led Pavel Sukhoi to Moscow. A student of E. Zhukovsky and A. Tupolev, he wrote one of the bright pages in the history of aircraft construction. Pavel Osipovich saw the weaknesses of Russian aviation. He built a completely different aircraft model. Each of his machines was unique. On one of them, Valery Chkalov's crew made a non-stop flight from Moscow to the USA via the North Pole. Sukhoi is credited with a whole series of innovative solutions in aircraft construction.

The life of this man was bright and eventful. He worked like a possessed person. However, the creator of combat aircraft, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, holder of three Orders of Lenin and other high awards, owner of a number of prestigious prizes, Pavel Osipovich was known only to a narrow circle of people for a long time. Therefore, many pages of his biography are still full of blank spots.

The collections of the regional museum of local lore house books about our talented countryman, photographs, documents, and personal belongings of the aircraft designer – a metal ballpoint pen, glasses. All of this can tell a lot of interesting things about its owner.

Inna Yakubovich,

Senior Researcher at the Vitebsk Regional

Museum of Local Lore