Il-76M | 1991

Airline - Moscavia
Aircraft - Il-76T | RA-76547
Delivered to Sovnaravia, 1986
'Sold' to Moscavia, 1991
Stored at Irkutsk, 2010
Livery - Standard 1991
Country - Russian Federation

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the massive country's flag carrier - Sovnaravia - splintered. Parts of it became the flag carriers of newly independent republics like Georgia and Ukraine, while the central core rebranded as Russian International Airlines, the new flag carrier of the Russian Federation. During this process, however - especially in the incredible tumultuous year of 1991 - a large number of small regional airlines and charter carriers sprung up throughout the post-Soviet-bloc states, including all over Russia. These started operations by grabbing whatever aircraft were available, left abandoned all over the Union by the rapidly disintegrating Sovnaravia.

One of these airlines was Moscavia, which initially began operations out of Domodedovo airport in Moscow. Its founder, Oleg Baghdassarian, quickly proved himself as an intelligent businessman, traveling all over Russia to snatch up whatever aircraft he could find, sometimes flying them back to Moscow himself. He took advantage of the privatization system implemented after the collapse of the Soviet Union to acquire an initial fleet of over a hundred aircraft (many of which were stored for parts and never actually operated by the airline) at insanely low prices - while no real data is available, it has been said that no single plane cost him over $10,000, with the average amount spend on each aircraft being somewhere around $500, and many actually acquired through barter, for example Baghdassarian swapped his own Moskvitch 2140 car for a Tupolev Tu-154 in Saratov. The Il-76T shown here, RA-76547, was involved in probably the most insane aircraft deal made in 1991. It was 'bought' by Baghdassarian in the far-northern Russian town Noviy Urengoy, who offered to pay for the fuel and give the crew (who had been stranded awaiting orders for months) twelve bottles of vodka in exchange for them flying the plane back home to Moscow, handing it over to him no questions asked, and going home to finally see their families.

The way Baghdassarian was able to make Moscavia stand out from all the other startups in the early 90s was painting his aircraft in a vastly different livery, consisting mostly of white, with red and blue stripes (for the new Russian flag) on the tail. This stood out because everyone else was leaving the Sovnaravia livery on their planes, and simply changing the titles. Moscavia began both passenger and cargo domestic operations in mid-1991 after amassing a large fleet in Domodedovo, with its first flight being to St Petersburg. It expanded quickly to other domestic destinations, then to post-Soviet states (focusing heavily on the Caucasus region, especially Georgia and Armenia). The airline's greatest international growth, however, was yet to come.

Note: I've been working on this project behind the scenes for over a year now, and figured now - with HEYEY's fantastic Il-76 template just released - was a good a time as any to start publishing it.