Gatchina Days: Reminiscences of a Russian Pilot

The author recounts his experiences in the Revolution and explains why he left the Bolsheviks and eventually emigrated to the U.S

Riaboff completed this slim memoir in 1980, six decades after the events he describes. Perhaps this time lapse explains the rather dry, detached style and the general lack of immediacy. Yet he has many first-hand observations to offer concerning the perils of early aviation, his adventures in the Red Air Fleet soon after the Russian Revolution, and his subsequent defection to the counterrevolutionary Whites. The volume concludes with his arrival on American soil in 1923. Numerous photographs complement the text. The editor's notes and commentary provide coherence and continuity. Gatchina Days will have moderate appeal for those interested in aviation history and/or eyewitness accounts of the brutal revolutionary and civil war eras. Mark R. Yerburgh, Trinity Coll . Lib., Burlington, Vt.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.