The confused Kremlin Pilot...


On September 4, 1987, after a two-day trial, the 18-year-old German Mathias Rust from Wedel (near Hamburg) was sentenced to four years in a labor camp "for entering the country illegally, violating international air traffic regulations and serious hooliganism"...:



He does not have to serve the sentence, because following a pardon from the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Andrej Gromyko...



... Rust will be released early from prison on August 3, 1988, and immediately deported to Germany...:



Rust had previously become world famous when he landed a chartered light aircraft on May 28, 1987 in the bus park next to Red Square, right next to St. Basil's Cathedral.







After landing, which miraculously didn't cost any lives, Rust said rather confusingly that on the one hand he had made his flight "for world peace" and "understanding between our peoples" and on the other hand he had made the flight "for fun"...:





That the German had managed to get to Moscow unnoticed by the Soviet air defence...



... costs Soviet Defense Minister Sergej Sokolow...



...and the commander of the Soviet air defenses, Aleksandr Koldunow...



... offices and honors.

KP chief Gorbachev happily uses the unexpected opportunity to get rid of the two military men who are considered "hardliners"...

Rust attracted attention again in 1989 when, during his civil service in a hospital in Rissen (near Hamburg), he stabbed and seriously injured a student nurse who rejected his advances.

On April 19, 1991, Rust was sentenced to 30 months in prison for attempted manslaughter in a minor case; He did not have to serve this sentence in full either, but was released prematurely after 15 months in October 1993.

Rust then moved first to Moscow, where he worked as a waiter, then to Berlin, where he was not very successful as a professional poker player. According to his own statements, he has been working as a – allegedly – ​​“financial analyst” in Switzerland since 2012 and, as he said on a German TV talk show, was planning to open a yoga school and write his memoirs...:





The "work" of Rust - another book that the world does not need! - was released on the 25th anniversary of his Moscow flight and, according to reports, is not supposed to sell very well...



The aircraft used by Rust on his Moscow flight, a Cessna 172 P with the registration D-ECJB, was bought after Rust's flight while still in the USSR by a Munich cosmetics company at double the appraised value and shipped to Germany on October 19, 1987 retrieved. Plans to use the machine for advertising purposes failed.

The Cessna was later sold to a Japanese club and exhibited in the open air at a theme park in Utsunomiya near Tokyo.



In October 2008 the "Cessna" was brought back to Berlin and restored at the expense of the German taxpayer.

Since May 28, 2009 it has been a permanent exhibit in the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin...: