Moscow’s Khodynka Field is famous as the place where well over a thousand people were trampled to death at the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in the panic that followed the rumor there might not be enough beer for those assembled there (damn, that rumor still incites widespread panic even today). There’s not much there now except for a parking lot … and a strange assemblage of Soviet military hardware.
Listen up, kids — this kind of thing doesn’t happen in America or Europe: A completely unsupervised collection of Soviet air power, Hinds and MIGs, relics that once hunted down Afghani goat-herders now at your disposal for war games and stupid pictures.
We approached with slight trepidation, in light of the hulking military hardware, sitting silent like a more sinister version of the elephant graveyard in “The Lion King.” Suddenly, we heard the ping of bullets hitting metal as a tween in fatigues unloaded his clip in a burst of automatic fire …
Turns out they were just playing a little strikeball around the old helis. We asked this bright-eyed youth how we might enter the compound. Then thick-necked security guard, roused from his vodka- and salted fish-induced stupor, ambled up to the fence. After a fair amount of grimacing and hushed conversation, he beckoned us inside, to a world of wonders …
To be continued …
