WHBM

Aeroflot was of course the all-encompassing Soviet Union aircraft operator in socialist times. They were organised into a significant number of "Directorates", each based at the principal airport of the region, and there was also the International Directorate, doing everything outside the country, the vast majority of this from Moscow SVO, there were just a few from other points, which were run by the relevant local directorate under subcontract. When Aeroflot was broken up, or to be more precise retrenched back to just running from Moscow SVO both domestic and international, it was these various local directorates which became the relevant airline from that base. Some have survived, some haven't, of course. Quite a number spotted that the pickings at their local base were nothing compared to Moscow, and set up second bases there.

In the Russian Far East (not to be confused with "Siberia", that's far to the west), the principal city is Khabarovsk, as it is on the Trans-Siberian railway. It's inland, whereas Vladivostok is a comparably-sized city, is base of the Russian Navy Pacific Fleet. For a long time it was a "closed city" to foreigners, who were not allowed in although it was the main railway terminus; they had to be transferred at Khabarovsk to a side railway route to Nakhodka, from where passenger ships sailed to Japan. For aviation, the main airports are Anadyr, Petropavlovsk, Magadan, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.

Anadyr is furthest north and near to the Bering Strait with Alaska. Like all these airports, its principal service is to Moscow, which today is run by a daily UTair 767-200. UTair is one of those who set up a second base in Moscow, originally the Tyumen Directorate (hence the T in the name), mid-Russia, it now does most work from there. The 767-200s are the onetime Continental very late-build fleet of these, built around 2001, which United got rid of pretty soon after the merger. Depending on winds, this flight, which routes north over the Arctic Ocean, can on occasion overfly the North Pole, bringing in another recent discussion. A Russian domestic flight ! It can cross there at right-angles flights like Cathay from New York to Hong Kong.

Petropavlovsk is on the Kamchatka peninsula, that's the one that sticks down towards the westernmost of the US Aleutians. Daily flight to Moscow currently is an Aeroflot 777-300ER, routing somewhat south of the Anadyr one.

Magadan is on the Sea of Okhotsk, that's the sea area somewhat contained by Kamchatka, and like Petropavlovsk has a daily Aeroflot 777-300ER to Moscow. Khabarovsk is further south still, the major city of the region. Strangely, back in Soviet days a common route from the likes of Magadan or Anadyr, and other lesser places, to get to Moscow was to fly to Khabarovsk and then spend 8 days on the Trans-Siberian train. There always were direct flights, but you had to be of a certain Soviet grade to qualify. "All animals were equal, but some were more equal than others" . Khabarovsk has two 777-300ERs a day to Moscow today, and Vladivostok has three. It's obviously a considerable operation for the Aeroflot 777 fleet. 20 years ago it was all IL-86 and IL-62. Various other operators came and went, but now Aeroflot dominates. Again ! They have also supplanted the various Far East regional operators as well; the onetime Tu154s run by the new-world former directorates have been replaced by Aeroflot A320s.

Bear in mind that there is no road structure connecting these widely-spread cities, which apart from Khabarovsk (on the railway) are all on the coast and used to rely on shipping connections. This of course is how they supported Alaska to Sitka etc before 1867 - either by sailing ship from St Petersburg via the Baltic, Atlantic, Cape Horn and the Pacific, or overland by horse from Moscow to Vladivostok, then by ship. Up to a year each way by either route (Pushkin's novel "The Stationmaster" is about life in 1820 at a horse-changing station on the pre-railway eastern route). If speaking about routes of Russian domestic operations, remember a good number of their internal freight ships still have to pass to the south of India ...

Regarding operations from the Russian Far East to the USA west coast in the 1990s-2000s, when it opened up, these are complex because the various routings changed every year, often more than once, and a lot were short lived. From the US side Alaska Airlines has various shots at all the airports mentioned, apart I think from Anadyr (any comments?), running from Anchorage. From the Russian side the various liberated Directorates tried various routes the other way, sometimes to Anchorage, other times to Seattle or San Francisco. The Tu154 was the standard aircraft they used, with a few Il-62 as well - when broken off, the new companies generally got just whatever was the fraction of the Old Aeroflot fleet based there at the time. It all seems to have retreated; are there any left or do you have to get there now via Seoul in Korea ? The flights took a combination of tourists and mining/oil exploration personnel. The tourists fell away, the mining progressed to use wholly Russian resources (travelling from Moscow in those 777s), and the general disfavour that accompanies just about any news story about Russia nowadays has put most off. Shame.

Meanwhile, here at home we are having our usual interesting combination of British and Russian traditions for Easter, fortunately not with the considerable fasting that is in Russian tradition. An egg hunt for Little Miss WHBM is in preparation as I write this - in the ivy bushes in the garden, in the back of the clothes cupboards, everywhere. Happy Easter, all.