We had an appointment across the airfield at the VARZ-400 rework facility that readers may remember from my trip there last year. We saw a couple of Tu-154s that used to fly with Samara Airlines, one of which is the ex VIP aircraft for the Samara region of Russia which includes the regions coat of arms on the tail. This airline ceased operations in 2008.

Two airlines that seem to be doing well are Gazpromavia who had a bunch of Yak-42s here in the new colours looking like they had been freshly overhauled, and Alrosa who had a couple of nice looking Tu-154s on the ramp. Tu-154 RA-85790 painted in the Yakutiya scheme is an aircraft that was a regular in Europe in the late nineties, as it flew with Balkan as LZ-LTC.

One long term addition to the facility was Il-86 RA-86123 of Atlant-Soyuz which will most probably never fly again as it is engineless and being robbed for spares. So the day was nearly done and we had a great fill of Russian types that will be hard to beat as time marches on.

Next stop Domodedovo.