Monument to the Naval Pilots of the Second World War in the North Sea, Severomorsk, 1967

As Mark Khidekel recalls, I started designing and participating in competitions since my student years, and the most successful and quickly implemented projects were monuments dedicated to the events of the Second World War.

At first, there was a monument to naval pilots who defended American convoys delivering Lend-Lease to Murmansk.

How was the plastic idea of the monument born? - this is a flight over the endless, deserted and snow-covered hills, so there was a tall, inclined, as if under the pressure of the wind, vertical stela with a long wing, which was clearly read against the background of the northern sky. This is a kind of abstracted Athena Apteros, energizing and giving a feeling of flight. In those days, abstract monuments were not erected, but the customers, the pilots, accepted the idea immediately and as one of them said: "There is no plane, but it flies."