The And the Vladimir Mikhailovik Komarov was born on March 16th of 1927 in the Russian capital of Moscow.

Nicknamed Volodia by his loved ones, Little Vladimir grew up among Moscow snow-dusted streets with his mother,

father, and half-sister. And although his childhood was marked by periods of great political

upheaval, little Volodia was happy.

But just as he was about to enter high school, one of the largest and most costly battles in

human history would turn Western Russia into an inferno of hatred and bloodshed.

In 1941, Germany sent an invasion force of over a million men to subdue the Soviet Red Army. And as Stalin called for a general

mobilization, life in the USSR changed for each and every one of its 205 million

citizens.

Vladimir and his family were evacuated from Moscow,

then put to work on a collective farm-growing group to support the war effort.

Conditions were brutal and provisions were scant. But one day young Vladimir looked

up into the skies above the farm and saw an angel. There drifting through the clouds, thousands of feet above him, was an airplane.

Having grown up in Moscow, Vladimir had seen airplanes before, but being confined to the collective farm had forced a sharp change of perspective.

Now the thing that floated in the skies above him became the most beautiful thing he'd ever

laid eyes on.

It was elegant. it was graceful, and it was free. From that day forward,

Vladimir was obsessed. He collected magazines and postcards depicting the fighter and bomber planes of the Soviet Air Force and begged his father to secure him a model airplane kit as well as the glue required to piece it together.

Vladimir's father did everything he could to secure the model kid for his beloved young

son and during Christmas of 1941 he found one.

Little Vladimir was overjoyed, but tragically it was the final gift he would ever receive from his father.

Mikhail Komorov was drafted into the Red Army soon afterwards and was killed during the summer fighting of

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