One of the most tempting ideas of mankind in the second half of the 19th century was the development of airspace. The fruits of the labors of the most talented scientists and designers made it possible to realize the bold predictions of science fiction writers of that time. At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity began to actively storm the heavens. On December 17, 1903, the first incredible flight of the Orville and Wilber Wright brothers took place, captivating the European public. A couple of years later the feat was repeated by the pioneers of aeronautics Henri Farman and Louis Blériot. Their airplanes were like shelving with wings, consisting of wooden planks tied together into a single structure.
Unfortunately, domestic aviatics fans, as a new kind of human activity was then called, at that time had to be content with only newspaper clippings about the next records. The situation changed only at the beginning of 1910, after the most talented of Farman's students, Odessa citizen Mikhail Efimov, beat Orville Wright's achievement in flight duration with a passenger. After that, as if waking up, the Russian Empire began to quickly make up for lost time. Public flights were triumphant in many large cities of our country. Throughout the year, the first domestic pilots - Efimov, Vasiliev, Popov, Zaikin, Utochkin and others - demonstrated their talents in conquering the airspace. By the end of 1910, more than three dozen Russian pilots had already become the proud owners of pilot diplomas received in France.
Domestic developers also did not remain in debt. In the late spring of 1910, Prince Alexander Kudashev in Kiev built the first domestic aircraft of an original design equipped with a gasoline engine, and in June the airplane of the future world famous aircraft designer and philosopher, who was still a student, Igor Sikorsky, took off in June. Schools of flight skills were organized in Gatchina and Sevastopol. The main achievement of domestic scientists is rightfully considered the development in 1911 by Yakov Modestovich Gakkel of a fuselage-type airplane, which determined the appearance of all subsequent models.
In order to more clearly imagine all the enthusiastic feelings of ordinary people from the first flights, it is worth citing the words from Nikolai Morozov's article "The evolution of aeronautics against the background of the public life of peoples", published in the magazine "New Life" in 1911. Let us quote the noble and naive words of the scientist: “We will fly, like Bleriot, over the seas, sweep, like Chavez, over the snow-capped peaks of the Alpine mountains, where man has not yet been. Very soon we will fly over the icy continents of the polar region and the sultry deserts of Africa and Asia. But we will do a lot more. When, in two decades, airships will float over our heads, making round-the-world travels, the borders of nations, enmity and wars will disappear, and all peoples will merge into one great family!"
Back in June 1908, four years before Nicholas II approved the order on the financing of aviation detachments, which is considered the date of birth of the Air Force of our country, donations were collected in Lipetsk for the purchase and construction of balloons, as well as controlled airplanes and other aircraft. Imperial All-Russian Aeroclub. This day is considered the beginning of the aviation history of the city, which Lipetsk is rightfully proud of. Many famous pilots and outstanding cosmonauts lived and studied in the flight units located on Lipetsk land. However, for a very long time, the identity of the first aviator of the Tambov province, which until the end of the twenties of the last century included Lipetsk, remained unknown. He was a local native Nikolai Stavrovich Sakov, who in September 1911, having passed all the necessary exams at the French flying club, received a pilot's license number 627. For more than ninety years, the life of this man, like his name, was consigned to oblivion. The reasons for this are quite clear, since during the Civil War, the pilot supported the White movement. There was no place for traitors in the modern history of our Motherland, and therefore too much of his biography was lost and destroyed. But even the few facts of Nikolai Sakov's short but bright life deserve to be heard.
His father, a Greek by nationality, was called Sakov Stavr Elevterevich. In 1888, in the capital of Russia, he married Anna Nikolaevna Fedtsova, who was the daughter of a retired lieutenant from a noble family. His wife was from Lipetsk, and the newlyweds, living in Moscow, regularly came here to visit in the summer. They had a beautiful wooden house on Dvoryanskaya Street (after the revolution - Lenin Street) and a small estate near the Gryazi station. Here in Lipetsk, Anna Nikolaevna and Stavr Elevterevich had two sons - Nikolai and Alexander.
The life of the father of the future pilot deserves special attention and study. Born in 1846 in the city of Uniye, located on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, he spent his childhood on the Black Sea coast. After the Crimean War, Stavr Elevterevich emigrated to Russia with his family. Here he graduated from the Moscow Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, where he remained to teach Turkish. At the same time, fascinated by medicine, he entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. From 1877 to 1878, he participated in the Russian-Turkish war as a military doctor, and in 1879, having received the title of district doctor, Stavr Elevterevich worked at the Sheremetyevo hospital in Moscow. Simultaneously with medical practice in 1885, he defended the title of professor of oriental languages, and later, at the beginning of the 20th century, for several years served as consul of Greece in the capital of the Russian Empire.
The eldest son Nikolai Stavrovich Sakov was born on July 29, 1889. He spent his childhood in Moscow and Lipetsk. In 1902, their family was granted the nobility of the Tambov province, and his father got a job as a doctor at the prestigious Lipetsk Mineral Waters resort. In 1908, Stavr Elevterevich finally stopped teaching and decided to devote himself entirely to medicine. Soon he, together with his wife and children, finally moved to Lipetsk.
Here, unfortunately, the first blank spot in the biography of the Lipetsk pilot should be noted. It is not known for certain where and how Nikolai Sakov studied, what profession he received. However, the stories about the first flights won his young heart, and in 1911, having collected his things and received the blessing of his parents, he went to France to the famous flight school of Armand Deperdussen. The school was founded in a picturesque place called Betheny, which is near Reims. The wide local fields and plains have long been chosen by the French military, who regularly arranged maneuvers and reviews of troops here. And in 1909, aviators and balloonists organized here one of the first airfields in the world, where new personnel could be trained, and international competitions in flight skills were regularly held. The hero of our story was trained under the guidance of the most experienced pilot-instructor Maurice Prevost and already at the beginning of autumn received a diploma and a flight certificate in the name of Nicolas de Sacoff, as he was called in France. Before returning home, he bought himself a new Deperdussen monoplane from the French company SPAD. There is information about the demonstration flights of the young pilot, which took place on the Khodynskoye field, and at the beginning of 1912 Nikolai Sakov reached his native Lipetsk.
According to documentary evidence presented in the form of a note in the "Kozlovskaya Gazeta" published on May 13, 1912 in the city of Kozlov (now Michurinsk), Nikolai made his first home flight on May 6 near the village of Shekhman. Sakov's aircraft is described as a fifty-strong airplane weighing five pounds (approximately 82 kilograms). The takeoff was successful, but at an altitude of twenty fathoms (43 meters) the propeller blade broke off the airplane. The plane crashed to the ground and crashed, but, fortunately, the pilot escaped with only minor injuries. The remains of the airplane were sent for repair to a local mechanical workshop. The flight was considered unsuccessful and was quickly forgotten, especially since at the end of May another more eminent Russian pilot Boris Iliodorovich Rossinsky performed at the Lipetsk hippodrome. "The grandfather of Russian aviation" on the racing airplane "Bleriot" successfully flew his program and was remembered by the city dweller, of course, much stronger than Nikolai Sakov.
By the end of 1912, public flights of the first pilots began to cease. Aviation was becoming a serious occupation, and it did not require touring tours like a circus tent. In addition, it practically did not bring material benefits to the pilots. The proceeds from ticket sales went to renting a runway (for which hippodromes were often used), gasoline, and aircraft recovery after accidents, which, it should be noted, were not uncommon. And in September 1912, the anti-Turkish war in the Balkans began. In an effort to free the peninsula from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire, the countries of the Balkan Union used airplanes for military purposes for the first time. At this time, Nikolai Stavrovich Sakov made an unexpected act for many - he went to this war to fight in the ranks of the young Greek Air Force. Such behavior did not go unnoticed, and in a number of Western literature Sakov is mentioned precisely as the first hired pilot in history, fighting on the side of Greece. However, one should not forget about who Nikolai's father was. Stavr Elevterevich was always proud of his Greek roots and, being an extremely educated person, raised his son in the spirit of, if not love, then at least respect for his historical homeland.
Let's leave it on the conscience of historians to figure out whether patriotic feelings or a thirst for profit pushed Nikolai Sakov to such an act, but the fact remains that at the end of September he arrived at the disposal of the only Greek air unit located at the airfield near the city of Larissa and numbering sixty-three people. As many as five of them (including Nikolai) were pilots, the rest were part of the ground personnel. The pilots were armed with one of the most massive aircraft of that time - aircraft of the "Farman" type. From the beginning of October, the gallant aircraft of Greece began to carry out the assigned combat missions. The pilots carried out aerial reconnaissance, and also periodically dropped hand grenades on Turkish positions. The Turks did not want to put up with this, and very often the Farman made it to their airfield with numerous bullet holes in the wings. Sometimes the damage was so severe that it led to forced landings.
In December, the "air squadron" was transferred to an airfield near the Greek city of Preveza and began to treat another sector of the front with grenades, in particular the city of Ioannina, the capital of Epirus besieged by the Turks. Here the pilots have mastered another very useful function of flying vehicles. They began dropping newspapers and leaflets to residents, as well as parcels of food and medicine. The modest parcels were intended not so much to help those in need as to support their fighting spirit. This was one of the first recorded in history, air methods of assistance to the encircled troops. Nikolai Sakov took a direct part in this good deed. There was also information about his suicidal attack by Turkish troops located in the Bizani fort. The pilot fired from the ground successfully dropped two bombs, after which he tried to get to Preveza on a riddled plane. However, the engine stopped, and Nikolai barely reached his, that is, Greek, positions. Having landed the plane in an emergency, the resourceful aviator repaired the engine and managed to take off again.
The domestic press also wrote about the military exploits of our pilot. It was thanks to the surviving newspaper and magazine clippings that many facts from his biography were restored. For example, on January 13, 1913, a small note with a photograph was dedicated to him in the Iskra almanac under the title: "Russian aviator Nikolai Stavrovich Sakov serving in the Greek army." On April 28, 1913, the Ogonyok magazine published a photograph of a young pilot in military uniform. The picture was titled: "Russian pilot - Balkan hero" and was sent to the editorial board from Paris by a certain Lebedev. In the magazine, Sakov was named a participant in the Greek victories, who distinguished himself in the battles for Ioannina and the storming of Fort Bizani.
After the end of the war, Nikolai returned to Russia. In 1913-1914, the mature pilot trained young personnel at the Imperial All-Russian Aero Club as an instructor pilot. At the beginning of 1914, the wedding of Nikolai Sakov and Nina Sergeevna Bekhteeva, a native of an old noble family, took place. The celebration took place in the northern capital, and a year later they had a son here, named Alexander.
The history of the noble family of the Bekhteevs dates back to the middle of the fifteenth century. Their family estate Lipovka was located in Yelets. Nina's father, Sergei Sergeevich Bekhteev, worked as the leader of the Yelets nobility until he was promoted to a real privy councilor, a member of the State Council. In his hometown, he opened the country's first grain elevator and a branch of the State Bank. Nina Sergeevna had eight brothers and sisters. One of her older brothers, Sergei Bekhteev, later became a famous emigre poet.
Everything went great in the life of Nikolai Sakov, until a new, already world war, began. All the pilots of the Imperial All-Russian Aero Club on a voluntary-compulsory basis organized a Special Aviation Detachment (later renamed the thirty-fourth corps), which was hastily transferred to the combat area near Warsaw. At the beginning of September 1914, the first combat missions began.
At the time of its creation, the detachment consisted of six pilots, the same number of aircraft and cars, as well as one marching workshop and a mobile meteorological station. The commander was Nikolai Aleksandrovich Yatsuk, who permanently led the squadron until October 1917. He was a bright, extraordinary personality, who laid the foundations for the combat use of aircraft. Nikolai Stavrovich Sakov joined the squadron as a "hunter pilot" and already in the first battles showed himself as a skillful and fearless pilot. The combat experience gained in Greece affected. On April 23, 1915, he was awarded the St. George Cross of the fourth degree for a number of successful aerial reconnaissance missions under enemy fire from September 1, 1914 to February 1, 1915. And already on July 16, 1915, he received St. George of the third degree for the fact that, under enemy gunfire from April 12 to April 22, he performed a number of aerial reconnaissance and bombing of trains and the Avgustov railway station. Of course, Nikolai was not invulnerable. In the fall of 1914, enemy bullets reached their target, and Sakov spent a whole month in a Red Cross hospital in Minsk.
So that readers can appreciate the combat work of the pilots of the First World War, let me quote some memoirs of the oldest Soviet pilot Alexander Konstantinovich Petrenko: “Having made a circle over the airfield as usual, I headed towards the front, gaining altitude. The task was to find the enemy batteries. The plane flew to the target only at sunset. Flying over the first and second lines of enemy trenches, I saw how the enemy opened heavy fire on us. Then we began teasingly circling over him. The fire intensified. Now anti-aircraft guns and cannons were firing - what we needed. From the flashes of shots, the observer pilot determined the locations of the sheltered batteries and marked them on the map. Despite the fact that I was constantly changing the altitude, the enemy soon took aim at the plane. Shells began to explode nearby more often, fragments flew in all directions. After one very close gap, the plane was thrown abruptly to the side. When the observer mapped the location of thirteen batteries, we flew back…. Neither I nor my partner received a scratch this time, although seventeen holes were found in our aircraft."
Obviously, this is how Nikolai Sakov could have told about his reconnaissance missions.
In 1916, Sakov received the rank of ensign for military service. From the thirty-fourth aviation detachment, he moved to the seventh army. For a number of unknown reasons (perhaps it was health problems) at the same time, he loses interest in military service. He has an idea to create his own aircraft building enterprise. To help in this responsible undertaking, he turns to his father, who in the spring of 1916 concludes an agreement with the Directorate of the Air Force of the Russian Empire for the supply of training airplanes. By the summer, using his numerous contacts, Stavr Elevterevich organized a partnership in Lipetsk called "Lipetsk Airplane Workshops". The main creditors were the well-known industrialists in the city Khrennikov and Bykhanov.
The enterprise was located on Gostinaya Street (now International) and consisted of a whole complex of workshops with a total area of more than two and a half thousand square meters. This included locksmith, carpentry, painting, blacksmith, assembly, oxygen-welding, foundry and drying departments. The total number of workers reached seventy people. On November 8, 1916, Stavr Elevterevich Sakov, who by that time had become a State Councilor, officially signed a contract with the Office of the Air Force for the supply in the first month of 1917 of five training monoplanes of the Moran-Zh type. And on November 18, he transferred all the rights to the partnership and, accordingly, contractual obligations to his son Nikolai, who had retired from military service by that time.
Here it is necessary to digress and note that by this time (end of 1916) our country was in the war for the third year. The end of hostilities was not visible even on the horizon, and the country's industry was in a deplorable state. There was no way to predict, and even more so on time to ensure the supply of even the most necessary materials in production (screws, nails, wire). In addition, the revolutionary sentiments in the air of the working environment also did not contribute to normal production.
Workshop "LAM"
The notes of one of Sakov's brothers-in-law, Nikolai Sergeevich Bekhteev, have survived. He visited his relative's workshop, which left him with ambiguous impressions: “The workshop was ready at the end of 1916 and began to fulfill the order of the UVVF (Directorate of the Air Force), but the events of February, like other Russian factories, knocked the workshop out of a rut. Among the workers were the Petrograd Bolsheviks, who put up a stubborn struggle against Ensign Sakov. When, finally, he managed to remove them from the workshop and put it in order, complaints began to come in against him. The Bolshevik workers did not want to leave us alone, and in the face of the commander of the troops of the Moscow Military District and the Lipetsk district military authorities, they accused Warrant Officer Sakov of desertion and evasion of military service. Despite the available papers on the release of Sakov from service, the military commander yielded to the demands of the workers discharged from the plant. As soon as he handed the warrant officer an order to be sent to the service, he constantly disturbed him with interrogations in the presence of workers. Passions are kindled in the latter, and the situation is such that even the prudent part of the workshop workers, not understanding the meaning of what is happening, is already beginning to hesitate and is disposed to stick to troublemakers, which threatens the enterprise with destruction."
Due to the circumstances, the deadlines for the implementation of the agreement had to be postponed twice, until, finally, on November 23, 1917, it was finally terminated by representatives of the Office of the Air Force. In the spring of 1918, the Lipetsk Airplane Workshops were transferred to the county Council of National Economy, which completed the construction of five airplanes and sent them to Moscow, after which the organization ceased to exist.
The further life of Nikolai Sakov can be called neither easy nor carefree. It seemed that luck had finally turned away from this man. When the Civil War broke out, he joined the ranks of the White movement. It is impossible to condemn him for the fact that he, being a consistent monarchist, decided to accept such a position. It was his choice, for which Nikolai had to pay for the rest of his life.
A number of documents have survived, indicating that in 1919 Sakov was sent to Great Britain to buy new airplanes there. The command of the Volunteer Army appreciated the rare combination of vast combat experience with the knowledge of an aircraft builder. After the army of General Yudenich won a number of victories in the offensive against Petrograd, on October 18, 1919, the government of Foggy Albion agreed to support the White troops with the supply of weapons and ammunition. Among other things, to help the dying Russian Empire, it was decided to create an entire aviation division, consisting of eighteen airplanes. And, of course, Nikolai Sakov was one of the first volunteer pilots.
On November 1, he arrived in Tallinn, where he was included in the aviation detachment of Yudenich's North-Western Army. Here he served under the leadership of the first world ace Boris Sergievsky. However, the pilots did not wait for the planes promised by the British, and the squadron's own aviation equipment was so poor that the aviators could practically do nothing to help the common cause. When the troops of the North-Western Army were defeated and thrown back into Estonia, the pilots were sent to the front line as privates. In January 1920, the aviation unit was disbanded.
Having lost his homeland forever, thirty-year-old Nikolai Stavrovich Sakov went to Greece again. This country was in a state of another armed conflict with Turkey. He was not mistaken in thinking that his services could be useful here. For his previous merits, King Constantine made Nicholas his personal pilot. However, this did not help Greece to win the war; it ended in its complete defeat by the fall of 1922. Constantine was overthrown, and the vacated throne was taken by his son, George. Sakov was on the run again.
During this time period, the bulk of Russian emigrants settled in France, yesterday's nobles, aristocrats and officers, having squandered their capital, got a job for any job in order to survive. Soon Sakov, together with his brother Alexander, showed up in Paris. And after a while they could be seen driving a taxi. This is how the most experienced pilots of our country earned their daily bread.
Nikolai's younger brother, Alexander Sakov, also became a military pilot, took part in the First World War as part of the Ilya Muromets air bomber squadron. During the Civil War he supported the White Guards. He fought on the Dmitry Donskoy armored train, and later in the aviation of Baron Wrangel. In France, for almost half a century, he was the permanent secretary of the Union of Russian émigré pilots. Died in 1968.
For a long time, the brothers sincerely believed in the possibility of revenge and restoration of the monarchy in Russia. In order to preserve military personnel, the brothers participated in the creation, and then in the active work of the Union of Russian Aviators in France. One of the latest achievements of Nikolai Sakov was the installation of an icon-monument dedicated to the Russian air fleet. It was made in the late twenties of the last century and consisted of icons of the Most Holy Theotokos, St. George the Victorious and Elijah the Prophet. It was decided to stage the triptych in the Paris Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky. Nikolai Stavrovich independently compiled a list of all deceased Russian aviators for inclusion in the synodikon. However, he did not have time to finish the work. In February 1930, he died and was buried in the cemetery of Russian emigrants in Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois. Alexander completed the work he had begun.
After Sakov's death, his wife and son, who accompanied him in all his wanderings, moved to Nice, and in 1938 to Italy. To raise a child, Nina Sergeevna had to take care of the sick and the elderly, earn extra money as a nanny. In 1945 in Rome, she became the head of a Russian tea house and died in 1955. Their only son Alexander, after graduating from the University of Rome, became a renowned economist and public figure. Nikolai Sakov's grandchildren and great-grandchildren currently live in Italy and Germany. Unfortunately, it is not known if they know anything about who their ancestors were….
