Museum of Armament and Military Equipment of the Airborne Forces

fromSalekhard · 22 August 2026 02:48

Introductory overview

Airborne Forces Pavilion.

Exhibition of mobile maintenance equipment…

Between the hangars.

Along the hangar.

Auto pavilion.

Introductory overview

My mind, accustomed to the Asian expanses of my homeland—first the USSR, then Russia—didn’t immediately grasp the constricted nature of the European part of the country. It’s 1.5-2 hours from Moscow to Kubinka, and just an hour longer to Ryazan, the capital of a completely different federal subject. And if you get to the first one on a classic commuter train – with all the consequences, then to the second one – on its modern, luxurious version with the guarantee of an individual seat.

I had a targeted trip to this city to visit the Museum of Armament and Military Equipment of the Airborne Forces.

I arrived in the morning by train, spent the whole day in this museum and left in the evening.

As soon as I entered, I knew I had arrived, and I had arrived exactly where I needed to!

A glance to the right rests on the orderly rows of military equipment.

I won’t show you what’s to the left just yet, lest you have a heart attack or choke on your saliva.

Equipment in the open, equipment under cover,

equipment between hangars and

it’s obvious as day, inside the hangars.

Since the topic is Airborne, that’s where we’ll start.

The equipment and weapons samples prepared for airdrop. Some of them with crews on board.

However, there is another zone for people

The next hangar has an equally exotic exhibit.

The range is very wide: from a wide variety of implementations of auto repair shops and a model of a collection point for damaged cars to

equipped repair area.

The next pavilion’s contents are a bit odd for this theme.

At least halfway to the right: civilian cars?

I’m not usually one for photo-documents, but there are a ton of interesting photos here whose authenticity is beyond doubt.

And the paintings here have technically accurate subjects.

Remember how I didn’t let you look to the left? Now you’ve adapted a bit—look.

And these “beauties,” as befits ladies, are beautiful from every angle. If only I could enter them!

There are few visitors on weekdays and they behave exactly the same as always and everywhere on such sites.

However, even with such visitors, the area is kept in order.

The secret of this is revealed very simply: the museum’s neighbor is the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne School, which explains its (the museum’s) current name. Its cadets are also involved in maintaining cleanliness and order on the museum grounds.

18bravo · 22 August 2026 03:08

Nice. Any full sized aircraft?

fromSalekhard · 22 August 2026 04:12

Just a couple: a biplane and a helicopter.

18bravo · 22 August 2026 04:45

The AN-2?

fromSalekhard · 22 August 2026 06:06

Yes, of course: a training aircraft for paratroopers.

MoramarthT · 22 August 2026 08:28

Is that what they used to open the top left drawer?

I sympathise; I too have yet to find an effective medication…

M

fromSalekhard · 23 August 2026 05:31

I apologize: my hand shook and the post was published unfinished. Just a little longer.

fromSalekhard · 23 August 2026 05:36

Airborne Forces Pavilion.

Since the entire museum is dedicated to the Airborne Forces, I will begin my review with this.

How did it all start? With a parachute, of course,

which in its modern implementation looks something like this.

Why approximately? Because, at the moment, there are countless of them.

They have a certain specialization, just like all the other equipment.

They’ve already gotten the hang of landing while sitting.

Not only the parachute itself is changing, but also the means of air delivery of people and cargo.

And, yes: not only people, but also cargo can be airdropped.

But the most interesting packaging is the military equipment!

ASU-57 on PP-127 with MKS-4-127 (4 photos) VKontakte Album

Su-85 on P-16 with MKS-5-1400 (5 photos) VKontakte Album

D-30 on KSD (7 photos) VKontakte Album

2S9 Nona on PBS-925 from MKS-350-9 (5 photos) VKontakte Album

BMD-2 on PBS-916 with MKS-350-9r (3 photos) VKontakte Album

metalhead85 · 23 August 2026 10:14

I have a great interest in Airborne forces, especially Soviet from WW2 where there doesn’t seem to be much pictorial information on, and few if any 1/35 scale figures of. And the Cold War period as well mainly the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Looks like a great museum, thanks for sharing these pictures Yuri.

metalhead85 · 23 August 2026 11:43

I have Steven Zalogas book on Soviet Airborne forces. It’s a great read.

18bravo · 23 August 2026 15:24

Ah, the backbone of NorK SF.

fromSalekhard · 29 August 2026 07:15

Exhibition of mobile maintenance equipment…

I had never seen an exhibition of mobile means of maintenance, repair and evacuation of military equipment and weapons of the Airborne Forces (what a long name) before.

There’s still something else, we’ll see later. But for now, let’s go.

Emblem: VDV Russia («Никто кроме нас!» — «No one but us!»)

Type “A” mobile repair unit on a GAZ-MM chassis (5 photos) – VKontakte album

The next exhibit made me think a little.

VDV Repair Workshop RM-VDV (5 photos) VKontakte album

It’s clear that it’s airborne, and there are size restrictions during transportation, but where are the mechanisms for bringing it into working position? It is clearly visible that a person cannot stand at full height in the workshop. I walked around and only then did it dawn on me: windows in the roof! That is, you are standing half outside: your arms and legs are warm, the workpiece is clamped in a vice, and your head is outside, in the rain or snow.

Nestled between the cars are a couple of huge dioramas.

and

It’s precisely the mobile workshops mounted on a vehicle chassis that have come to an end. Only the actual “premises” remain to be reviewed.

It is clear that on the outside everything looks typical. The specifics are hidden in the content.

fromSalekhard · 30 August 2026 03:29

At the end of the “alley” there is a repair area with as many as three “workshops”.

I literally accidentally discovered a very interesting line of engines.

Note:
Quite often—including on this forum—modelers ask how to paint the engines of Soviet vehicles. With the exception of the V-series tank engines (from the T-34 and T-54/55) and a few others, these engines can generally be painted in a silver-and-black color scheme; If they weren’t like this right from the factory, they will become like this after the first repair.

If you look back,

then you involuntarily pay attention to the photographs. I’m usually not very fond of them, preferring real-life exhibits, but here I was drawn to their age and uniqueness.

jfeenstra · 30 August 2026 13:52

Great pics! Don’t suppose they have a BM-21V 9P125 (airborne Gaz-66 with BM-21 MLRS) and you took pictures of it?

fromSalekhard · 30 August 2026 14:05

Unfortunately, they don’t have it. There is one in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, but it is so inconveniently located that it is impossible to take normal photos.

fromSalekhard · 5 September 2026 03:06

Between the hangars.

A significant, perhaps even greater, number of pieces of equipment are stored outside, not in hangars, including near and between these very hangars.

At the end of one of the hangars, traditional transport vehicles for the Airborne Forces, or rather for Airborne Forces cadets, are installed.

An-2 Airplane (8 photos) VKontakte Album

Mi-8 helicopter (6 photos) VKontakte album

And then comes wheeled vehicles.

Moreover, I lost the museum plaque from the first KamAZ.

Here we are, past the first group!

That’s all there is to wheeled vehicles for now; tracked vehicles are next.

The howitzer is not just nameless,

but simply incognito—another howitzer is pretending to be one. The difference there is only one letter: M-30 and D-30!

Or they took it for a spin and never put it back.

fromSalekhard · 6 September 2026 03:31

Between them stands the only representative of the foreign military industry here.

Text: “For the Motherland!”

Next we will have to move away from the hangar and go under the canopy.

Apparently the picture on the sign was mixed up.

Something like that, if you look back.

fromSalekhard · 12 September 2026 04:39

Along the hangar.

Note: Some museum plaques were badly damaged, so I used AI to fix the images and, at times, to translate the text. It turned out that this “fellow” is quite mischievous and wayward—often spouting nonsense completely untethered from reality—so I decided against using it all the time. If you come across any oddities in the text, please let me know so I can try to fix them; I won’t be able to find them myself.

The entire “outdoor” display didn’t fit into the previous report, so I’ll continue here.

They are not frequent visitors to museum spaces.

Here it is better not to trust your own lips or assume that the exhibit has significantly “shrunk”.

But it doesn’t last long, for the hangar ends, and a turn and a stretch along the fence await us.

where the next exotic thing awaits us.

The compulsion not just to look at the machinery but to climb all over it—that’s a mindset instilled from childhood.

A few of my favorite oddball contraptions—which appeal to me in forms other than just railway equipment.

It wouldn’t hurt to look at this from the side.

PKT-2 Track-Laying Vehicle (5 photos) VKontakte album

Then it was back to being “dead boring.”

Something like this, if you look back.

fromSalekhard · 13 September 2026 05:15

Auto pavilion.

At one time, this museum was known as an automobile museum, and a significant part of its collection remains here as a legacy.

Two lines of vehicles are presented: strictly civilian and military or capable of being militarized.

Although modern practice shows that absolutely any piece of equipment is suitable for militarization.

We will only look at military equipment. Why, you might ask? Because the exhibits here consist of common—even mass-produced—vehicles from the Soviet era. They are still quite often found at exhibition and museum venues and are widely known.

I suggest we start with the motorcycles. There aren’t many of them here.

Another one looks as if he had just driven out of Pyotr Shukhmin’s painting *Tankers*, dating from the late 1920s.

Incidentally, in the artistic community this painting is dated 1928, but the tank and motorcycle are from 1931. This explains the number on the motorcycle.

Next came the well-known “kozliki” [goats]—the nickname given to the line of Soviet off-road vehicles.

This is not so much an exhibit as a monument with bullet holes.

The next vehicles—trucks this time—are also very familiar to everyone.

At first glance at this monster, you are taken aback, which only goes away after you read the sign.

And I have the feeling that I’ve seen something like that in one other place.

After that, the cars went back to being normal and familiar.

Here is another unfamiliar-looking vehicle—a prototype that was intended to succeed the GAZ-66 but never made it into production. It is said to be one of only three surviving examples.

The following cars aren’t exactly unique, but they are quite rare.

The Bryansk tractor attracts attention with the width of the cabin: inside there is a driver and three more seats in a row,

a massive frame (70 cm high), independent suspension on all wheels, and an exposed engine.

Let us look back at the path we have traveled.

…and we’ll head back along the walls.

And the walls there are not empty at all.

There are many unusual and little-known photographs there.

There are a few dioramas depicting significant events in our country’s history.

fromSalekhard · 19 September 2026 05:45

Outdoor display area. Wheeled vehicles.

We leave the hangars behind and head into the alluring distance. Besides, it’s not a long walk.

We reach the nearest fork in the road and decide where to head: left—toward the wheeled vehicles—or right—toward the tracked ones?

According to the male tradition, we will go left.

I won’t be able to show you all the cars: there really are a lot of them.

We’ll start with the simple and familiar, then move toward vehicles with more wheels and greater spectacle—which, more often than not, amount to the same thing. The order here may not necessarily align with their geographical locations.