Friends!

Friends! On this day in 1876, Sergei Utochkin was born - a famous test pilot, a pioneer and propagandist of aviation.

Sergei Isaevich was born on July 12 in Odessa. Sergei's father - Isai Kuzmich - was a construction contractor and merchant. In 1881, when Sergei was five years old, his mother died at the birth of Sergei's younger brother. Soon the father died of tuberculosis. Sergei and his brothers were sent to different families, where the children were raised with the money of their father.

For learning Sergei went to the real school of St. Paul. One of the guardians of Utochkin bought him a bicycle of the firm "Diana". And over time, training began to interest Sergei less, and a gift - more and more. Already four months later on the same bike Sergei decided to take part in the local championship of Odessa. At the age of 15, Sergei Utochkin left the school and began to earn on his living by cycling. And they brought the guy a success - he reached the championship of the country, and also entered the international arena, winning the Grand Prix at the competitions in Lisbon.

On the turn after the race there was an auto-sport. Utochkin repeatedly won races in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Lisbon and Brussels. Sergei was a bizarre guy and a real extreme. For example, he descended from the Potemkin Stairs on a motorcycle and a car, and also drove through the arches of the Brokeback Bridge. He overtook the city tram on a ten-kilometer distance, one of the first skated on roller skates. Sergei went down in a diving suit to the bottom of the Black Sea, and also personally built a yacht on which he took part in the regattas.

At 17, Utochkin became one of the first players of the famous local team - the Odessa British Athletic Club (OBAK). He played football until he was 34, he founded two football clubs in Odessa and was the captain of one of them. Utochkin also wrote articles in a local newspaper known at the time - "Odessa News".

The man who conquered the roads and the sea once decided to conquer the sky. The first flights Utochkin made in a balloon. July 29, 1908, he reached a height of 1200 meters. Subsequently, the secretary of the Odessa flying club, Karl Makovetsky, ordered a local Odessa inventor to produce a glider, on which later Utochkin flew.

Sergei Isaevich went to the then heart of aviation - France. There he settled himself as a fitter at a factory, did aircraft engines. In Odessa, Utochkin returned with two techniques and a bunch of blueprints. But his monoplane in the sky did not take off through a low-power motor.

Then he was forced to apply for financial support. Banker Ivan Ksidias wanted to help a young aviator, but under draconian conditions - he had to fly three years in succession only with the permission of Ksidias. Utochkin refused. But still for the first time he got into the air on the plane of Ksidias, the second after Mikhail Efimov, who accepted the banker's proposal.

Soon, during the Jewish pogroms in Odessa, Sergei tried to protect an old local Jew, but got a knife in the back. An outstanding athlete was sent to hospital for seven weeks. But grateful representatives of the Jewish community came to support him and thank him.

After Utochkin recovered, he conducted demonstration flights in Kiev and Moscow. Look at Utochkin's flights, which the newspapers enthusiastically wrote about, gathered huge crowds of spectators.

The turning point in the career of the pilot was in 1911, when the first long-distance flight from St. Petersburg to Moscow took place. This route was considered very difficult, especially - in adverse weather. Utochkin got into a catastrophe over the village Zaitsevo. This was due to a faulty propeller. Although Sergei and managed to jump out of the plane, he hit the wing and fell into the water. Doctors diagnosed the pilot fractures of legs and hands, dislocation of clavicles, patella, severe bruises of the chest, head and other injuries.

After the accident, Utochkin wanted to return to aviation, but the headaches were very disturbing. Above this - during treatment to the aviator they began to prick morphine, because of what he had a dependence, his wife left.

He was severely beaten several times, after which Sergei Isaevich started a persecution mania. He went to St. Petersburg for treatment in a psychiatric hospital. From the hospital, Sergei Utochkin came out only in the autumn of 1913 and returned to Odessa. But at home, no one and nothing waited for him - neither home, nor money, nor the thirst for life. Utochkin's brothers opened the cinema "Utot-cinema" in order to help their average brother, and Sergei's friends turned to the Council of the All-Russian flying club with a request request to help Sergei.

And then - the First World War. Utochkin wanted to go to the front as a pilot. But the mental illness put a cross on this decision. In recent years, Sergei Utochkin spent in St. Petersburg, had no work. Winter 1915-1916 was a cold, Utochkin almost all winter sick. Subsequently, he contracted pneumonia, with whom he again entered the St. Nicholas the Miracle-worker's Psychiatric Hospital. Aviator died on January 13, 1916. He was only 39 years old.

Sergei Utochkin - a bright personality, the history of his life inspires and makes you think at the same time.