Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Points Skyward Amid a Ukrainian Housing Estate

Just as you might find decommissioned planes, tanks and helicopters displayed outside branches of the American Legion, so too are retired MiG fighters a not-uncommon feature of town squares across former Eastern Bloc. We’ve highlighted a handful of these Cold War relics previously in our article “MiG Monuments“, but the composition of this photograph – in which a rather neglected-looking Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Fishbed points skyward in the midst of a Ukrainian housing estate – caught our eye. The MiG-21 first flew in 1956 and was introduced three years later. Between 1959 and 1985, 11,496 Fishbeds were built for the Soviet Union and a swath of other nations, making it the most produced supersonic combat jet in the history of aviation.