Semei International Airport () , formerly New Semei () and named after

Abai Qunanbaiuly Abai Qūnanbaiūly () was a Kazakh poet, composer and Hanafi Maturidi theologian philosopher. He was also a cultural reformer toward European and Russian cultures on the basis of enlightened Islam. Early life and education Abai was born in K ...

, is an airport in Semei, Kazakhstan, located south-west of the city. It services large airliners. The airfield contains two groups of alert fighter pads. A overrun exists at each end of runway 08/26. Established in 1929, it is Kazakhstan's oldest international airport. In 1960, the 356th Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO of the

Soviet Air Defence Forces The Soviet Air Defence Forces (; ) was the air defence branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Formed in 1941, it continued being a service branch of the Russian Armed Forces after 1991 until it was merged into the Air Force in 1998. Unlike Western ...

arrived at the base from

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and , ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 587,891 Irkutsk is the List of cities and towns in Russ ...

. Equipped with

MiG-17 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (; NATO reporting name: Fresco) is a high-subsonic fighter aircraft produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. The MiG-17 was license-built in China as the Shenyang J-5 an ...

s and

Yak-25 The Yakovlev Yak-25 ( NATO designation Flashlight-A/Mandrake) is a swept wing, turbojet-powered interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft built by Yakovlev and used by the Soviet Union. Design and development The Yak-25 originated from a need f ...

s, it was placed under the 33rd Air Defence Division,

14th Independent Air Defence Army 14 (fourteen) is the natural number following 13 and preceding 15. Mathematics Fourteen is the seventh composite number. Properties 14 is the third distinct semiprime, being the third of the form 2 \times q (where q is a higher prime). ...

. It was later equipped with both the

Tupolev Tu-128 The Tupolev Tu-28 (NATO reporting name Fiddler) is a long-range interceptor aircraft introduced by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The official designation was Tu-128, but this designation was less commonly used in the West. It was the largest a ...

and

MiG-31 The Mikoyan MiG-31 (; NATO reporting name: Foxhound) is a supersonic interceptor aircraft developed for the Soviet Air Forces by the Mikoyan design bureau as a replacement for the earlier MiG-25 "Foxbat"; the MiG-31 is based on and shares de ...

. Declassified CIA documents indicate that in the late 1960s, during the height of the

Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. This was primarily caused by divergences that arose from their ...

, the Soviet Union used this airfield as a bomber staging base for Chinese targets, and at times the

Tupolev Tu-22 The Tupolev Tu-22 ( Air Standardization Coordinating Committee name: Blinder) was the first supersonic bomber to enter production in the Soviet Union. Manufactured by Tupolev, the Tu-22 entered service with Long-Range Aviation and Soviet Nav ...

Blinder was identified here.

Airlines and destinations

References

Soviet Air Defence Force bases Airports built in the Soviet Union Airports in Kazakhstan Kazakh Air Defense Forces Airbases in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic {{AbaiRegion-geo-stub

Airlines and destinations

See also

References