Su-15 Monument in Sokol (Karelia)

The Su-15 monument is a Su-15TM interceptor mounted on a pedestal among the apartment blocks of Sokol, a settlement in the Kemsky District of the Republic of Karelia. Its official name is "14 km of the Kem – Kalevala road": it lies on the R-21 Kola highway, on the shore of the Putkinskoye reservoir on the Kem River, about 9 km southwest of the town of Kem as the crow flies. The aircraft recalls the pilots of the 265th Air Defence Fighter Regiment who once lived here.

Poduzhemye airfield and the 265th Regiment

Next to the settlement lies the now inactive military airfield of Poduzhemye (Kem). Troops of the Karelian Front used it during the war, and its concrete runway was built in 1953, when the country's new air defence system was being set up. In October that year the 265th Fighter Regiment of the 336th Fighter Division moved here from Rumbula near Riga; the division's headquarters stayed at the airfield until 1960. The regiment received MiG-17s in 1954, and from 1955 the 348th Air Defence Fighter Regiment, back from China, was based here as well.

In 1969 the 265th Regiment became the first in the 10th Air Defence Army to convert to the supersonic Su-15. According to reference works on the airfield, on 20 April 1978 one of its pilots, Captain A. Bosov, flying a Su-15TM, intercepted and damaged a South Korean Boeing 707 that had violated the Soviet border. The pilots' settlement was named Sokol ("falcon"). After the regiment was disbanded, the aircraft by the houses remained as a memorial to the garrison. As of 2023 the airfield was out of use, with plans to rebuild it for civil and air ambulance flights.

The Su-15TM aircraft

The Su-15 is a Sukhoi interceptor that first flew in 1962 and entered air defence service in 1965. It was built at Plant No. 153 in Novosibirsk, and about 1,300 were made in all versions. Designed to intercept targets at altitudes up to 23 km, it was for years the backbone of Soviet air defence fighters. The Su-15TM, the version standing in Sokol, was the most advanced one; 450 were built in 1971–1975. Many were retired early under the SALT II treaty, and the Su-15 left service in 1996.

Why the monument fell

In January 2022 the aircraft fell off its pedestal: the rotten metal pipes of its base gave way under the weight of snow. Karelian news sites reported the fall from local residents' accounts. The aircraft was later restored and put back on the pedestal. A playground with a gazebo sits next to it, so the monument stands right in the heart of the settlement, home to about 370 people and the Poduzhemye school.