Pilot Gets Welcome at City That Is Off Limits : FRIENDSHIP FLIGHT: Tony Circles the Globe

The last time a foreigner landed a plane at Kuibyshev’s Kurum Airport was in 1942, when a German ace was knocked out of the air in a dogfight.

On Saturday, 11-year-old Tony Aliengena and his American entourage became the next foreigners to land in Kuibyshev, a Soviet military center in central Russia that has been closed to foreigners since World War II.

Unlike his unfortunate predecessor of 47 years ago, Tony received a hero’s welcome as he stepped into the hot, windy weather and more than 100 Soviets erupted into applause.

“We are very glad to greet you on this earth,” Tamara Borzyh, leader of the local Communist youth group, told the newcomers as grinning children stood around with red and pink roses to give the boy from San Juan Capistrano.

After five days of rest and sightseeing in Moscow, Tony and his entourage on Saturday had embarked on a 6,000-mile leg of their round-the-world trip that would take them across Soviet Asia, to cities and settlements normally closed to foreigners.

This part of Tony’s odyssey could prove difficult, because in some of the 11 cities he will pass through--six of them are closed to the outside world--he will encounter air traffic controllers and local officials who do not speak English.

Even some Soviets expressed concern over this part of the trip. Andrei Petchersky, a Pravda correspondent trying to arrange a swap of news stories with a Times reporter, insisted that the matter be taken care of before Tony left Moscow early Saturday. Petchersky was afraid the Times reporter would be incommunicado thereafter.

“Moscow is Moscow and Siberia is Siberia,” Petchersky said, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Kuibyshev, the first of the officially closed towns through which Tony has been granted permission to travel, is an industrial-military city of 1.3 million residents and a port on the Volga river. It is in central Russia and was founded in 1586 during the great Russian expansion. Besides having a large military complex, it has an oil refinery, a chocolate plant and an assortment of theaters, museums and institutes.

Descending over the river into Kurum Airport on Saturday, the American entourage was impressed with the rural potpourri of farms, forests, rivers and lakes with sailboats and water skiers.

“This is the best part of the trip,” Tony’s father, Gary Aliengena, said later. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

During the 3.5-hour flight from Moscow, Tony and Lance Allyn, a Hanford, Calif., surgeon piloting a chase plane, had to get used to taking instructions from their new on-board Soviet navigators, who will accompany them across the continent.

The navigators, Giennadi Pridvoro in Tony’s single-engine Cessna and Jouri Vasiliev in Allyn’s twin-engine King Air, spoke faltering English and had some difficulty communicating with the Americans. Allyn, for instance, had to ask his navigator at least three times to radio air traffic control for permission to ascend to avoid icing of his plane.

“Higher. I would like to go higher. Ice,” Allyn urgently told the navigator, pointing at a thin sheet of ice on his windshield.

Vasiliev only looked up and then continued to study his aeronautical charts. Allyn finally gave up the request.

Another point of confusion came up when the navigator kept using meters in directing Allyn’s course and altitude.

“You have to tell me in feet,” Allyn said finally.

Allyn and the navigator found some common ground when, during a moment of conversation at cruising altitude, they discovered they both enjoyed running.

“We go run in the morning at 5 o’clock,” Allyn said, inviting Vasiliev, who nodded.

After landing safely, Tony and his entourage were ushered into the hands of local representatives of the Soviet Foundation for Social Invention, a non-government agency that is sponsoring Tony’s flight across the Soviet Union. After a lunch of bread, sausage, fresh cherries and cake, the Americans were whisked to Tolyatte, a city of about 66,000 near Kuibyshev, where they were to spend the night at Hotel Belokamenay, nestled in tall pine trees near the river.

Best Suite

Ushered to the best suite, the entourage immediately put on swimsuits and hiked down to the Volga for a late afternoon dip.

This will represent Tony’s last stop in Europe. Today he is scheduled to cross the 5,000-foot Ural Mountains, the border between Soviet Europe and Soviet Asia, and spend the night in Tumen, an industrial port city whose historical claim to fame is that it was the first Russian city founded in Siberia.

Tumen, which lies on the Tura River, is not closed to foreigners. In addition to metal processing, light chemical and food production plants, Tumen is a major timber center surrounded by the dense forest that envelops much of central Siberia.

Monday the entourage travels to the closed city of Omsk, an Irtysh River port that has several munitions plants. Omsk, the second largest city in Siberia, is also a timber center whose economy is buttressed by synthetic rubber, electrical and heavy machinery plants. Omsk boasts 10 institutes, the equivalent of American universities, and four theaters. It was founded in 1716.

On Tuesday, Tony leaves the Siberian forest and travels into Kemerovo, a coal mining city of 400,000 at the base of the 10,000-feet Sajany Mountains. In Kemerovo, which is open to foreigners, Tony will find himself within 600 miles of Mongolia and in a city whose descendants can be traced to the Chinese.

In fact, many of the residents in the region speak Chinese and maintain family ties in the People’s Republic of China to the south.

Kemerovo was founded in 1918 as a coal mining center. It has since added chemical production, timber and light food production to its economic base, and maintains five institutes and three theaters.

From Kemerovo, Tony flies along the northern boundary of the Sajany range, pausing Wednesday night and Thursday in Bratsk, which was built in 1955 after the opening of the nearby Bratsk hydroelectric station, which was considered the world’s largest hydroelectric plant until the 1960s.

Bratsk, whose name means brothers in Russian, is another open city that serves as a port on the Bratsk Reservoir. The reservoir helps fuel a local aluminum plant.

Friday’s travels bring Tony and his entourage across the Central Siberian Upland to the diamond capital of Mirnyi, which is also open to foreigners. Founded in 1957 as a diamond production center, Mirnyi is a small town that lies astride the Irelyakh River. Twenty percent of the diamonds produced locally are sold as gems, while the remainder is used in manufacturing.

From Mirnyi, Tony flies Saturday to Yakutsk, an open city that serves as a port on the Lena River. Founded as a monastery, Yakutsk is home to diverse industries producing fish, milk, beer, liquor, vodka, meat and furniture. The city also has a shipyard as well as a hydroelectric plant. The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union is there, and there are three theaters and six museums.

After resting a day in Yakutsk, Tony sets out July 10 on a 4 1/2-hour flight that will carry him, at long last, to the Pacific Ocean. The four ports he stops at there are all closed to foreigners.

Tony’s plane is set to land first in the Pacific port of Okhotsk, once Russia’s primary Pacific port.

From Okhotsk, Tony travels up the Okhotsk Sea to Magadan, founded in 1939 to offset the Japanese threat during World War II. Today, Magadan hosts a number of oceanographic research institutes and has a shipyard, as well as shoe and fish production plants.

Tony is set to rest one day in Magadan, before continuing on to Anadyr, a village on the Anadyrsky Gulf founded only 24 years ago.

Finally, on July 14, Tony travels to his last Soviet stop, Providenia, and will spend an anxious night not far from Nome, Alaska, where he will fly the next day on a 45-minute hop across the Bering Strait.

Providenia is a village whose name came from an English captain who marked the spot in the 16th Century for the “happy providence” that helped to keep his ship in that gulf during a severe winter.

FRIENDSHIP FLIGHT ACROSS RUSSIA

Tony Aliengena left Moscow Saturday on perhaps one of the most challenging parts of his around-the-world odyssey: a 6,000-mile trek across Soviet Asia and Siberia. The long flight across Russia will take Tony to 11 Soviet cities, six of which are normally closed to foreigners. He will cross the Ural Mountains, the natural boundary dividing Soviet Europe and Soviet Asia, before heading across the great expanses of Siberia for the Bering Strait, which he will eventually cross to enter Alaska.

Kuibyshev: With a population of 1.3 million, Kuibyshev is a major industrial, commercial and transportation center on the Volga River.

Tumen: Also called Tyumen, the area around this city of 269,000 accounts for a bulk of Siberia’s oil and gas.

Omsk: A major transportation and industrial center in western Siberia along the tracks of the Trans-Siberian railroad, it has a population of 1.1 million.

Kemerovo: This city of a half million people, situated on a branch of the Trans-Siberian railroad, is the center of a large coal-mining region and extensive chemical industry.

Bratsk: On the north shore of the huge Bratsk Reservoir and northwest of Lake Baykal, this river city has a population of 255,000.

Mirnyi: One of the Soviet Union’s major diamond mining centers, its population is just 24,000.

Yakutsk: A river port and highway center in a rich agricultural area, Yakutsk was a former former political exile center. Founded in 1632, it now has a population of 200,000.

Okhotsk: This port village founded in 1731 is situated at the mouth of the Okhotsk Sea and was considered Russia’s primary Pacific port through the mid-19th Century.

Magadan: This port city of entry to the Kolyma gold region, with a population of 152,000, is on the Sea of Okhotsk and also features ship repair yards and a large glassware industry.

Anadyr: With a population of only 16,000, Anadyr is a military and administrative settlement on the Bering Sea. It is known for its fish canning, tanning and lignite mining.

Providenia: Also called Provideniya, this is a government Arctic center and home to an air base and port on the Bering Sea with a population of 4,500.

Tony entered the Soviet Union on June 23 landing in Leningrad and then on to Moscow June 26. He then flew to Kuibyshev.

Latest Leg

From: Moscow

To: Kuibyshev

600 miles

Three hours 30 minutes

Next Leg

From: Kuibyshev

To: Tumen, Siberia

700 miles

Four hours (est.)

Departure time: 9 a.m.

Arrival time: 1 p.m. (est)