This is a favourite from that time. It is the loadmasters panel in an IL-76. There were no flight manuals at all for the crew. On the table in the picture is the loadmaster's personal, hand written, manual open at the page showing the oxygen system. It was the practice then that if you met another crew you would copy anything that they had and you needed. Nizhnevartovsk, April 1991.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2746c3e0c.jpeg

In the 70s we flew London-Moscow-Tokyo and back several times by 'Aeroflop' as it was popularly called. The short story is that despite the lack of any entertainment system, I usually found something to do. One flight I used the inflight mag (one page in Russian, one in English) and went round the cabin collecting Russian words until I had learnt the alphabet by heart.

The fittings such as seat-back trays were aluminium and looked to have been cut out by hand as each was slightly different. It was usually an Ilyushin Il-62, I think. As you got further back in the passenger cabin, the legroom grew noticeably less and less generous until in the last few rows your knees were banging the seat in front. I soon learnt to book nearer the front. There was a metal pole running transversely under the seats and since most of the cushion foams were shot from heavy use one had difficulty avoiding an aching bum.

Trying to pay for duty-free I found that no change was offered for paper money. If you insisted on change, the housewife-style stewardess would lift up her apron with a deep sigh and fish around in a bulging leather personal purse for coins of various denominations, if you were lucky. On some flights we were given sweets instead of change. We were going through a vegetarian stage at the time. One meal I remember was a large sausage sitting fatly on a thin film of soup, with plenty of bobbing green peas. My daughter objected, so right in front of her the sausage was lifted out of her soup and whisked away.

The engines are certainly copies of the RR Nene sold to Russia by the Atlee government. Chinese copies of the Russian copies were used in some jet fighters that were sold to the Pakistan Air Force. The overhaul life was so short that the Chinese manufacturers bought a team over from Rolls Royce engines to sort out the their ins. to mm. measurements for them.

I read your post a few days ago soon after you wrote it, and disappeared down the rabbit hole for an hour or so reading about Armenian and Azerbaijani politics in Nagorno-Karabakh.

And just a couple of days later, they're in the news:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54338454

I heard of something similar happening to a group of Norwegians who were in Russia around the time Aeroflot got competition from other small operators. Possibly in the early- mid 90s. Apparently Aeroflot willingly sold off aircraft to these rag- tag airlines, but kept the spare part inventory. And didn't sell anything on credit as those operators did not have a pot to piss in. Anyway, as these Norwegians were about to depart from whatever airport they were at with one of these fly by night operators the captain gets on the PA system and explains that they need a vital part, and Aeroflot will not sell one without cash in hand. The passengers then organize a fundraiser which allows said part to be bought. Then attached to the aircraft, and they were on their way. With an additional interesting story to tell, and a little less cash in their walets.

T J