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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES - 1
Greetings Ralphvia email from Gordon Andreassend, 8-30-09 This early Russian aviator certainly flew in Hong Kong in 1912, and some say he was the first person to fly in China in 1910 or 1911 (still to be verified !) Details in the HK press in 1912 said he was - "son of the President of the Russian Senate at St. Petersburg and a nephew of Leo Tolstoy". Reports say he may have flown earlier in Peking, Tientsin and Hankow - but nothing verified ! He flew in Macau before a crowd of 30,000 on Dec. 7, 1912, and in Hong Kong on Dec. 14, 1912. If you do find out anything on Kouzminsky, we would be most interested to have details. Kindest regards, Gordon Andreassend HK Historical Aircraft Assoc. |
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES - 2
Greetings Ralphvia email from Gordon Andreassend, 6-22-11 You might be interested to know that the HK Historical Aircraft Association is currently producing an updated version of an old book on HK aviation history. Should be out in a few months time, as part of the work going into celebrating 100 years of aviation development in Hong Kong. I wrote to you some time ago about Kouzminsky, the Russian aviator - the second person to fly (a Blériot) in Hong Kong. Our first aviator, Van den Born, flew his Farman here in 1911, and it is that event that gave rise to the 2011 celebrations. I have written the section on Kouzminsky in this new book, as we now know a great deal more about him. The Chairman of the HK Historical Aviation Association bought that French publication that was available on eBay, and I translated it. I'm no French scholar, but I did study in France many years back. Here is the bit out of Kouzminsky's journal that tells of his flight in Hong Kong :- Hong Kong December 17 (1912) "This flight was one of those that impressed me most. I climbed very high, but as I was committed to fly through a mountainous valley, surrounded by hills, I had the feeling of being imprisoned, as you might say, of being in a cage. Below my feet a superb panorama unwound : the city the harbour, the ocean. And those immense ponds, where the Hong Kong inhabitants collected rainwater, in all their limpidity, appeared to me to be so much like vast dazzling mirrors." It must have been quite an experience, and the ponds he mentions were the Kowloon reservoirs, completed a couple of years earlier. Kouzminsky WAS the first man to fly in Peking (Beijing) in October, 1912, and we will have to celebrate that centenary somehow. Kindest regards, Gordon Andreassend HK Historical Aircraft Assoc. |
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