History sometimes unites the most unexpected geographies in common points that no one would have thought of. The secret bridge of fate built between the ancient city of Ganja in Azerbaijan and distant Spain in the late 1930s is one such event.
Modern.az reports that the documentary film “The Aviators of Ganja” presented by “AnewZ” television channel sheds light on this little-known dramatic page of European history. The film tells about the bitter-sweet fate, combat paths and participation in the Second World War of young Spanish pilots who were trained at the military aviation school established in Ganja with the support of the Soviet Union during the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
Secret route from Spain to Ganja
In 1936, General Francisco Franco's military coup against the democratically elected Second Spanish Republic plunged the country into a bloody civil war. As emphasized in the documentary, this conflict was not just an internal confrontation, it was a testing ground for the ideologies, weapons and international alliances of the approaching Second World War.
The Republican government urgently needed military pilots. However, the aviation schools in the country were working at full capacity, and the instructors were fighting at the front. In the international arena, France only offered initial flight training, while Great Britain refused to help. Desperate, the Spanish Republic turned to the east — to the Soviet Union. It was this strategic step that linked the fate of hundreds of young Spaniards with Azerbaijan.
Hundreds of young Spaniards were secretly sent to the USSR across Europe. The final destination of the young people, who passed through Leningrad, Moscow, Kharkov and Odessa by ship and train, was the city of Ganja, then called Kirovabad. A special aviation school was established here to train them as military pilots.
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