Childhood and Encounter With Aviation
Sergei Kramarenko was born on 23 April 1923 in the village of Kalinovka in Sumskaya province, Ukraine, the eldest of three sons of Makar Kramarenko and Nadezhda Galkovskaya. His parents were divorced when he and his brothers were still children and he went with his mother and brothers to live first in the Caucasus, and later to a kolkhoz (collective farm) near the Volga river.
During the 1930s the young Kramarenko listened to radio broadcasts about the deeds of Soviet airmen like Valery Chkalov and Georgiy Baidukov, and so decided to become a pilot. In the autumn of 1940 he began a flying course at the Dzerzhinskiy aeroclub, and as one of the 80 who graduated with the highest marks was offered the opportunity to become a military pilot. Kramarenko accepted and began military training on 1 April 1941 at Borisoglevsk aerodrome.
Read more about this topic: Sergei Kramarenko
Famous quotes containing the words childhood and, childhood and/or encounter:
“The real dividing line between early childhood and middle childhood is not between the fifth year and the sixth year—it is more nearly when children are about seven or eight, moving on toward nine. Building the barrier at six has no psychological basis. It has come about only from the historic-economic-political fact that the age of six is when we provide schools for all.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“The quickness with which all the “stuff” from childhood can reduce adult siblings to kids again underscores the strong and complex connections between brothers and sisters.... It doesn’t seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we’ve traveled. Our brothers and sisters bring us face to face with our former selves and remind us how intricately bound up we are in each other’s lives.”
—Jane Mersky Leder (20th century)
“I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of ploughboys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle, and dinners at the best taverns.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)