Early Life
Nikolai Kamanin was born in Melenki, near Murom, Vladimir Oblast. Kamanin's grandfather was a wealthy shoemaker with his own workshop, however, his father, Pyotr Kamanin, broke with tradition and joined the Bolsheviks. He died in 1919 at the age of 49; mother, Stefanida Danilovna (1876–1964) lived all her life in Melenki. Stefanida and Pyotr Kamanin had 10 children; Nikolai survived all his four brothers. Alexander Ivanovich Kamanin, Nikolai's uncle, lived a very long life, including 50 years of religious hermitage, and had a reputation of a holy elder.
According to his son, Lev Kamanin, Nikolai Kamanin was actually born in 1909 and changed it to 1908 to cheat the Army admission staff when he volunteered in 1927. He passed the airforce physical test and completed the pilots' school in Borisoglebsk in 1929, trained by legendary pilot Victor Kholzunov. Kamanin was dispatched to the site of Russo-Chinese railroad conflict in the Far East, arriving one day after cease-fire. There, he joined the legendary Lenin air regiment, the first airforce unit in Soviet history. Kamanin flew a two-seater reconnaissance airplane, including 11-hour endurance flights over the Sea of Japan. His crewmate, incidentally, was an ethnic Chinese.
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