These were kids of the Georgian intelligentsia, including trained doctors, painters, and an actor, doing something naive and stupid (hijacking a plane to go to the nearest capitalist country). It turned out even the pilots were armed, shot at them, and turned the flight right back to Georgia.
The head of local KGB then got Georgian soldiers to shoot up the plane "so it wouldn't leave", killing the pilots "by accident" and injuring innocent passengers. The plane was then raided by Soviet Alpha group (basically their US Delta Force).
The communist leader of Georgia at the time wanted to make an example of them and gave death sentences, even despite their ages, except of course the one girl got 15yrs. The parents didn't find out they were executed by the state for five years (nor did the media obviously).
The desire to leave the Iron Curtain countries lead to some crazy stories and near suicidal attempts. And these stories were quickly forgotten.
>The communist leader of Georgia at the time wanted to make an example of them and gave death sentences, even despite their ages. The parents didn't find out they were executed by the state for five years (nor did the media obviously).
These two sentences appear to contradict each other. Why would their executions be low-key if they were to be made examples of?
Plus that Georgia as a country didn’t exist back in the time of this dirty, and its „communist leader“ was just a minor Soviet apparatchik, who couldn’t make such decision on his own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_6833
Here is the documentary by a local Georgian director that stuck in my head for a long time:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0818087/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUkluq8oPvY
These were kids of the Georgian intelligentsia, including trained doctors, painters, and an actor, doing something naive and stupid (hijacking a plane to go to the nearest capitalist country). It turned out even the pilots were armed, shot at them, and turned the flight right back to Georgia.
The head of local KGB then got Georgian soldiers to shoot up the plane "so it wouldn't leave", killing the pilots "by accident" and injuring innocent passengers. The plane was then raided by Soviet Alpha group (basically their US Delta Force).
The communist leader of Georgia at the time wanted to make an example of them and gave death sentences, even despite their ages, except of course the one girl got 15yrs. The parents didn't find out they were executed by the state for five years (nor did the media obviously).
The desire to leave the Iron Curtain countries lead to some crazy stories and near suicidal attempts. And these stories were quickly forgotten.