8 October] 1901 — 28 December 1978) was the navigator of the historic Moscow-North Pole-San Jacinto flight, for which he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

[1][3] On 12 July 1937 he took off from Moscow in an ANT-25 as navigator under the command of pilot Mikhail Gromov and co-pilot Andrey Yumashev for what became the record-breaking Moscow-San Jacinto flight.

Despite encountering a variety of difficulties, such as having to fly blind at various points and having difficulty finding a place to land since the San Diego Airport was experiencing poor weather, they managed to safely land in a pasture near the city of San Jacinto on 14 July.

After landing the crew went on a three-week tour of the United States, being given the status of honorary citizens of the city of Los Angeles by the mayor and meeting with president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington DC.

The idea was addressed at a meeting with leading engineers of the Air Force in mid 1940, then in 1941 a laboratory prototype was created, and by December 1942 the Gneiss-2 radar system was used by Soviet aircraft in the battles for Moscow and Stalingrad.