Pin made in Soviet Russia. The pin shows the Tupolev ANT-4. The text on the pin reads:”The first heavy all-metal aircraft”, ”Land of the soviets″ and “First flight to America”.
The Tupolev TB-1 (development name ANT-4) was a Soviet bomber aircraft, an angular monoplane that served as the backbone of the Soviet bomber force for many years, and was the first large all-metal aircraft built in the Soviet Union.
The first prototype was built during 1925 on the second floor of Tupolev’s factory in Moscow, it being necessary to knock down a wall to allow the aircraft to be taken out of the building.
The first production aircraft was completed as an unarmed civil aircraft, named Strana Sovyetov (Land of the Soviets) for a propaganda flight from Moscow to New York.
One Avia Arktika ANT-4, flown by Anatoly Liapidevsky, played a key role in the rescue of the crew of the steamship Chelyuskin, which sank on 12 February 1934 after being trapped in ice near the Bering Strait. Liapidevsky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.