Since its founding and until nowadays the Museum overcame huge path in sphere of the collection replenishing and changing the exhibition from pro-Soviet into Ukraine-centered.
In the Museum exhibition, created in first years after Declaration of state independence of Ukraine, in the hall telling about the last battles of the Second World War in Europe, a couple of pilot`s gloves were presented. The gloves belonged to famous ace pilot Ivan Kozhedub. He was born in Obrazhiivka village, Shostka area of Sumy region.
The gloves were transferred to the collection from the State Historical Museum (National Museum of the History of Ukraine nowadays). The gloves appeared into its storage after the republican exhibition “Partisans of Ukraine in struggle against Nazi occupants” had been closed. It is curios how the gloves appeared in that exhibition, as their owner had never been a partisan.
During the war, Ivan Kozhedub performed 330 combat missions, participated in 120 air combats, destroyed 62 enemy aircrafts, 27 of them — in the skies over Ukraine, another 2 — above the city of Berlin. He was the only Soviet fighter pilot who managed to destroy the newest German Me-262 reactive aircraft (it happened in February 1945 above the Oder river).
All his air combats Kozhedub committed on aircraft designed under management of aircraft designer Semen Lavochkin (La-5, L-5FN, La-7). In 1944, he performed his duties on an aircraft manufactured with funds of collective farmer-apiarist Vasyl Koniev.
Ivan Kozhedub was one of three persons awarded title of Hero of the Soviet Union and one of the Soviet authorities` favorites. He graduated the Academy of the General Staff, became an Air forces Marshal, occupied a number of high positions and was a Deputy of the Supreme Council of the USSR for several times.
Kozhedub died on August 8, 1991 at the age of 71. He did not lived just two weeks until collapse of the state, considerable part of which glory he was. Buried in Moscow on the Novodevichy Cemetery. In different cities across all former Soviet Union the monuments were established and streets were named after the pilot. In particular, Ermolino airfield (Kaluga region, Russian Federation) was named after Ivan Kozhedub within the all-Russian patriotic project “Alley of Russian glory” — Russians love to appropriate other peoples` past.
Along his life, Ivan Kozhedub did not forget his Ukrainian origins. For several times he visited cities and villages of Ukraine, in particular his native village Obrazhiivka, Shostka city, where he studied, cities of Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kaniv.
Ukraine remembers and honors hero’s name. In 2010, National University of Air Force in Kharkiv city was named after Ivan Kozhedub. Now its alumni demonstrating their mastery while protecting Ukrainian sky.