Invited by Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev the 26 April 1963 took off from Havana and flew directly through the North Atlantic and the Barents Sea to the “Olenya” air base south of Murmansk, B.port.com writes.
The visit marked the start of a more than one month trip all through the Soviet Union. The Cuban leader after Murmansk proceeded to Moscow, Siberia and all the way to Samarkand in today’s Uzbekistan.
Weather was bad when on the Kola Peninsula on 26 April 1963 and pilot Mikhail Kostryukevich needed two attempts to take the aircraft safely through the fog to the airbase in Olenegorsk.
At the air strip, Mr. Castro was welcomed by politbureau member Anastas Mikoyan. The two man and their delegations after that took the train to the city of Murmansk, where the Cuban leader was met by thousands of people at the railway station.
Fidel Castro spent three days in the Kola Peninsula, before he continued on his Russian expedition. Included in the programme was excursions to military installations, among them the B-35 submarine, a vessel which had participated in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
