Mathias Rust landed on a bridge near St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow to promote world peace. His flight began in May 1987 when he was fed up with the tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. He thought he could create an 'imaginary bridge' to the East.

Starting in West Germany from the city of Uetersen, he first flew to Iceland, then other airports with a final refueling stop in Helsinki, Finland where told the traffic control tower he was flying west to Stockholm, Sweden. After take-off however, he headed east to Moscow. He had initially planned to land at the Kremlin but changed his mind reasoning that landing inside the Kremlin walls, would have allowed the KGB (security agency) to simply arrest him and deny the incident.

He changed his landing spot to Red Square but due to pedestrian traffic he finally landed on a bridge by St. Basil's Cathedral as seen in this picture. Arrested for illegally entering Soviet airspace, he was tried and sentenced to 4 years in a general-regime labor camp.

Two months later, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev agreed to sign a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. The Supreme Soviet (governing council) ordered Rust to be released in August 1988 as a good will gesture. After his release, Rust enjoyed a short period of fame before he retreated from the public eye and became involved with several utopian and religious groups.

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