The Soviet Union helped train 40,000 workers and specialists in many different fields for Vietnam. Without the support of various countries, especially the Soviet Union, there would not have been generations of Vietnamese military pilots serving the country’s battles against enemies during the war years. 

Hero of the armed forces, Lieutenant General Pham Tuan, is one of the pilots whose career is closely linked to Russia and the Russian people.

“As for the former Soviet Union and today’s Russia, Vietnam always considers it a friend and an important strategic partner,” Tuan said.

“The Vietnamese Party, State and people highly appreciate the Russian role in the victory of Vietnam’s revolution and its homeland building and protection. In my mind, Russia is a special emotion, because the things I have and can do all have relations with Russia."

“Since the day I became a fighter pilot, shooting down a B-52 plane and becoming an astronaut, there have always been Russians accompanying me on such a long journey," he said.

Tuan went to Russia in 1965, when he was 18 years old. In late October 1965, an intermodal train took Pham Tuan and other young Vietnamese to the Soviet Union to study aircraft mechanics.

After a long journey, the young man was impressed by the wonderful landscape in Russia in autumn, with maple and oak trees, and birches covered with a majestic yellow color.

“Russian teachers were always very enthusiastic. They were born into families with different conditions and some of them were children of revolutionary martyrs, so they had deep knowledge about war,” Tuan said.

The teachers were warm-hearted, benevolent, enthusiastic, open, and sociable, he said. All of them loved Vietnamese students like their relatives.

After a couple of weeks in Russia, a teacher of Russian asked Tuan about his birthday. Since Tuan’s Russian was very poor, he answered incorrectly that he was born January 1 and thought that the answer and question just existed during a lesson.

But on January 1, the teacher came to the class with her birthday card and said Happy Birthday to Pham Tuan.

All the class members, including Tuan, were confused because that day was not Tuan’s birthday. He felt embarrassed and didn’t know how to explain. He just said that it was a mistake that he had made because of his poor Russian vocabulary.

In April 1968, Tuan finished his training course. The bus picking up the group of Vietnamese students stopped in front of a canteen, and the kitchen ladies rushed out to see them off, with tears in their eyes. 

Teacher Dosuchev, when seeing him off, repeatedly said: “Remember when taking off to battle, you need to turn around 360 degrees, Tuan,” he said.

Tuan said he met the teacher many times later. Every time when Tuan returns to Russia on business, Tuan always met the teacher at his home in Krasnodar. One day, before Tuan left Krasnodar, the teacher came to the hotel where Tuan was staying with a mushroom box and Russian sausage pack as gifts for Tuan’s family.

The business trip to space

In 2025, Vietnam will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the first flight by a Vietnamese citizen in space. The Russian comrade, who took the flight with Tuan, is Victor Gorbatko.

Tuan and his family invited Gorbatko and his family members to Vietnam and visit famous landscapes, including Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Da Nang, Ninh Thuan and Da Lat. Gorbatko’s final trip to Vietnam was in February 2017, to attend the inauguration of a statue of him in Phan Rang city.

Tuan said he first met Putin in 2001, during Putin’s official visit to Vietnam as Russian President.

One of the activities designed for the Russian delegation was meeting with Vietnamese who once studied in Russia. Tuan said the hall was full of people as the number of Vietnamese who had studied in Russia was high.

There was a room where books about the Vietnam-Russia relationship were put on a table, awaiting Putin to come and sign on the books.

“The President was very young. I saw him sitting down on the chair and signing. Gorbatko and I stood behind him. Then the President shook my hand and congratulated me,” Tuan recalled.

He commented that Putin was open, straightforward and comfortable when communicating with the former students.

Tran Thuong - Pham Hai