[Luc]

It took me only a few seconds to find on Google Maps: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=46.921164,32.083704&spn=0.00...

Looks like it has a few siblings, so what you're getting is not as exclusive as you might think...

That explains the pictures on the eBay auction appearing to be from different fuselages - they actually are (the two rightmost ones on Google Maps).

EDIT: Hmmm, maybe not. Perhaps it's the same plane in different locations, I can't be sure.

[thearn4]

I found the source of the photo: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/27416195

Not convinced that the auction is legit.

By the way, the American version (military aviation graveyard) of this is pretty fun to look around at too:

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.1572109,-110.8374108,4128m/d...

[Avitas]

It is even more fun to head over there and get a tour through the graveyard. Actual pilots of some of those birds give the tours and they know many of these planes very well.

[jfb]

Apropos of the A-10 [1] discussion earlier, there are a few Thunderbolts scattered around.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354214

[fmsf]

There is an area there where the airplanes are scraped out https://www.google.com/maps/@32.1594878,-110.8272291,81m/dat...

[Evgeniuz]

Wow, this is my city! What you found is military airfield Kulbakine, it is functioning (I hear/see jet training flights from time to time).

[hengheng]

On a tangent, how much do you notice the political tensions in your everyday life? I read some accounts by people from Odessa who said they didn't bother much and saw as their first priority that nobody died no matter on what side. Are you still far enough away from the Crimea to ignore everything if you chose to do so?

Also I'm wondering if people will give you strange looks exporting a 4-engine military aircraft out of Ukraine these days. That'd certainly be fun to try.

[Evgeniuz]

We're almost bordering Crimea, but Crimea is an autonomy, so what happens there is more or less confined. You can ignore politics here if you choose to do so, but unfortunately you can't ignore economic repercussions of it. Exchange rates are skyrocketing, prices on import products (majority of them) rise accordingly, banks put limits on access to debit cards and extreme limits on credit cards. In our biggest bank you literally can't spend more than $20 per day from credit card (and this, combined with higher prices, put strain to people with low income).

As for tensions, our city is pretty much evenly split up pro-russian/anti-russian. Majority of people I know is anti-russian, but this is probably demographics bias, because older people (who lived half of their life in USSR) are mostly pro-russian. But you won't see many fights here over this. In everyday life when someone mentions they are from one camp and someone from another, we usually just laugh it off and change theme. Some extremists do escalate the conflict, but they're not good people anyway, no matter what side they're taking.

I've witnessed one episode recently when playing at trivia competition with my team. It's split up to pro-russian/anti-russian, just like our city, but we just joke casually about each other and that's it. One of the pro-russian members is a world-class athlete. She took part in world championship on behalf of Ukraine and came to this trivia competition in national athletics team's suit. One of the anti-russian people from other team was shouting to her that she does not deserve to wear this suit, because she's pro-russian and hence anti-ukrainian. But that's just nonsense, because she earned the right to wear this suit more than anyone else in that room. Fortunately, this was one of just few exceptions. So what you read about people in Odessa is true for people in Nikolayev - majority here value respect for each other more than political beliefs.

[e3pi]

"... Exchange rates are skyrocketing, prices on import products (majority of them) rise accordingly, banks put limits on access to debit cards and extreme limits on credit cards. In our biggest bank you literally can't spend more than $20 per day from credit card (and this, combined with higher prices, put strain to people with low income)."

Evgenuiz;

Are you, or have you news, if bitcoin, or other e-currency, is being used, becoming popular as an alternative to your "...you literally can't spend more than $20 per day from credit card", etc?

[joshmlewis]

Do you have something that helps you search Google Maps or are you just good at doing it manually?

[Luc]

I was hoping you'd ask! It was luck. I had noticed signs of a civilian airport in the background of one of the pictures. When I looked at Nikolayev on Google Maps (I was wondering how close to Crimea these ports mentioned in the eBay auction are) I noticed the airport and zoomed in.

[maaku]

In other words you found one TU-95 soviet bomber out of the 500+ built. And you know it is the same plane... why?

[Luc]

The background, the patterns of the tiles on the ground, the buildings all match. The pictures were taken in that location.

[neurotech1]

I see only two are actual Tu-95s intact and one more in pieces. The others are probably IL-76s.

It could be that only one is legally for sale.

[dav-]

How did you find this?

[lttlrck]

The airfield is really easy to spot if search for Nikolaiev.