For the decade of the 1920s the Soviet state refrained from building airships. Neither the Red Army neither the Soviet Navy wished to order an airship for military purpose, nor was there interest by any civilian agency. With the decommissioning of the airship MHR the newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” began raising money to build a new airship. Some 12,000 Soviet rubles were raised from Soviet and foreign donors to fund the construction. “Komsomol’skaya Pravda” — literally “Komsomol Truth” — was an official countrywide newspaper of Komsomol, the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. The airship was named after the newspaper as its editorial board was a fundraiser for her construction and the majority of donations were received from the Komsomol members.

Work on its production were conducted by the students of the aeromechanical High School, under N. Fomin. The new airship was named the “Komsomolskaya Pravda”.

Komsomol’skaya Pravda was a simple non-rigid airship with a volume of 2500 cubic meters of hydrogen and a length of 46 meters. The ship carried one 185 hp BMW aircraft engine. The envelope was made of the fabric remaining from old Russian WWI observation balloons of the Parseval type, and a metal open car was rope-hanged beneath the envelope.

As there were no airship hangars around Moscow at the time, the Komsomolskaya Pravda’s units were fabricated in a former church building. The entire airship was finally assembled and filled with gas outdoor in a natural trough. The same place was used as a mooring in 1930 and 1931.

On July 25, 1930 the airship was filled with gas and on 29 August 1930, near Moscow, the Soviet airship “Komsomolskaya Pravda” (Комсомольская Правда) took off for her maiden flight. After a one-hour flight over Moscow she successfully landed.

The commander of the ship became E.M. Oppman and on 31 August 1930 “Komsomolskaya Pravda” flew over Moscow. In 1930 they made 30 flights, and the next year another 25.

Komsomolskaya Pravda was used as a training airship by aeronautics students as well as for propaganda flights. During 1930 and 1931, Komsomolskaya Pravda made 55 flights and covered 3555 km. She was sent for total reconstruction because of deterioration in 1932.

In 1934, Komsomolskaya Pravda burnt after being struck with a lightning in the boathouse where it was kept together with its modernized versions.

In the autumn of 1924 Vozduhsektsiyu Osoaviahima USSR completed the construction of another Myagenko airship named “Moscow chemist rezinschik” (MHR) under N. Fomin. It was made by voluntary contributions of chemical industry workers in and around Moscow.

The first flight of the airship was made On June 16, 1925, under the control of VL Nizhevskogo, in the air for 2 hours 5 minutes.

Flying from Leningrad to Moscow, it was mistakingly shot down by guards of a military factory in Tver.

After its reconstruction, it had another crash and was disassembled.

This airship was operated until 1928, upgraded a couple of times and rebuilt. In total “Moscow chemist rezinschik” made 21 flights totaling 43 hours and 29 minutes.

Engine: 77 kW
Envelope volume: 2,458 cu.m
Length: 45.4 m
Width: 10.3 m
Maximum speed: 62 km / h
Payload: 900 kg

Designed by General Nobile, the second Russian airship was “VI October”, which was built of makeshift materials in 1923 by students of higher forces aeronautical school located in St. Petersburg. The envelope of 1,700 cubic meters was sewn from old tethered balloons. The total length of the airship was 39.2 m and width 8,2 m. The engine was 77 kW.

The first flight of the airship was on November 27, 1923, lasting for about 30 minutes. A second flight, on 29 November lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes and reached a height of 900 meters. After that flying was stopped because of the very high gas permeability of the membrane.