The bizarre life of Mathias Rust

On 28.May.1987 a 19 year old German guy called Mathias Rust made headlines around the world when he illegally flew his Cessna light aircraft from Hamburg to Moscow and landed in Red Square.



The Soviets arrested him on landing and he was sentenced to four years hard labour.

Rust said all along that the flight was a peace mission. And indeed it could be argued that he was highly successful in this. The embarassing penetration of Soviet airspace gave president Gorbachev an excuse to fire 2,000 high ranking military officials. These were mostly defence ministers who were opposed to the policies of glasnost and perestroika.

Whilst in the labour camp Rust was locked up 22 hours a day in a 10 square metre cell. He said he was glad that at least nobody could harm him. Rust was released after 18 months in what was seen as a political move between Germany and the Soviet Union.





Back in Germany in 1989 Rust met a young nurse. He wanted to ask her out but she refused. So he attempted murder by stabbing her with a knife. She survived with flesh wounds and he spent five months in a German jail.

In 1994 Rust moved to Russia and blipped off the radar for two years. Rumours began to circulate that he had died there. That was until he showed up working as a shoe salesman in Moscow.

In 1997 he married an Indian girl, in India, and converted to Hinduism.

He is now married to his second wife, Athena, who he met on the Carribean island of Trinidad.

As of today, 2005, Rust is 37 years old and apparently living in Berlin, still with Athena. His latest idea is a "think tank" called "Orion and Isis". This is another peace mission in a similar vein to his flight to Moscow. The aim is to bring peace between Palastine and Israel. The website is at http://www.mathiasrust.com/ - but it's all a bit vague and one has to wonder if the project is actually doing anything at all.

Wikipedia: Mathias Rust

i remember that guy...that *is* interesting. except the part about the stabbing. that part is psycho.

PS: is it me, or does his hand look disproportionally large in comparison with his head, or is it that the gynormous glasses make his head look disproportionally small?

He can't have done much of the "hard labour" he was sentenced to, if he was only out of his cell for 2 hours per day.

I remember the red square landing. Didn't know the rest. Cheers Bob

I can clearly remember the landing on the Red Square, even if I was a boy at that time.
The landing sequences shown on TV were just amazing.

It is strange that the other events did not have media coverage, expecially the stabbing.

Only in Fritzland.

There appear to be more wierdo's here than any other other place. The Piano Man, the baby corpses turning up in flower pots, the guy on Devil Cap mushrooms who calmly walked into his parents' garden hut, and walked out minus a tongue and a willy.

What is it about this country?

Really interesting piece of trivia. Thanks Bob!

Amazing that the guy was able to pull off two marriages after the stabbing incident. Not like that could be kept secret. Same profile as those girls who marry prisoners, I suppose.

Not so many weirdos in germany when you think of home-sweet-home -back in the U.S. of A. Ted Bundy, Hillside Strangler, Son of Sam, Greenriver Killer, list goes on and on...

Don't forget that cannibal dude who met his victim over the internet. Which is the more insane, the guy eating people or somebody actually wanting to be eaten?