Concept
Zachari Simeonov Zachariev (1904–1987) was a Bulgarian military pilot and commander, who served in the Red Army from 1929 to 1944 and reached the rank of colonel general. He fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side as a fighter pilot of the Soviet volunteer aviation group. For his combat feats he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - the highest distinction in the Soviet Union. During WWII Zachariev served as head of training facilities of the Civil Air Fleet, where he trained more than 12 thousand pilots. In 1944 he returned to Bulgaria, where he became the Commander-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Air Force, and later the deputy of Minister of Defence. Zachari Zachariev was born on 4 February 1904, the son of Simeon Antonov Zachariev (1873-1969), a village teacher in Basarbovo, Bulgaria. He served in the Bulgarian military. In 1928 he graduated from flight school in Bozhurishte and became a pilot of 1st Reconnaissance Aviation Unit. In 1931 poruchik Zachariev was discharged from the army because of his antifascist views (he organized a strike on May 1), and he and with his friends - pilots Kiril Kirilov, Boris Ganev and Nikola Vatov - emigrated to the USSR. They were sent on the recommendation of Georgi Dimitrov to flight training into the Tambov flight school, where Zachariev soon became an instructor, changing his name to Volkan Goranov to prevent the pro-fascist government of Bulgaria from persecuting his family. In 1936 three Bulgarian instructors of the Tambov flight school wrote reports with a request to enter a volunteer aviation unit, which was to be deployed to Spain. In Spain Zachariev fought under the Turkish pseudonym Halil Ekrem, flying a Potez-542 bomber, later a SB, carrying airstrikes against Francoist targets. He injured his leg, when his airplane was attacked by Italian fighters and set on fire. Despite his wound, he saved his crew. When the nationalists started their attack on Madrid, he was evacuated from a Spanish hospital to the USSR on board of a Soviet ship.
