Autobiography was Maxim Gorky's surest talent, but he did not discover it until he was nearly fifty. By that time he had found ways of using his great memory less to preach than to describe.

In the 1930’s, it held the record for the largest aircraft, the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky. Since then, the company has built on its pedigree with the Tu-95 strategic bomber, introduced in 1956 and ...