The Russian plane in Umm Al Quwain and the curious fusion of fashion and fuselage

Time’s up, it seems, for the mysterious Russian cargo plane at the abandoned Umm Al Quwain airfield. After rusting on the tarmac for decades, now it’s being dismantled, marking, for me at least, the end of an era.

It may sound bizarre to claim affinity with an inanimate object, but that plane and I go way back.

In 2008, I had recently arrived in the UAE and, eager to explore, every weekend I would throw the dog and a picnic into my Toyota Yaris…