Kocherdyk Airfield

Primarily economic reasons. The airfield became financially unviable after the fall of the Soviet Union. The centralized, state-run collective farm system ('kolkhoz') that it served was dismantled, which eliminated the demand and funding for large-scale agricultural aviation services. The cost of operating and maintaining aircraft like the An-2 became prohibitive for the newly privatized or restructured farms.

The airfield is completely abandoned and defunct. Analysis of recent satellite imagery shows the former unpaved runway is entirely overgrown with grass and has been reclaimed by the surrounding farmland, likely used for haymaking or as pasture. The runway outline is barely visible. The few small support buildings on the site appear to be in a state of severe disrepair or have been repurposed for non-aviation, local agricultural storage. There is no aviation infrastructure or activity remaining.

Kocherdyk was a typical Soviet-era local airfield dedicated almost exclusively to agricultural aviation (Авиационные химические работы - Aviation Chemical Work). Its primary function was to support the surrounding collective farms with aerial application services, including crop dusting, fertilization, and pest control. Operations were carried out by the ubiquitous Antonov An-2 biplane, the workhorse of Soviet rural aviation. It was a small but integral part of the vast infrastructure network that supported the USSR's agricultural sector. It did not handle significant passenger or military traffic.

There are no known plans or realistic prospects for reopening Kocherdyk Airfield. The original economic basis for its existence is gone, and modern agricultural methods (such as ground-based GPS-guided sprayers and agricultural drones) are often more cost-effective for the current scale of farming. There is no passenger or cargo demand in the sparsely populated rural area that would justify the significant investment required to restore and operate the airfield.