This is the Ilyushin Il-96-300, the most advanced jet airliner developed by the Russian aviation industry. It is the sister, well, younger sister of the Il-86, which is the first Russian wide bodied passenger aircraft made in Russia or the former Soviet Union. In 1987, the Ilyushin Design Bureau (Bureau, the Russians love that word, makes them sound sophisticated) announced it's decision to develope a new type of wide bodied aircraft based on the Il-86. It will be a bit shorter, wing span will be longer, and the horizontal rudder will be higher. It will be able to carry 300 passengers with a range of 9,000 km. The Il-96-300 now uses state-of-the-art flight control and navigational systems, and have 60,000 hours of flight time, and 12,000 take-offs and landings. As of 1991, 5 prototypes were built, 3 for test flight and 2 for extreme condition testing. Today, Aeroflot Russian Int'l Airlines uses the Il-96-300's for flights between Moscow and various cities in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

To some extent, the Il-96-300 resembles the Airbus A-340. But the former is not a copy of the latter. Both began development and test flighted the planes at the same time, which is pretty darn good for the Russians since they were facing both financial and political hardships, which Airbus was just having the time of it's life. But I'm not saying the A-340 isn't a good plane. It is, believe you me. Just reminding you that there are good stuff in Russia.