Roberto L. Bartini, a communist who had fled Italy in 1923 for the USSR, joined the Red Army and became an aviation engineer who quickly rose to the position of head of the Stal Design Bureau. As the name suggests, the company specialized in steel aircraft construction. The Stal-7 light transport was originally to be a fabric-steel-tubular design to run in parallel with a bomber design. However, that design was inefficient, so a light metal alloy was used instead. The gull-wing aircraft was very sturdy and efficient but cramped inside due to the wing spars, so it became unattractive as a transport. it flew in 1937, but crashed slightly afterwards. Bartini was arrested and so his design was passed on over to Yermolaev to become the Yer-2 or DB 240 bomber that hit Berlin in night raids. The transport version never stood a chance as the Soviets used DC-3s licensed by Lisunov as Li-2s. Bartini was imprisoned from '38-46 and is least known among Soviet WW2 aircraft designers. His work was declined and yet stolen as well. It is claimed that Stalin did not like the idea of a Soviet bomber bearing an Italian name, so Bartini was arrested on flimsy accusations. He did however survive and continue on with many postwar projects including a supersonic hydroplane A57 and nuclear hydroplane project! But perhaps he is best known for his collaboration with Beriev for the odd-looking VVA-14: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Bartini_VVA-14.jpg

Stal-7: http://www.airwar.ru/image/i/cw1/stal7-i.jpg Yer-2 bomber: http://crimso.msk.ru/Images6/AE/AE72-10/181-1.jpg