The author, based on archival materials and memories of veterans, introduces the reader to unusual aircraft and ekranoplanes designed by Robert Bartini, who came to the USSR from Italy in 1923 and devoted his life to the development of Soviet aviation. Bartini was able to build only four aircraft, but the technical solutions, embedded in them and in projects not implemented by him, are used in the aircraft industry to this day. Robert Ludwigovich left to his descendants many of his ideas in the field of ekranoplan construction - one of the most promising types of transport of the future. The idea of a composite wing, proposed by Robert Bartini, has not died out to this day .In OKB im. P.O. Sukhoi, under the leadership of his general designer M.P. Simonov, developed a proposal for the creation of a transport ekranoplan S-90-200, made according to a scheme similar to the BVA-14. According to the same scheme, under the leadership of Bartini’s student V.V. Kolganov built a light ekranoplane EP-7 "Ivolga", which successfully passed tests on Lake Baikal. These are direct descendants of the ideas of Robert Bartini.