It was a rule to report that everything was OK. In reality the profession of a cosmonaut was one of the most dangerous. Now we know that crewmembers of the first Vostok spacecraft were bumped and roughed and the flight was clearly not a picnic. Valentina also experienced it all. There is documentary evidence it was an ordeal for her in extreme conditions. The mission of a cosmonaut is not just a flight, it includes many months of training, risk, and often damaged health. Tereshkova herself disclosed it when asked about the impact of the space flight on the health of the pilot.

— Cosmonauts have vulnerable heart, vascular system, and head, she said.

She experienced it herself. Valentina Tereshkova does not conceal that she wanted to fly to space again, but doctors did not allow. Which path did she have to traverse towards the first female flight to space in the history of mankind? It lasted 72 hours and her Vostok-6 spacecraft circled the Earth 48 times. Why was she chosen? To comprehend it we have to recollect the times when Soviet space research rapidly developed with all accompanying specifics.

Unusual person in unusual time

There were no grounds to suggest that Valentina would become the first female cosmonaut in the world. She was born before the war in a small village in Yaroslavl region. Her father was a tractor operator and her mother worked in a textile factory. The social origin was an important factor for the national leadership in choosing a woman to become the first in space. However there was a tragic page in family history which could bar Valentina from the flight. In 1939 her father was recruited to the army and went missing during the Soviet- Finnish war. He was most likely killed, but officially remained missing which always triggered suspicion of Soviet authorities about possible defection.

Valentina studied seven years in school and had to go to work. She was hired by the Yaroslavl tire factory and continued studies in an evening school. Later she was employed by the Yaroslavl textile factory called Krasny Perekop. She continued to work and entered a vocational light industry school. In five years the energetic girl was noticed by the management of the factory and assigned to head the grass-root committee of the Young Communist League.

It is also important that Valentina was fond of sky-jumping and spent a lot of free time at the airfield. Her working class origin, public activities and parachuting skills helped Tereshkova get enlisted into the team of cosmonauts in March 1962.

She was assigned the rank of a private and training began. It lasted several months and was exhausting. There were several obligatory exercises which show the strain – heat chamber where she had to stay in her flying uniform at temperature of +70 degrees Centigrade and 30% humidity, and anechoic room which was completely soundproof and where she had to stay for ten days running. Training in weightlessness was carried out on MiG-15 fighter jets. While doing acrobatic maneuvers – parabolic turn – zero gravity developed inside the aircraft for 40 seconds and she had to experience it 3-4 times during one flight. Besides, in weightlessness she had to write down her name, try to eat or communicate through a radio set.

After the successful landing of Tereshkova Soviet space leaders agreed that Khrushchev made a lucky choice.

After several months of physical and psychological load Tereshkova passed exams and in December 1962 was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant. Time to the historic flight began to run at a space speed. On June16, 1963 the Liftoff command w as issued.

The story could have been different as Tereshkova was only the fifth in the list of would-be cosmonauts by her medical test results. However Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev interfered. He studied the biographies of the candidates and made a ruling with no right to appeal: Tereshkova will fly. Her working class origin helped as other girls were born into families of clerks. Designer General Sergei Korolev and Academician Mstislav Keldysh had to agree.

How did other girls react? Tereshkova said many years after the flight that they were very upset. She would have been also upset if another candidate had been chosen.

— It would be a pity for me to sit in a spacesuit in a bus and see another girl go to the spacecraft. We all passed the difficult flight preparation stages. But we preserved our friendship. At the space base they called us “top secret girls” as training itself was top secret. Accredited journalists even composed a song: Our town is small and top secret girls comprise a minority in it. After the successful landing of Tereshkova Soviet space leaders agreed that Khrushchev made a lucky choice as Valentina behaved impeccably in difficult flight conditions. Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin was in charge of selecting and training cosmonauts. That is what he said: Preparation of the rocket, spacecraft and all other operations went very smoothly. By perfect and coherent performance of all services and systems Tereshkova’s liftoff reminds me of Gagarin’s flight. Like on April 12, 1961, the blastoff on June 16, 1963 was perfect. Everybody who saw Tereshkova at the launching pad and listened to her reports on the way to the orbit unanimously agreed: “She blasted off better than Popovich and Nikolayev did”. I am very happy that the choice of the first female cosmonaut was correct.

Everything is OK onboard

The phrase which Tereshkova transmitted from her Vostok-6 to the whole world was evasive and only the mission control knew the truth. What did the first woman encounter in space? That is what she said:

— There was a mistake in the automatic program of the spacecraft. Instead of descending it climbed the orbit. I did not come closer to the Earth with each circle, but distanced from it. They reported it to Korolev. On the second day they booted new data into the system and the orbit improved. Korolev asked me not to tell anyone about it and I kept silent for dozens of years. Later it was reported in the press and now I can disclose it. Major-General Nikolai Kamanin also did not conceal the truth in his memoirs. That is what he wrote about the flight:

— It was clear she was tired but refused to admit it. During the last radio session she did not answer our calls. We switched on TV camera and saw her sleeping. We had to wake her up and tell her about upcoming landing and manual orbit change. She tried twice to orient the spacecraft and honestly admitted she failed to adjust correct pitching. We were very concerned because in case of manual landing she would be incapable of orienting the spacecraft and it would not leave the orbit. She said the polarity of commands was opposite to the movement of the joystick in manual regime (the spacecraft turned to a different side in contrast to stimulator flight). In the automatic regime the polarity was correct and we succeeded to properly orient and land the spacecraft.

Landing in Baev district of Altai region 620 kilometers north-east of Karaganda gave Tereshkova a nervous breakdown. Decades later she remembers the event as if it happened only yesterday:

— When I ejected I experienced muted horror as there was a lake below. The first thought was: God, they send a female and she has to splash down! Will she have enough strength to stay on water after an exhausting flight? But I was lucky as I flew over the lake. There was strong wind at the earth surface and it pulled my huge parachute. . .

The first flight of a woman in space ended with the first reprimand to her for a curious reason. The military bureaucrats disciplined her for breaching the regime in the landing area. In comprehensible language it means that when Tereshkova saw numerous people running to her she handed out all her space food stock and in exchange was treated to local dishes which were earthly and incredibly tasty for her .

Besides the reprimand, Valentina recollects pleasant things as well: before the liftoff of the Vostok she was promoted to the rank of a lieutenant and right after landing received the rank of a captain. Several days later on June 22, 1963 Valentina Tereshkova was awarded the top title of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

This was the end of the flight in which everything was OK.

The consequences of the space flight will for long affect the future life of Valentina Tereshkova. Mostly her health. Expert in postflight adaptation of cosmonauts Dr. Vitaly Volovich believes female organism is unfit for zerogravity.

Male body recovers calcium in 10-12 days while Tereshkova could not stand on her feet for a month. Penetrating space rays had a different impact on the woman. Her bones became fragile and could break under any load, bleeding often occurred. Volovich said Tereshkova will for all her life face the danger of breaking a leg at the drop of a hat or bleed to death from a small wound. Luckily, doctors succeeded to cure the problems with time and Valentina Tereshkova began to live an ordinary earthly life. However it was not very ordinary.

After the flight

After triumphant welcome in Moscow Tereshkova was asked what she would desire most of all. She said she wanted to find the grave of her father. They fulfilled her request although it was not easy to find the common grave where her father w as buried two decades after the war.

Even prim Britons awarded her the title of the Greatest Woman of the XX Century.

Another important event took place in November 1963: Tereshkova married cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev. There are different stories about the space marriage. There are claims that Nikita Khrushchev insisted on it as he thought the space couple will bring respect and love to the Soviet Union across the globe. Others say Nikolayev was the only single cosmonaut who courted Tereshkova from the first day she came to the team of cosmonauts.

General Nikolai Kamynin wrote in his diary at the time: “Their marriage can be fruitful for politics and science, but I am not sure it would be long as they are very different: she is fire and he is water. They are both strong and determined people, neither of them would voluntarily surrender to the other . . .”

Anyway, the Soviet leader personally attended the wedding ceremony in the government reception house in Lenin Hills and in June 1964 daughter Yelena was born. They stayed together but each lived his own life: Nikolayev was preparing for new flights while Tereshkova was bringing up her daughter and actively engaged in public life. The marriage quickly cracked, as General Kamynin predicted. For the time being they did not tell anyone about deteriorating relationship. They divorced only when daughter Yelena reached full legal age.That is how Yelena recalls it:

— The father and mother divorced when I was 18. Naturally, I was upset but I was grownup enough to comprehend their decision.

They claim Tereshkova had to request permission to divorce from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. She was stubborn enough and managed to convince Brezhnev that the space marriage was no longer necessary. Besides, Valentina found another big love.

She first met Doctor Yuly Shaposhnikov in 1978 when she underwent medical tests in order to be enlisted to a new team of cosmonauts. Shaposhnikov worked in the Medical Military Academy and was in the team of doctors who checked candidates to the team of cosmonauts. They married several years after Tereshkova divorced and lived together for twenty years up to the demise of the husband.

Awards, titles, decorations

It is not an easy task to list all awards of Valentina Tereshkova as they are numerous and come from various countries. Streets were named after her and she is an honorable resident of a huge number of cities practically on all continents. Even prim Britons awarded her the title of the Greatest Woman of the XX Century .

Her space awards comprise a separate file: a Moon crater was named after Tereshkova and a small planet is called 1671 Chaika. There are many commemorative places in her native region: school #32 in Yaroslavl where she studied is now named after Valentina Tereshkova. There is also the Space museum named after her and located several kilometers from her native village. The latest present has been received by Tereshkova only recently: right at a session of the State Duma in 2013 she was presented with a splinter of the famous “Chelyabinsk meteorite”.

However the main award for Tereshkova is her daughter Yelena and grandsons Alexei and Andrei.

She achieved everything what a woman can dream of: there was love, there is a child, and a lot of interesting work. She is a self-made woman and the corresponding popular American saying is about her. Valentina received higher education after the flight and headed numerous public associations, including the Committee of Soviet Women and the Russian Center for International Scientific and Cultural Cooperation. She is the first woman in Russia to receive the rank of a general. Today Tereshkova is a lawmaker in the Russian State Duma from United Russia party .

There are films about her and songs composed by popular rock bands from Norway, Poland, England, Italy, and the Netherlands. In Russia I remember a song performed by a band of her fellow-countrymen called Yaroslavl Guys who often appeared on TV: Valentina, tell us, why did you undermine our male dominance? She was the first to fly into space from her native region. However the main award for Tereshkova is her daughter Yelena and grandsons Alexei and Andrei. What else can an earthly woman dream of? However there is still a dream which, alas, will not come true.

There are no former cosmonauts

It is clear that her age will not allow her another space flight. However she often dreams of flying again. Valentina Tereshkova explains:

— I was crazy about my work. A flight is like a disease. You need to skydive. It demands better knowledge, skills and responsibilities. There were many candidates, but I was selected. That means you have to do it no matter what. You have to die but do it. Would I like to fly to space again? Yes, without hesitation. It is a dream of everyone who has been in space. I dream of the flight. Sometimes I see all details which I did not notice before. However my dream is impossible. Had I had much money I would become a space tourist. Where would I like to fly? There is an exciting and mysterious planet called Mars. We dreamt about it together with Sergei Korolev decades ago. I am ready to go there even with no return. . .

Andrei Karavaev,

for Amber Bridge

Georgy Grechko was born in Leningrad on May 25, 1931. After graduating from the Mechanical Institute he was assigned to the Design Bureau of Sergei Korolev. Grechko was involved in the project to launch the first artificial Earth satellite. He logged three space flights – in 1975, 1977 and 1985. Recently, Georgy Grechko visited Riga as a co-chair of the Vladimir Vysotsky Charity Fund to present a bas relief of the great poet and singer. During the visit, Grechko was interviewed by the Amber Bridge in a hotel in downtown Riga.

I am no coward , but I am afraid!”

Grechko made three space flights. He flew to orbit for the first time in 1975 at the age of 44. “I broke my leg and moved to the end of the space queue,” he recalled. The flight lasted 29 days. The second one was 96 days long – from December 10, 1977 to March 16, 1978. Grechko traveled to space together with Yuri Romanenko and took a recording of Vysotsky’s songs with him. It was a daring act at the time as Vysotsky’s songs were considered dissident by official authorities and the cosmonaut could have lost his successful career taking the “singer with a guitar” to space.

“Do you remember Lenin’s article about compromises?” Grechko smiled. “It says one should always compromise until a certain limit of your principles when you realize you can no longer backtrack. I could not let Vysotsky down. As for the career, I did not become a cosmonaut at once. I was a diver, a pilot, an Alpine skier, and a motorbike and car racer. I numerously tested myself to understand whether I am a coward or not. I always tried to abide by my principles. Honestly speaking, I was afraid but acted like I deemed it necessary .

Do you mean you are a cowardly cosmonaut?

Do you remember the words of a character in the Tiger Cruise movie – I am no coward but I am afraid? Everybody can be afraid, even cosmonauts. You know how many people have died. I also had hard landings and said goodbye to life. Only a coward is not afraid. I do not believe fear to be a disgrace. You are a fool if you are not afraid of anything. It means you do not understand what is happening. I am sure: one can be very afraid but remain courageous. Such a person acts quickly and better sees the acceptable way out of the situation which looks desperate.

I have been drowning five times! When I finally realized I am no coward I applied for a cosmonaut. Besides, I am from Leningrad which is my moral pillar. In a difficult situation I always told myself: “You cannot disgrace your native city. You are from Leningrad!” I said it although the situation was not simple scaring, but scaring to death. Moreover I told myself: “You are a Communist!” I was a convinced Communist Party member. When Stalin died we all thought it was the end of the Soviet Union and the country would fall apart. It survived at the time due to powerful ideology which united the whole Soviet people.

I was proud of my great country and always proudly spoke about our achievements. My knowledge of English helped me in that. I learned it thanks to Graham Green and other writers. I did not study in any foreign language institute but lectured in English across the world. At present Russia badly lacks a common ideology and people are up to anything. I am not speaking about Communist ideology. Let it be Ten Commandments. But all the people have to abide by them. By the way, the Moral Code of a Communist clearly resembled the Ten Commandments.

Have you been in Riga before?

Several times. I met composer Raimondas Pauls who I respect and admire. Our generation was a generation of enthusiasts and it concerned all spheres of activities, including pop music. Why did we like Vysotsky? He differed from the official line and his songs were very different. He had comic, merry and sad songs. We chose them in orbit depending on the flight progress. He helped us in the most difficult moments. I was together with Romanenko in space but it seemed there were three of us when we switched on Vysotsky. “You were the third crewmember,” we wrote on his photo which we took back to Earth.

When I was appointed the first chief of the space post, the communications ministry issued an official seal to me. I stamped the cassette with the photo and presented it to Vysotsky after a concert. It is currently displayed in the Vysotsky museum.

I always admired singer poets. Klyachkin nwas the first one I listened to. Others followed, Dulov, for example. But when Vysotsky appeared I realized he was the best of all. He conquered me once and for all. I have a full collection of his songs. I actively contributed to the effort to erect a monument on his grave.

Sculptor Rukavishnikov produced a big monument but cemetery authorities did not allow to install it and said it was higher than the allowed three-meter limit. We found several monuments higher than three meters in the cemetery and the administration then said Vysotsky is depicted tied-up in a raincoat like in a camisole de force. The sculptor lowered the raincoat and they finally approved the design. As official authorities disliked Vysotsky many people preferred to miss the unveiling ceremony. There were only three public figures: poet Andrei Voznesensky, Taganka Theater Director Nikolai Dupak, and me. Vysotsky’s son Nikita later invited me to co-chair the fund.

We annually award Vysotsky’s Your Track Prize. Three golden medals go to those who walk their on track rather than someone else’s and who have their own principles and ideas. This year I awarded a ship captain who stopped his vessel during the tragedy with Bulgaria passenger ferry and saved many people although he could pass by. I also remember one incredible event when a Tu-154 aircraft flew over Siberia and became completely uncontrollable after electric power supply failed. There were no big airports around and small airfields have been all closed down. In old good time local people often traveled by plane, but now the aircraft are standing idle covered with snow. So there is no need to clear the runway from snow. Moreover the runways are used to store timber which is better preserved on concrete rather than on the ground. However our hero, the chief of a helicopter field, continued to clear up his abandoned tarmac. He rejected money from timber producers who said he was crazy. Now imagine! The aircraft in distress was exactly in the area and landed safely on the field. All passengers were safe. It turned out the man has been for many years preparing the runway for the emergency. The pilots were awarded the top Hero Orders, but the airfield manager was forgotten. We awarded our prize to him.

I have a tiny plane which was discovered during excavations in Mexico in several thousand year-old layers. It resembles a Space Shuttle.  

The Sun is not forever!

How do you feel about the versions of the end of the world?

There are different scenarios. Some claim it would be a meteorite, others say tsunami, while the third predict a splash on the Sun or a neutron star explosion. The father of classical physics better known by the discovery of the law of universal gravitation, Isaac Newton (who was also an astrologist), calculated the Apocalypse will take place in 2060. However the great English scientist took a strange date for his calculations. He wrote that mankind will live exactly 1260 years since the creation of the Holy Roman Empire by Charles the Great in 800. The Doomsday will be preceded by devastating wars and global epidemics. Therefore, Messiah will come down to Eart to govern the planet for a thousand years.

I hope Newton has made a mistake. The most incredible option claims we shall all be killed by the Large Hadron Collider built on the border of Switzerland and France. They say the highest energy-particle accelerator will suck in the whole mankind into a black hole. Naturally, the Apocalypse will come, not this year but in several million years when the Sun burns out and turns from a yellow into a red star. We are 150 million kilometers away from it. When the nuclear fuel is exhausted the Sun, as they claim, will begin to swell and the Earth’s orbit will move inside the giant. As for the Doomsday, the Bible says nobody knows when it comes. Like nobody knows whether there is life on Mars.

Researchers seem to have proved there is not life on Mar s, didn’t they?

Science has not proved it. They often ask me whether I believe in extraterrestrials. At home I have several shelves of books about UFO and extraterrestrial visits to the Earth. I know a lot of writers who raise the issues. In all the years I got the following opinion: they did come long ago. There are a lot of artifacts that indirectly confirm it although there is no direct evidence. Some people say: there are billions of stars in the sky and planets rotate around them. Life should definitely exist somewhere. Well, I don’t know.

The Earth is a unique phenomenon. Had the temperature been lower or higher we would not live here. Or take water. We do not even think how astonishing it is! It is usual for us, but water has an incredible characteristic which makes life exist here. When it freezes its unit weight grows and then falls. Ice floats as a result although it should sink. We are not surprised by that but had it sunk water reservoirs would have frozen down to the bed and there would have been no life. Gases, oceans, volcanoes… If you deeply think about it all you will conclude that someone has constructed the Earth.

And how did people originate?

It is the same story. Someone “constructed” us. When scientists model the origin of life on our planet they see that plankton can produce Amphibia and monkeys will then appear. We are a type of primates. However the secret is not that we have developed from a monkey, we appeared TOGETHER with it. The question is how it happened. Why do I say “together’? The problem is that the period of existence of the Earth is insufficient for such evolutionary development and for nature to produce the human being by a simple selection of variants. It means there was an outside interference. Therefore I say extraterrestrials have likely visited the Earth. There are many facts pointing at it.

I have been in Baalbek. It is a very ancient city in Lebanon located 80 kilometers northwest of Beirut at a height of 1130 meters. It has the Jupiter Temple, one of the biggest in the Roman Empire. Scientists carried out large-scale excavations and discovered the ruins of a grandiose religious complex. It is bigger than the famous Cheops Pyramid! It turned out the temple stands on cut megaliths weighing thousands of tons. Even a knife blade cannot pass between them and it is not a figurative saying. I tried to put a knife between them myself, but failed. Today humanity is incapable of cutting such monoliths and installing them so precisely. Many people believe special mechanisms are necessary for that. The civilization that preceded us was likely to have them.

I can list other examples of gigantic megalith constructions built thousands of years ago when we were barbarians and could not grow food or breed cattle. We could only dig out or tear down something readymade. In the meantime the Avebury cromlech megalith on the territory of modern England has been built for nearly 500 years! What do small people need such gigantic constructions for? It seems when modern civilization was completely underdeveloped there was another, highly-developed civilization on the Earth which has likely taught us some good sense.

Naturally, the Apocalypse will come, not this year but in several million years when the Sun burns out and turns from a yellow into a red star.  

Who they were?

Extraterrestrials, Lemurians, Atlanteans, Hyperborians – I don’t know. But there was someone. UFO reports continue to regularly appear today. They are said to abduct people, women are said to give birth to children from them. I can hardly believe in that. I think the deceived husbands do not believe in it either. But I believe in extraterrestrial visits to the Earth.

I have a tiny plane which was discovered during excavations in Mexico in several thousand year-old layers. It resembles a Space Shuttle.

I was in a temple in Spain which is 500 years old. A cosmonaut is painted on its wall. He has a space helmet, gloves and even controls on the chest. Everything is like it is today. How could it be half a thousand years ago? Renaissance manuscripts several times mention meetings of Salamanca monks with strange creatures who had their “skin hidden under an outside skin.” In the National Art Gallery in London there is a XV century painting by Crivelli depicting Annunciation (when Archangel Michael told Virgin Mary she will have a son). There is a flying saucer on the canvas from which the Mother of Jesus Christ receives the information. It is definitely not a fire-ball, but rather an aircraft, a helicopter, or a rocket. Anyway, someone has interfered in our development and helped progress to its intelligent stage.

Dmitry Mart,

Vesty segodnya –Amber bridge