Said famous cosmonaut and twice Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Grechko
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