"I still remember that silence."
April 12th marks Cosmonautics Day in Russia. And in the Kemerovo Region, 2024 has been declared the Year of Space. On March 4th, Alexander Grebenkin, a native of Myski, launched to the ISS as part of Crew-8 on Elon Musk's spacecraft. A few days ago, Roscosmos posted photographs taken by the Kuzbass native from space, depicting Siberia. Grebenkin is scheduled to return to Earth in September. In the meantime, in a video published by NASA, he sends "hello to everyone from orbit."
Grebenkin is the third pilot from Kuzbass to fly into space. Boris Volynov, a native of Prokopyevsk and the only living member of the first Soviet cosmonaut corps, had flown there twice before. Another outstanding pilot was Alexei Leonov. On March 18, 1965, Leonov performed the world's first spacewalk. NeMoskva journalists visited the birthplace of these famous pilots and cosmonauts.
"After his death, they announced that we would have a tourist village here."
"The parental home is the beginning of beginnings... Listvyanka is the birthplace of Alexei Leonov, the pilot-cosmonaut" – this banner hangs on the highway in the Tisulsky district, two hundred kilometers from Kemerovo. Opposite is the "space park," as the locals call it. Canadian spruce trees brought back from space grow here. They participated in the famous joint Soviet-American mission "Soyuz-Apollo." In 1975, Leonov gave larch seeds to his colleague Thomas Stafford in space, and in return received Canadian spruce seeds. Upon returning to Earth, the Canadian spruce trees were planted in the botanical garden of the USSR Academy of Sciences. They thrived, and eight years later, at Leonov's request, 20 space spruce trees were delivered to Listvyanka, where the cosmonaut personally planted them and where they grow to this day. There are also larch, apple, rowan, and other trees here.
The total area of the forest park is 97 hectares: that's the number of times the Soyuz-19 spacecraft, commanded by Alexei Leonov, orbited the Earth. The alleys are planted in an L-shape so that Listvyanka, Leonov's birthplace, can be seen from space.
It's impossible to walk there now—there's knee-deep mud and waist-high grass left over from last year. But this year, they promise to improve the area and pave it directly to the village of Listvyanka, to the monument to the famous cosmonaut.
“We planted this park ourselves. I was in the 7th grade. Then Leonov came and planted blue spruce trees. It’s very beautiful there. He came here often. Leonov has no friends or acquaintances left. He left here when he was three years old. But it’s still his homeland. We saw him constantly after that. He came often. From 1975 onwards, he was always there. And we had meetings with the locals. He only didn’t come for three or four years before his death. The last time he came was when he was already 78 years old. He was quite old. He came with his wife. Well, naturally, the police and security. We also have Lake Berchikul; he loved to relax there. And Leonov’s daughter came. She’s beautiful. She lives in America. They say Leonov also has his own bank in Moscow. They’re certainly not poor. But after his death, the children no longer came,” says local resident Tatyana Ilyina. "After his death, they announced we were going to have a tourist village here. Leonov would be the main focus. They'll build a chapel where the Leonov monument is. The house where the memorial plaque hangs was only recently finished and covered with siding. They were saying, 'We'll take the house for a museum and give the owners an apartment.' But then things went quiet. They didn't spend much time in that house. They moved out when Leonov was maybe two years old."
After he died, so many programs were filmed here, so many correspondents. Malakhov showed this house, the hole in the ceiling from the hook on which the cradle in which Leonov was rocked hung. We haven't had a club for a long time. And now they're building a new one, dedicated to space. Right there, behind the mental hospital. I don't know exactly what it will be like. But they say there's nothing like it even in Kemerovo. They plan to open it in February of next year. And on the second floor of the administration building, they want to make a Leonov museum. I think they'll exhibit his paintings there. Leonov was also an artist.
"Leonov did nothing for our village"
The village administration building, where the museum might be located, is located directly across from Leonov's house on Kosmicheskaya Street. The post office and police station are also located there. The second floor is empty and crumbling before our eyes.
"Leonov did nothing for our village. Absolutely nothing. Back in 1975, when he came, they paved our street and built it. When he came, he talked to us, told us about space. Later, at the meeting, people asked questions. Once they asked for help: 'They want to close our school! And where will we go without a school? What will we do in the village? Where will we go?' He replied, 'We should have had more children,' and that was it. We were hoping he would somehow influence things, that he would talk to Moscow. They destroyed our school. Now they take the children to Tisul. Two buses run. And all that's left of our school are ruins," Tatyana continues, resentfully.
Those who met Leonov in Kuzbass say it would be a sin for the locals to be offended by the cosmonaut. They also recall that it was on a fabricated denunciation by fellow villagers that Alexei Leonov's father was sent to prison.
"They concocted a case of 'attempted assassination' against Soviet power. Immediately, without trial or investigation, they sent me to Mariinsk. Siblag. When my father was imprisoned, they took everything away, expelled the children from school. The neighbors even took my pants off. I was wearing just a shirt. Such anger was evoked in enemies of the people. And what kind of enemy of the people is he?" recalled In his last interview, Alexey Leonov.
Then, Leonov's 19-year-old sister, who had left for Kemerovo, saved the family from cold and hunger. Her boyfriend, upon learning of the incident, invited the entire extended family, including his pregnant mother-in-law and seven children, to live in his 16-square-meter apartment. Later, the father was exonerated: as a veterinarian, he had saved Siblag's cattle from dying, and his case was reviewed. They never returned to Listvyanka.
Feeding his family in Kemerovo proved more difficult than in the countryside. In one interview, Alexei Leonov recalled that at school they were given rations—50 grams of bread and a spoonful of sugar per person. Therefore, he felt hungry all the time. Leonov's memories of Kuzbass are few and far between. After the war, the Leonovs moved to Kaliningrad. Nevertheless, Kemerovo has plenty of places where you can learn about the life and work of the famous cosmonaut. For example, there's a cosmonaut museum at Leonov Airport in the regional capital.
On display are exhibits of "space" food taken by cosmonauts on flights in the last century, and even an astronaut suit. The Krasnaya Gorka Museum currently houses the exhibition "Alexei Leonov – Earth's Sputnik," where you can see the pilot's protective helmet with oxygen mask, a jacket, cosmonaut badges, and a collection of themed stamps, "Space Science Fiction," created in 1967 by Leonov and artist Andrei Sokolov. And in the foyer of the drama theater, there are reproductions of paintings by the famous Kuzbass cosmonaut.
Leonov loved to draw and planned to enroll in the Riga Academy of Arts, but his family did not have the money: life in Riga was unaffordable.
So, in 1953, Leonov joined the army and later graduated from the 10th Military Aviation School for Basic Pilot Training in Kremenchug. Five years later, he was accepted into the first Soviet cosmonaut corps. During his career, he completed two space flights, totaling 7 days, 33 minutes, and 8 seconds.
The residents of Listvyanka hope that the construction of the community center won't be the end of it all, and that the village will be transformed into a tourist area. Then, cafes and hotels will appear, breathing new life into the dying village. For now, the only entertainment available here is a children's playground and enjoying nature.
"After our school closed, many people left. Houses were simply abandoned. You can see for yourself how many of them are abandoned."
And in 2014, a mental health clinic opened. At least we had some work. The boarding school doesn't bother us.
The dispensary has 160 residents and over a hundred staff. People come from Tisul and neighboring villages to work there. People of all ages are accommodated, starting at 18. "Some can't afford to live at home, some have acquired the condition, some from accidents, some are congenital. They're all sorts," says local resident Olga Yakovleva. "I worked there as a junior nurse caring for patients. Like a nurse's aide. Can you imagine what it's like working with chronically mentally ill patients?"
At first, it was wild for us, scary, of course. But then it was okay. They got used to us, and we got used to them. They make beautiful crafts and knit. Everything is as it should be there. Now there's a construction site nearby, they're building a community center, and they're interested, they watch from the third floor, at least there's some variety. They're here for life, after all.
I worked out my preferential length of service and left. All our village men work there now. What would we do without them? We can't do without them. We need male strength. To calm them down. Because they have all sorts of things, including fits of anger and aggression.
"Pride in what we have done and how we have lived our lives"
It's worth noting that in Leonov's home village, according to local residents, even in the 70s, boys didn't dream of becoming cosmonauts. The same can't be said for Prokopyevsk. Many people know about the town's "star son," as they like to call Boris Volynov. Few remember the dates of his space flights, mostly the elderly. But absolutely everyone knows that he flew there twice and was friends with Gagarin. However, mentions of Volynov in the town are minimal.
The airport in nearby Novokuznetsk is named after him. The Prokopyevsk City Museum of Local History has a "Space" hall featuring the actual descent module of the Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft and the braking parachute of the reserve parachute system of the descent module, along with photographs and documents of the cosmonaut. There is a bust of Volynov on Gagarin Avenue, and a memorial plaque on the building of School No. 1, where the famous cosmonaut studied. In his honor, Oktyabrskaya Street, where he once lived, was renamed Volynov Street in 2011.
"The barracks where Volynov lived were torn down several years ago. It's interesting that there's an identical one nearby, built the same year, but it was left standing and people continue to live there. Volynov's house, however, was destroyed. They could have turned it into a museum, though," says local resident Tatyana Telbukh.
Volynov was born in Irkutsk. When he was four, his mother moved to Prokopyevsk to live with relatives. There, as a pediatrician, she was given an apartment in a two-story barracks.
"My childhood was hungry, during the difficult war years. I even visited a hunger clinic. But that didn't stop me from going through the rigorous selection process that every cosmonaut must endure," I told At one of the meetings with Kuzbass schoolchildren, Boris Volynov.
Boris met his wife, Tamara Fedorovna, while still at school here in Prokopyevsk. A memorial plaque, unveiled in 2013, hangs at School No. 2 in honor of the gold medalist, wife of a pilot-cosmonaut, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, academician of the New York Academy of Sciences, and inventor of new, world-class, high-performance steels and alloys. They have two children: daughter Tatyana lives in the United States. Son Andrei, who until recently lived in Moscow, is a close friend. Both are private figures and decline to speak with journalists.
"People didn't really know about Volynov's house. And it wasn't really publicized anywhere; it was in terrible condition. But the museum ran tours of the city, and the route passed by the house. The school he attended is named after him."
By the way, there's a small museum there. I don't remember exactly how long it's been here, but he used to come regularly for City Day. I've seen him a couple of times, I even think I have photos of him. He's a very cheerful little man, you wouldn't even call him old. His features are so strong, like those in Soviet statues. Now he mostly communicates via video link," shared Vil Ravilov, a photographer from Prokopyevsk.
Thus, on April 8, Boris Volynov opened the International Yuri Gagarin Festival via video link from Star City.
"I want to send my heartfelt greetings to everyone who sees us, especially the residents of my hometown of Prokopyevsk. April 12th will be a great holiday, when every resident of the country feels like an astronaut," said Boris Volynov.
This year, the cosmonaut turns 90. During his career, Volynov completed two space flights (in January 1969 and the summer of 1976) for a total of 52 days, 7 hours, 17 minutes, and 47 seconds. He also set a world record—30 years of service in the cosmonaut corps. He is the only living member of Gagarin's cosmonaut corps. He trained alongside Gagarin, Titov, and other members of the crew. He served as a backup on numerous occasions during launch preparations. But he waited a long time for his first flight. As Colonel General N. P. Kamanin recalled in his diaries, command dismissed Boris Valentinovich because of his Jewish origins.
Volynov hasn't traveled much lately. But he used to come to Kuzbass quite often and always made sure to meet with schoolchildren. He talked about his friendship and proximity (they lived on the same landing) with Yuri Gagarin, and how there was no apartment number 13 in their building, and no fighter plane with that number in their unit.
He shared his memories of learning to jump with a parachute (Boris Volynov himself has 164 jumps under his belt, half of which were test jumps), how difficult it was for him on his first flight, and how he was barely allowed to go to his own wedding for three days.
"One day, on the 42nd day of my second flight, the flight engineer and I were both at the tail of the station. The lights went out; we were on the dark side. And then there was complete silence. The silence of space. I remember that silence to this day," Volynov recounted.
Volynov last visited Kuzbass in 2021, at an opening at the airport in Novokuznetsk.
The airport was then named after the pilot-cosmonaut, and a memorial park was unveiled with a bust depicting Volynov in a spacesuit after his first flight in January 1969 on the Soyuz-5 spacecraft. Under his command, the first docking with another spacecraft was performed.
"When something is named after you, especially an airport in your homeland, it's certainly a pleasure and an honor. Besides, it's a great responsibility and a sense of pride for what we've accomplished and how we've lived our lives," shared Boris Valentinovich expressed his emotions at the opening of the festival.
In Myski, nothing has been named after Grebenkin yet. But at his hometown, School No. 4, they're already preparing a gift for him—making a model of the spacecraft he used on his first flight into space. People in his hometown are hoping to see Grebenkin this year, as his mother and sister still live in Myski. And after such a long journey, he simply must visit them.
The cosmonaut's last visit to Siberia was a year ago, at the opening of the Yuri Gagarin Festival. At that time, he and regional officials discussed the prospects of creating a cosmonaut school for children and young people. Grebenkin supported the idea and agreed to take the school under his wing:
"Believe me, space is closer than it seems. I'm an ordinary guy from the town of Myski in the southern Kuzbass region. At the age of six, I set myself the goal of becoming an astronaut, and more than 30 years later, I'm in a team as a test cosmonaut, getting closer to my dream. If I can do it, then you can too."