The story of the Last Soviet Citizen, who went to Space and came back without having a country

The cosmonaut who left as a Soviet citizen and returned to a new world remains, to this day, a silent symbol of resilience and sacrifice — the last citizen of an empire that disappeared while he floated among the stars.

On May 18, 1991, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Krikalev took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, towards the mythical Mir space station. It was a routine flight for an experienced onboard engineer: a few months in orbit, technical work, returning home.

The flight started with difficulties. As the capsule approached Mir, the guidance system failed, forcing Krikalev to dock manually — a maneuver in which any error could be fatal, notes the .

With cold blood, he managed to dock the ship without any problems, together with his companion Anatoly Artsebarsky and Helen Sharman, the first British in space.

Life on Mir was anything but comfortable. The Russian space station had a reputation for “death trap“, but for Krikalev none of that mattered. He loved the feeling of weightlessness and had learned to fly like a bird from one side of the station to the other.

After eight days, Sharman returned to Earthleaving Krikalev and Artsebarsky alone for a mission with expected duration of five months.

But, while he was orbiting the Earth, at around 340 kilometers altitude, the country that had sent him started to fall apart. When Krikalev finally landed on March 25, 1992, there was no longer the Soviet Unionand his hometown, Leningrad, had been renamed Saint Petersburg.

His odyssey earned him the nickname “Last Soviet Citizen”: for months, Krikalev continued to accomplish a mission planned by a State that had ceased to exist, says .

Well, to me, information arrived in parts“not all at once”, he would later recall. He saw, in the distance, signs of a collapse announced: the referendum, the escalation of tensions between Soviet republics and Moscow, and, in August 1991, the attempted coup in Moscow — tanks in Red Square and a country in convulsion.

However, political events on Earth had direct consequences in Space. In the summer of 1991, the president’s openness policy Mikhail Gorbachev had led many Soviet republics to demand independence.

One of them was the Kazakhstan, home to the Baikonur cosmodrome. To appease the Kazakh government, Moscow offered a place on Mir to a Kazakh cosmonaut, replacing the more experienced cosmonaut who was supposed to replace Krikalev.

The problem is that this place should have been, under normal conditions, occupied by someone prepared to replace Krikalev on a long-term mission. Without a trained alternative for her position, the crew rotation was compromised, and the “five-month stay” began to stretch without a specific date to finish.

However, the health risk of the cosmonaut increased every week. Prolonged stay in space is associated with muscle and bone loss, immune changes and other physiological problems.

Krikalev was aware of the wear and tear that an indefinite extension could imply. “Do I have enough strength? Will I be able to adapt to this prolonged stay to complete the program?”, asked Krikalev in subsequent statements to the media. “Naturally, I had my doubts“.

On August 19, 1991, at dawn, tanks entered Red Square in Moscow. A coup d’état was underway. On Mir, as on Earth, details were scant.

Gorbachev regained power within daysbut the fate of the USSR was sealed. In the following months, the Soviet republics declared independenceone by one.

Krikalev watched everything from abovethrough sporadic calls with his wife, Elena, who worked in mission control. With his salary of just a few dollars a month eroded by galloping inflation, he wondered how the family survived down there.

The economic crisis accelerated everything. As the Soviet Union fell apart and money became scarce, the space program fell into disarray. survival modewith trips and agreements to be negotiated with the West to secure financing.

In October, a new team joined Mir crewbut none had the flight experience to replace Krikalev. After just a week, they returned to Earth, leaving Krikalev with the Ukrainian Alexander Volkov.

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist. Krikalev and Volkov remained on Mir, with a Soyuz capsule as a last resort for an emergency escape — an exit that could mean abandoning the station and, in practice, putting an end to the project. And that’s why they stayed.

When the return finally took place, the landing took place near Arkalyk, already in an independent Republic of Kazakhstan. In total, Krikalev had completed about 5,000 orbits and past 312 days without “breathing terrestrial air”.

The episode didn’t end the moment the Soyuz hatch opened. On the contrary: From the post-Soviet chaos a new cycle was born of space cooperation.

Contract negotiation and the political effort to keep scientists and infrastructure tied to the space sector helped pave the way for the Shuttle-Mir program and, later, the International Space Station.

Krikalev returned to training almost immediately, and would become part of this collaborative movement, having carried out several missions on the International Space Station. In 1992, it became the first cosmonaut to fly a Space Shuttland NASA, and in 2000 he was the commander of Expedition 11 of the EEI. During his career in space, he accumulated 803 days in orbit.

The cosmonaut who left as a Soviet citizen and returned to a new world remains, to this day, a silent symbol of resilience and sacrifice — the last citizen of an empire who disappeared while he was floating in the stars.

After returning to Earth, journalists asked him what had surprised him most about the different planet he had found. “What surprises me most? That when I left, the Earth was dark, and now it is white. Winter has come. This is the most impressive change that you can see from space”, he replied.