Old postcards Soviet cosmonaut

This section holds a portrait series of Soviet cosmonauts: nearly every card is dated 1977, and one portrait of Konstantin Feoktistov is from 1971 (his 1977 card is here too). Each card shows a single cosmonaut, captioned with full name and patronymic, the Russian middle name formed from the father’s first name.

The series starts with Yuri Gagarin, who made the first human spaceflight aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961; the Soviet Union marked the date as Cosmonautics Day from 1962. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space (1963), and Alexei Leonov, who performed the first spacewalk from Voskhod 2 in 1965, have their own cards, as does Leonov’s commander on that flight, Pavel Belyayev.

Researchers can rebuild whole crews from these Soviet postcards. Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov flew Voskhod 1 in October 1964, the first spacecraft to carry three people; Feoktistov had led its design. Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev became the first crew of the Salyut 1 space station in June 1971. Valeri Kubasov flew with Leonov in 1975 on the Apollo–Soyuz mission, the first docking of spacecraft from two countries.

Each portrait is scanned from an original card, so the caption and paper condition can be checked before you buy.