Moscow. USSR pilot-cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Grechko died on Saturday at the age of 86, reported “ Roscosmos".

“Today, April 8, 2017, at the age of 86, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Grechko died. Roscosmos expresses its condolences to the family and friends of Georgy Mikhailovich.”, - the message says.

G. Grechko was born in Leningrad. After graduating from the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute in 1955, he worked as an engineer, senior engineer. Participated in the development of the first Soviet satellites and interplanetary stations. In 1966, he was enlisted as the head of a group of test cosmonaut candidates, and on May 27, 1968, by order of the Minister of General Engineering, he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps.

G. Grechko made three space flights. The first - from January 11 to February 9, 1975 as a flight engineer of the ship “ Soyuz-17 " and the first main expedition to the orbital station “ Salyut-4". The second, a record for its time, was from December 10, 1977 to March 16, 1978 as the ship’s flight engineer.” Soyuz-26 " and the first main expedition to the station “ Salyut-6". The third - from September 17 to 26, 1985 as a flight engineer of the ship “ Soyuz-T-14 "(start) and “ Soyuz-T-13 "(landing) during shift change at the station “ Salyut-7".

Since May 1986, G. Grechko worked at the Institute of Biosphere Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, remaining until March 1992 as a cosmonaut-researcher at this institution, and after that as a research fellow. He defended the degrees of Candidate of Technical Sciences (1967) and Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Author of memoirs "Cosmonaut No. 34. From the torch to the aliens".

Moscow. Cosmonaut Georgy Grechko will be buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, reported “ Interfax" source in the rocket and space industry.

"Farewell to Georgy Grechko is planned for April 11 in the funeral hall of the Troekurovsky cemetery, then he will be buried in this cemetery", he said.

G. Grechko died on Saturday at the age of 86.

G. . . . . .

. . . . . This was reported by “ Interfax".

On Friday, April 7, the cosmonaut was hospitalized in serious condition at the Veresaev Moscow City Clinical Hospital.

Grechko made three space flights, the first of which was in 1975 as a spacecraft flight engineer. Soyuz-17 ". The flight lasted more than 29 days.

In 1977-1978, he and Yuri Romanenko took part in a record-breaking flight on a ship for its time.” Soyuz-26 ", which lasted more than 96 days. In honor of this flight, one of the streets of Severodvinsk became the Street of Soviet Cosmonauts.

The third time he flew into space was in 1985 on a spaceship “ Soyuz T-14" as a flight engineer. At that time, he was 54 years old, and after this flight, for 13 years, Grechko was the oldest person in the USSR and Russia to be in orbit. In 1995, this achievement was repeated by Gennady Strekalov, and in 1998, Valery Ryumin surpassed it.

. . . . .

Georgy Mikhailovich Grechko was born on May 25, 1931 in Leningrad. On May 27, 1968, he was enrolled in the TsKBEM cosmonaut corps. Completed three space flights with a total duration of 134 days 20 hours 32 minutes 58 seconds and one spacewalk open space(1 hour 28 minutes).

Pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Grechko died at the age of 86. This was reported by the press service of the state corporation “ Roscosmos".

. . . . . Grechko ", the message says.
It is noted that G. . . . . . From January 11 to February 9, 1975, together with Alexei Gubarev, he flew on the spacecraft “ Soyuz-17 " as a flight engineer. On September 17-26, 1985, as a flight engineer, together with commander Vladimir Vasyutin and cosmonaut-researcher Alexander Volkov, he flew on the spacecraft “ Soyuz T-14" and orbital station “ Salyut-7". G. Grechko performed this last space flight at the age of 54 years.

The famous Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Grechko was urgently hospitalized the day before in Moscow, but doctors had already sent him home.

According to MK, 85-year-old Soviet cosmonaut and pilot Georgy Grechko was urgently hospitalized in Moscow the night before. Doctors suspected the twice Hero of the Soviet Union had a stroke, but the suspicions were not confirmed.

The astronaut had low blood pressure, which was the cause of the malaise. Today Grechko is already at home, his condition is stable. His daughter told TASS that everything was fine. “He’s at home, everything’s fine. He’s doing treatment, but at home.”.

Correspondent “ ZB" shared her memories.

Cosmonaut Georgy Grechko died at the age of 86. The man is a legend. He made three space flights as a flight engineer and was part of a group of Soviet cosmonauts preparing to fly to the Moon. And he was also a great friend “Star Boulevard” . Like a neighbor - after all, all these years he lived in the Ostankino district, on Khovanskaya Street.

"For “Star Boulevard” I'll make an exception"

“Now I almost never give interviews, but for “Star Boulevard” I'll make an exception", - Georgy Mikhailovich once told me. And he smiled. He had an amazing smile - cheerful, boyish, and very fiery. And the eyes are always young, with playful sparkles dancing in them. I met him several times, and always paid attention to this - even when he was already sick and did not feel very well, these eyes remained exactly like that. And he joked and told jokes. I remember being taken aback during our very first interview: “Let’s decide whether I should tell it for children or for adults? I will tell children that they need to learn from “ Great ", and for adults - that there is no need to get drunk".

He laughs - and you laugh with him.

He also treated his old age with great humor.

He once shared with me his dream of publishing a book:

"I actually have two vital important tasks remained: to finish the book of memoirs and publish this report in a good publication. And what will happen after this, I have already decided: I sit in front of my music installation, watch films, listen to music, read books. And let all my loved ones court me. Are you laughing? So for some reason they laugh too".

He published a book. And a loving family was always nearby.

About travel

He loved to travel. Been on many expeditions. I remember how I shared my plans when I called to congratulate him on his anniversary - Georgy Mikhailovich was then turning 80 years old.

In his apartment on Khovanskaya, in the Cosmonaut Town, there were so many flowers that day that they had to be put out on the veranda. “On the weekend we will have a feast in the central building,” Grechko told me then. “I invited about a hundred people. Friends are bringing sheep - we will fry kebabs, and straight from the fire - to the table. I do this every five years, this is already a Moscow tradition “I’ll go to St. Petersburg in June: the Leningraders are calling for the White Nights. And then, if we survive after all these celebrations, we’ll fly to Norway. There are very beautiful fjords there and there’s fish there.”.

ABOUT “Little Red Riding Hood”, VDNKh and the Museum of Cosmonautics

Georgy Mikhailovich always spoke very warmly about his native region. Once I met him at the covered market on 1st Ostankinskaya. He called him “Little Red Riding Hood”. “Unfortunately, I can no longer eat tasty food - I need to eat healthy food. But for some reason, healthy food is always tasteless, and tasty food is harmful!”, - he complained, as always with humor.

I really loved VDNKh and the Museum of Cosmonautics.

“We can walk there with our eyes closed - we love these places so much. First we walked there with my wife, then with our children, now with our grandchildren. And I also noticed a peculiarity: when we get ready to walk around VDNKh - the weather is always good outside! And the Museum of Cosmonautics is always I loved him - even when he was small, before the reconstruction. He always had his own aura, and what’s nice is that even now, when he has become huge, his soulfulness remains in him. Sometimes, when TV people want to interview me about space, I conduct it. them to the museum where these unusual “ hemp” with stars, each of which marks our achievement in space. And so I lead them from stump to stump and always note with pleasant satisfaction that I participated in half of these achievements.".

About faith and God
IN recent years Georgy Mikhailovich often visited the temple Life-Giving Trinity in Ostankino. He was a believer.

One day I asked him to tell me about how he came to faith.

I became a believer during the war. There were many religious books in the house. Yes, and I wanted to live. Dad was at the front, mom was in besieged Leningrad, and I am under occupation. Life depended on the whim of a German... Then, during the war, everyone believed in God, because they understood that no one else would protect you from death. Later, as I grew older, I cooled down a little. And then I came to faith through the theory of probability. In probability theory there is such a concept - a distribution curve. She draws probability various events. I am a rather hot-tempered person, not cowardly, risky and not very cautious. In my life, I think I drowned six times, hung on a cliff, fell in an airplane, was under gunfire, and was bombed. Once, for example, a shell exploded not far from me, and not a single fragment touched me, but the guys who stood further than me were wounded. Another situation: I flew over the handlebars on a motorcycle and hit a truck so hard that if the truck had passed another centimeter, my leg would have been torn off. I had a terrible incident and space station: The device caught fire there. It wasn’t even the fire that was scary: when plastic, wires and insulation burn, the air becomes like dirty water and you can suffocate. Then my scuba diving skills came in handy. I stopped breathing, dived into the smoke, found a burning device... Talking about this while sitting at a table on Earth is one thing. And at the top, when the Earth is 350 kilometers away, there is nowhere to go. But then I put out the fire.

Each time I remained unharmed: neither disabled nor dead.
So I thought: how can this be? I began to think about the theory of probability and the distribution curve and thought that according to all the rules, half of the events should be happy, and half should be unhappy. But for me, all the events turned out to be happy, as if someone had shifted this probability curve. “But no one but God could move this curve!”- I thought. So I returned to God again. And I returned so much that I now even have two religious orders and two medals.

About space and Vysotsky

He always spoke very interestingly about space flights. But not much. Over the years, he has given dozens of interviews on this topic. And once he admitted: he has a special relationship with two people - Korolev and... Vysotsky. And he explained.

“His songs helped us a lot in space. Before the flight, they asked us: “What kind of music should you record?” I am a Leningrader, my mother raised me on classical music, but when they recorded classical music for me at my request, it turned out that it was impossible to work with it. And I recorded Vysotsky, although at that time he was not allowed. It turned out to be very good. the right decision. When we were sad in space, we started playing his humorous songs, when it was difficult, patriotic songs, and when it was very difficult, we sang “It’s not evening yet” with him. And when we descended from orbit, we took with us a box from his cassette with his photograph, put the station’s seal there and wrote: “Your songs helped us so much that you can be considered the third member of our crew.”. These are such good songs good mood They help in space, on long flights."

We contacted Georgy Mikhailovich's daughter Olga to express our condolences to the astronaut's family. She talked about last hours his life.

“He passed away in hospital No. 81. Lately his heart had been bothering him. Many thanks to the doctors who supported me until the last. Dad knew that he would soon leave, but he held on. Shortly before his death, he kissed his mother’s hand. He said goodbye...”

On Saturday, April 8, at the age of 85, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Grechko died. According to the astronaut's daughter, the cause of death was heart failure. The day before, after a deterioration in his health, Georgy Mikhailovich was hospitalized. Georgy Grechko was enlisted in the space corps in May 1968 and was being trained to fly to the Moon as part of the Soviet lunar program, which was later cancelled. He has 3 flights into space, one spacewalk and more than 134 days in orbit.

“The first days in space are a little difficult, some cosmonauts get motion sickness, but no nausea, no vomiting - and this despite the most severe selection and training. The first hours in space it is difficult to work, the blood pressure in your head makes it feel like you were hung upside down. Therefore, you cannot make sudden movements,” said Grechko.

Flight engineer spaceship"Soyuz-26" Georgy Grechko. 1977

“When I returned, it was difficult to walk, difficult to eat, difficult to sleep. I think: “To hell with it, I won’t fly again,” Grechko recalled.
Pilot-cosmonaut Anatoly Filipchenko (left) and Georgy Grechko doing morning exercises. 1970

Georgy Grechko with his son Alexey. 1974

The crew of the Soyuz-17 spacecraft - flight engineer Georgy Grechko (right) and commander Alexey Gubarev - during training in the swimming pool of the Cosmonaut Training Center named after Yu.A. Gagarin. 1975

Cosmonauts Georgy Grechko, Oleg Makarov, Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Yuri Romanenko (from left to right) on board the Soyuz-26 - Salyut - Soyuz-27 space complex. 1978

Georgy Grechko (left) and Alexey Gubarev on winter fishing. 1978

Georgy Grechko and Indian cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma during training at sea. 1983

Crew members of the Soyuz T-14 spacecraft Georgy Grechko, Alexander Volkov and Vladimir Vasyutin (from left to right) during training at the Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. 1985

Flight of the Soyuz T-13 spacecraft. Cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Georgy Grechko after landing 22 km northeast of the city of Dzhezkazgan. Kazakhstan. 1985

Pope John Paul II and George Grechko. Vatican. 1987

Festival "Golden Ostap". Georgy Grechko (left) presents the “Golden Ostap” to film director Georgy Danelia, who became a laureate in the “Legend” category. 1997

Georgy Grechko and actress Chulpan Khamatova at the XXVIII Moscow International Film Festival. 2006

Georgy Grechko talks about one of the exhibits at the exhibition “They were the first”, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight into space, at the Museum of Cosmonautics at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. 2011

Georgy Grechko during the presentation of his book “Cosmonaut No. 34” at the Biblio-Globus bookstore. 2013

The death of cosmonaut Grechko occurred at 6:40 am. The twice Hero of the Soviet Union died in the Moscow 81st City Clinical Hospital named after Veresaev.

ON THE TOPIC

Georgy Grechko’s daughter Olga said that the cosmonaut died due to chronic diseases. According to her, the pilot smiled in the last minutes of his life. “He was strong. And his mother was with him and he kissed her hand and smiled. He loves us all,” REN TV quoted Olga as saying.

The circumstances of the death also became known to the first vice-president of the Russian Cosmonautics Federation, Oleg Mukhin. According to him, the astronaut maintained his sanity before his death. “Two weeks ago we talked to him, but he said that his health was poor,” Life.ru quotes him as saying.

Let us remind you that Georgy Grechko died on the morning of April 8. The official cause of death was listed as acute heart failure.

The day before, April 7, reports appeared on the Internet about the astronaut’s hospitalization. As they wrote, his daughter later denied this information.

Georgy Grechko is a Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. He flew into space three times - in 1975, 1978 and 1985. It is interesting that Grechko made his last flight at an advanced age: he was 54 years old. The astronaut enjoyed racing, skydiving, shooting and stamp collecting.