CHRISTMAS Valery Ilyich

Astronaut Russia. Born February 13, 1939 in Leningrad (now - St. Petersburg) in the family of the trainee Naval Academy. Since the beginning of World War II was evacuated to the city of Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan, where he spent his childhood. After the war he returned to Leningrad and studied at the school. In 1956 he graduated from high school and enrolled in the Higher Naval Engineering School Dzerzhinsky. He graduated from college in 1961, after which the study took place in training officers, emergency service - diving specialists. He served in the Navy of the USSR, led a team of divers glubokovodnikov in the rescue service of the Baltic Fleet. In 1965 he was enrolled in the detachment of Soviet cosmonauts (1965 Group of the Air Force? 3). It has been a full course of general space training and preparing to fly aboard the type of Soyuz and space station type "Salute" ( "Diamond").

He was a support crew (together with Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Zudov) spacecraft "Soyuz-14" at the start of July 3, 1974, and the spacecraft "Soyuz-15" at the start of August 26, 1974. He was a member of the backup crew (together with Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Zudov) spacecraft "Soyuz-21" at the start of July 6, 1976. From 14 to 16 October 1976 made in conjunction with Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Zudov space flight as a flight engineer of Soyuz-23 ". The flight program included docking with the space station "Salyut-5". Because of the problems on board the docking was abolished, and the flight terminated prematurely. Planting was carried out on the surface of Lake Tengiz (only splashdown in the practice of the Soviet manned space flight). Since then, friends jokingly call him "Admiral Tengiz". Length of stay in space was 2 days 6 minutes 35 seconds. After space flight worked in Mission Control Center, participated in the experiments conducted with the Soviet manned spacecraft and space stations (the operator during the docking of ships and stations). In 1993, left the cosmonaut. Head of Cosmonaut Training Center Yuri Gagarin.

Hero of the Soviet Union (Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on November 5, 1976). He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order "For Service to Motherland in the USSR Armed Forces' 3rd degree, medals and foreign orders. Awarded Honorable Mention name Komarov (FAI). Honorary citizen of Kaluga, Bohr and Borodino Nizhny Novgorod region, Gagarin Smolensk Oblast (Russia), Arkalyk (Kazakhstan) and others.