In the morning we got down to the unloading work. Until now we’d been flying, as it were, empty. The main scientific equipment was supposed to arrive on the cargo ship — the French apparatus “Piramig,” “PSN,” medical instruments “Echograph,” “Poza,” biological equipment, and so on. We opened the station hatch, which is also the docking port. We open the Progress hatch, and it won’t budge. We’d already encountered this when we transferred into the station: the hatch has a double rubber seal and gets suctioned in space. We have the experience now — I braced my feet against it; in weightlessness you can contort any way you want. I pushed, the hatch opened, and the first thing I noticed was the smell of burnt metal. We examined the docking assembly with interest. The deviation of its probe from the station’s longitudinal axis at the moment of contact was very small; the probe went right into the cylindrical part of the station’s receiving cone — a bullseye.

The cargo ship was so packed with equipment that the hatch wouldn’t even open fully. In the nearest container we found the documentation for the loading and unloading procedures. We open it, and the first page is a letter from the specialists who packed it. They address us by name and patronymic, write that some difficulties arose during the stowing, offer advice on the best way to unload, and at the end express confidence that we’ll handle the task quickly, wishing us a happy flight. It was so pleasant — to see such attention and care from workers, comrades in the profession — that our mood became wonderful. On top of that, we unrolled a scroll of paper, and it’s a poster from the Mayakovsky Theater, signed by all the actors with wishes for a successful flight and a happy return to our native Earth. There was also a congratulatory letter from the journal “Around the World,” from the executive secretary Privalov. Well done! Meanwhile, someone whose job it was to look after us didn’t even bother putting in newspapers.

We remembered the letters — where were they? We started searching through the nearest containers, rummaged through them, and they weren’t there. We were crestfallen: could they really have forgotten to include them? Then, by chance, I found a crumpled packet under the straps to the right, by the wall, wrapped in adhesive tape. We tore it open — letters! And immediately started reading.

Wife’s Letter

May 14. Docking Day.

Valechik, darling, good morning!

How are you there, how is your health, your mood? Today I got up at 5 AM, couldn’t sleep at all, though we went to bed late.

At 11 o’clock a car came for me and I went to TsUP for the docking. You know, today for some reason I feel much calmer in my soul, not as worried. Again I’m sitting in Room 216 (the experiment monitoring room). I don’t want to go to the main hall, so as not to bother anyone with my presence. The time comes, and it’s so beautiful to watch you approach the station, and then contact — docking. Hurrah! Sitting next to me was Vera Patsayeva. She presented me with an enormous armful of beautiful tulips, and I walked down the corridor of Mission Control with tulips, so happy, and everyone congratulated me.

I invited everyone I knew to our place that evening. On May 13th, Miroslav Hermaszewski called, he congratulated me and you, Valek, with the Victory, and today he’s coming to our place with his daughter (his wife is in Poland).

I arrive home, and in the living room Nadenka, Lilya, and mama have set such a beautiful table, Valechik, an extraordinary table. By 7 PM the guests started arriving — first Vasily Pavlovich, Yevgeny Fyodorovich, Vitaly Ivanovich, then the cosmonaut guys came: the Makarovs, the Ivanchenkovs, the Kubasovs (the Makarovs and Ivanchenkovs came on the 13th too, with flowers to congratulate), Grechko, Hermaszewski, Serebrov. At 10 o’clock Ryumin and Blagov arrived from TsUP, then Sevostyanov came — all with flowers, and everyone wrote wishes for you and our family in my “Onboard Home Journal.” I came up with this journal by accident, on the spur of the moment. On May 11th, running to work, I thought: what could I invent so that our father would be pleased — after all, you’re up there flying and won’t know who came, what they said. So I decided to make a journal, like yours on board, and call it the “Onboard Home Journal.” The guys from our lab helped design it and write poems for it. Everyone loved the idea. Late in the evening we turned off the lights, lit candles in the living room, Albina brought a guitar, sang afterwards. Valek, your mama sang beautifully, then Sasha Ivanchenkov took the guitar, played and sang, and we sang along. We sat wherever we could — some on the floor in the hall, some in armchairs, some on the sofa — it was all so lovely, cozy, and wonderful. We kept remembering you. Mama and I are doing everything we can so that everyone who visits our home will remember it for a long time.

We went to bed at 5 AM, and I got up at half past seven because Vitalka needed to be got ready for school. The poor boy had fallen asleep in the armchair in front of the TV. After midnight I moved him to bed — he’s gotten so big and heavy. I kissed his hair — it was soft, sweaty, so nice. I looked at him — he’s grown, gotten tall, takes up the whole bed.

Today is Saturday, mama and I spend the whole day cleaning, washing dishes, getting the apartment in order. The phone keeps ringing, everyone congratulating you and Tolya — Leningrad, Grozny, Kazakhstan, Tyumen, BAM, Crimea, Norilsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Krasnodar Krai, Rostov, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Yeisk, Vyazniki (your helicopter pilots are such good fellows, they spoke so warmly about you), Naro-Fominsk, Kiev, Volodya from the steamship “Kazakhstan,” Odessa, and many, many other cities…

Our home is drowning in flowers — roses, tulips, carnations — flowers in the bedroom, the study, the living room, the hall, the entryway. It’s so festive and beautiful.

At 6 PM, Zhenya Kobzev and Natasha arrive, bringing your things from Baikonur; Gena Lvov comes with Zhanna to congratulate us. The Bashkirovs arrive from the Komsomol Central Committee, Larisa, Zina, and others (you don’t know them). In short, we set the table again and sat up until 2 AM. People congratulated, sang, laughed. It was fun.

I’m sending you some photographs. That’s Vitalka telling Vitaly Ivanovich: “Let’s photograph the festive table and send it to papa — he’ll feel like he’s sitting with us at it himself.” Our boy is so clever; I wouldn’t have thought of that. True, the table is only partially shown here, but you can still see how beautiful it was.

Valechik, health and endurance and calm to you and Tolya, and above all — good spirits. Always with you, your loving I and our boy Vitalka.

Valentin Vitalyevich Lebedev and Anatoly Nikolayevich Berezovoy during pre-flight training.

I devoured the letters from home all at once. A kind of relief and calm settled over my soul. I saved the rest for the evening, for before sleep. We got back to work. First and foremost, we needed to fully open the ship’s hatch. We got the tools, I squeezed into the gap between the hatch and the equipment, looked around, and got to work. It’s no easy job — here you’re both a fitter and an engineer. The equipment is tightly packed; you not only have to disassemble the cargo ship — and frankly, that alone is a very difficult task — but also keep track of all the structural members used to secure the equipment, so that later you can put them back in place when loading spent equipment into the cargo ship. By lunchtime we’d done roughly a quarter of the job. After that, Tolya and I filmed several scenes of the work on the cargo ship with the movie camera — and back to work.

Today Tolya and I got caught. The ground called us, and the duty operator Volodya Alekseyev said: “Guys, check this — something’s going on with the limit switches on the intermediate chamber (PrK) hatch. The telemetry is showing something odd, as if your hatch is closed but you’re working in the cargo ship.” The thing is, Tolya and I had rigged the limit switches during the rendezvous with the cargo ship so we could see the approach and docking through the PrK porthole. Better safe than sorry. And after docking we’d forgotten to remove the clamps. The ground, of course, had figured it all out and diplomatically hinted at it.

It’s midnight now. My ear is aching from the ventilator draft; I feel unwell. Better not get sick. Going to sleep. Tomorrow is another tough day. Early start. And so it goes. The peas and oats are growing behind the headboard of my sleeping bag, behind the panel, in our “field” — the “Oasis” plant-growing unit. The little stems stand in buds with tiny leaves, like small bells — still delicate, but fresh, green, a joy to the eye. Born in space. Before bed I switched on the camera for time-lapse filming of the plants’ growth and development. Tolya has already gone to bed; so will I.

Right now it’s like a train station in here: instruments, bags of cargo, containers, equipment lined up along the walls — in short, everything we’ve unloaded. We’re lying in our sleeping bags, and I see things floating above us, swaying as if in water. The feeling is like we’re about to move house — or have just moved into a new apartment.

Going to sleep; tomorrow is an early start. Before bed I read one more letter, which left a very warm feeling.

Letter from the Driver Lena

Hello, dear Valentin Vitalyevich!

Valentin Vitalyevich, if you remember the driver Yelena from Baikonur, then it is I who has had the nerve to send you this dispatch to orbit, without asking whether I have the right to. If I don’t have such a right to distract you with trifles from important work or rest, don’t read further and destroy “this document.”

I write on, in case you decide it’s possible to read this dispatch to the end (one good person told me that in orbit it’s nice to receive any news from planet Earth). First, please allow me to congratulate you and Anatoly Nikolayevich with all my heart on your housewarming at Salyut-7 and on the successful progress of the flight. Yes, Valentin Vitalyevich, how you do love the number 13! Your first flight was on Soyuz-13, and now you left our blue planet on May 13th, and then Progress-13. I confess I’m also fond of the “devil’s dozen.” It ought to bring luck.

On May 11th, four swans settled in an unremarkable puddle near the 3rd approach road. Such proud beauties amid the salt desert! The whole cosmodrome was thrilled. All anyone talked about was — are the swans still there? They were! The puddle got the poetic name Swan Lake. Every day in the garage there were debates about the swans. We decided they’d flown in to see off their namesake on his stellar voyage. Every day we admired the four noble birds, but on May 19th, driving past, we looked for our favorites and they were nowhere to be found — Swan Lake was orphaned. For a long time afterward we gazed wistfully at the empty lake, hoping its inhabitants would return, but they didn’t come back. Perhaps they’ve set off for your landing site? The swans are gone, but the memory of them remains, and Swan Lake remains.

Our steppe has taken on gray tones; only the lush green of camel thorn and the white-pink-red of saxaul give it a living touch. On May 27th it rained and broke the building heat. The nights are pleasantly cool (down to +15C). You can sleep under a blanket again! In the morning it’s pleasant to walk to work across the steppe on foot. Valentin Vitalyevich, I have a somewhat unusual request. If it’s impossible, consider that I never asked. I have a niece who lives in Latvia. She studies at the music school in the city of Liepaja. Her name is Antra. The thing is, she turned 20 on April 14th, and she’s very proud that she shares a birthday with you. She would be very pleased to receive a photograph of yours, signed for her as a keepsake while in orbit. I don’t know how much longer I’ll work here, but sooner or later I’ll go home to Moscow. I’d like to take something from here as a memory “for the rest of my life.” I already have some things in the form of photographs, signed books, and pins. More than anything in the world I’d like to look at our planet from the depths of space myself. But I know that’s an impossible dream. From now on the only flying I’ll do is in my sleep — which I do. By the way, I recently visited you in a dream, only instead of Anatoly Nikolayevich it was somehow Vladimir Vasilyevich Kovalyonok, and there was no weightlessness. But I saw the Earth clearly, in its blue halo…

We’ve had several more hot days. This morning at six it was already +23C. And everyone flying in from Moscow arrives freezing. Valentin Vitalyevich, from your divine heights, couldn’t you bring some order? All it would take is taking 10 degrees from us and adding them to Moscow.

Once again, please forgive me for the bother.

All of us are following your flight with great interest and wish you good luck. A happy flight and safe return to you!

With deep respect,

Lena.

I remembered this woman: when I worked at Baikonur for a long time, preparing for the launch of Salyut-6 and its first expeditions, she used to drive us to work. Thank you, Lena!