We slept about three hours in the recovery vehicle, so well. I woke up; the vehicle was dark. I’m lying on the berth, basking in the sleep, warmth, and peace of mind, listening to Tolya whisper to Vladimir Alekseyevich and the officers about the descent. The rest of the group spent the whole night around a campfire, led by General Subbotin, who was in charge of search operations. The vehicle has two bunks — one below and one up by the ceiling; I was on the upper one. It’s hard to turn over, as if you were doing it on a centrifuge at 2 g. You lie on your back, and your body presses you into the bed with some strange unknown force, as if during our absence Earth’s gravity had increased. You raise your arm and it feels like you’re holding a 1-2 kg weight. And when I wanted to roll on my side, it turned out to be no simple task. You’re like an infant, flailing arms and legs searching for something to push against, making absurd movements.

With us in the vehicle the whole time were two doctors — one a urologist from TsNIAG, Vladimir Alekseyevich, and the other, Bogomolov Valera from IMBP — plus an officer responsible for the vehicle. When it began to get light and the weather cleared, helicopters started arriving. Local officials came from the nearest settlement, located 80 km from the landing site.

A relay aircraft is hovering above us the whole time. Below, on the ground, stands a communications helicopter, and through it the doctors transmit information about our condition directly to Moscow. At 6:41 AM the helicopters arrived and they started dressing us more warmly for evacuation. The snow had stopped. In the vehicle they changed us into fur-lined flight gear, put us on deck chairs, and carried us to the descent module. I remember, when they were putting on the fur trousers and I stood up for the first time, the sensation was as though someone was sitting on my shoulders and my legs were sinking into the ground. We went outside; they seated us in special deck chairs, bundled us in fur-lined greatcoats with dog fur, and carried us first to the spacecraft to look it over after landing and have everyone photograph themselves beside it as a memento, then to the helicopter. As they carried me, and forgive me for saying this, I felt bliss. Carried across the steppe covered in a thin layer of snow, with prickly bushes and tumbleweed sticking up everywhere, and you sit like a king on a throne, being borne toward an iron bird to be lifted into the sky and flown to your loved ones — with such care and attention that a better reward and recognition of your labor by people is hard to imagine. We took photos by the spacecraft. It turns out the reason we were hit so hard on landing was that we came down on the slope of the only hill in the visible area around us, and the oblique impact flipped us over and dragged us by the parachute until it was jettisoned. The surrounding scene is interesting — like a frontline situation: a small hill, on its slope the scorched descent module lying on its side. Nearby, field radio stations are deployed, and two recovery vehicles stand there — one with a crane for spacecraft evacuation, the other in crew transport configuration, where we spent the night. Helicopters are lined up next to them, all in open, uninhabited, barren steppe. Then they carried me to one helicopter and Tolya to another. And we took off for Dzhezkazgan. We land at the city airport, where a TU-134 from the Cosmonaut Training Center is already waiting. People have gathered at the airfield to greet us with bread and salt. Flying with me in the helicopter were our instructor Konovalov Viktor, the head of the search-and-rescue air force medical service, and Valera Bogomolov.

The first to run up to the helicopter was Kobzev, our crew doctor. We kissed. “Valya, your face hasn’t changed at all,” he says. They carried us out of the helicopter in their arms and into a vehicle. They drove us to the crowd. Through the open car windows, they presented us with flowers, a loaf of bread, salt, and then immediately drove us to the plane. The First Secretary of the regional party committee and city leaders boarded, congratulated us on the return, and presented us with national robes and hats. After that we took off immediately for Leninsk, and the medical examination began right there on the plane. I couldn’t stand for more than five minutes — sweat, weakness, blood pressure at that point 90/80 and pulse 150. So they limited the orthostatic tests; most of the examination was done lying down and sitting. Walking is hard — I’m constantly thrown to the side; if they weren’t holding me, I’d fall at every step. They arranged lunch for us; we were famished, having not eaten for a full day. I thought I’d gorge myself, but the chicken broth, chicken, rice, and vegetables didn’t go down very easily for some reason. We arrived at Leninsk: sunny weather, clear blue sky, light frost. The cosmodrome command and the team that will conduct further examinations are meeting us. On the steps, purely for the cameras — TV and radio — we gave a few words of an interview and got into our bus, where beds had been prepared. We lay down, opened the curtains, and rode to the site. People were standing on the streets, greeting us with smiles and raised arms. At the site, we got out of the bus; the entire service staff is standing outside. We shake hands, they applaud, and Tolya and I walk to the hotel, supported by Kobzev and Ivan Aleksandrovich. There, girls greet us, also with bread and salt. They led us to the rooms designated for returning crews — there are special ones where nobody stays before the flight.

Tolya’s room is on the right, mine on the left, first floor. Only a few doctors are allowed in. We lay in bed. Our trainer Yura Masyukov and crew doctor Zhenya Kobzev immediately organized a bath for us at our request. They washed us like small children — one holds you under the arms while the other lathers your head and body — then five minutes in the steam room. Indescribable pleasure. After all, we hadn’t washed for the last month and a half. After that, breaking all the rules, we had about 50 grams of cognac and went to sleep. We slept, then the medical examination began — echocardiography, ultrasound of the heart, ECG — since we’re valuable research material right now: how the body behaves in the first hours on Earth and how it readapts to terrestrial gravity. After the examination we watched the film Fathers and Grandfathers with pleasure. Went to bed around 2 AM. During the day the State Commission arrived to meet with us, see how we’re feeling after such a long flight, and on behalf of the government thank us for the enormous work accomplished. When they entered my room, I had just finished talking with home on the phone, with Lyusya and Vitalik. I got out of bed and greeted them standing. They say: “Lie down. After such work, we can stand before you.” To which I replied: “I cannot lie down before people I respect.”