In the morning Zhenya woke me up. He brought a lot of interesting letters from children and many congratulatory telegrams. Among them, a letter from home and from the head of the science program of my first flight on Soyuz-13, now Academician of the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences, G.A. Gurzadyan.

Dear Valechek of ours!

What happiness that you are on Earth! We congratulate you on a great victory! We are proud and bow before your patience and courage. Thank God all your dreams have come true. We kiss you many, many times and await you home with impatience. Health to you, health, and once more health. We kiss you, all your family, who love you so

THE LEBEDEVS

December 28, 1982

village of Garni

Dear Valentin!

Bravo!

That’s the way — set yourself a great goal, a major task, give yourself over completely to one passion, live by a single thought, and with all your strength strive to achieve the set goal! Moreover, setting precisely such a task before oneself — I would say a super-task — is something one can do only once in a lifetime. And therein lies all the happiness — you have found the meaning of the life you’ve lived. I am proud of you and rejoice with all my heart at your triumph!

All of this is, of course, a grandiose event on the family scale as well. I wholeheartedly congratulate Lyusya on her joy, her happiness — for behind her now are all the worries, the sleepless nights… It remains to be determined who suffered and endured more — you or she!

It is exceedingly rare for anyone to ring in the New Year so magnificently. I and all my family warmly congratulate you and Lyusya on the New Year and wish you strong health, joy, happiness. Personally, I also wish that, among other things, the coming year be for you a year of calm contemplation of all that happened and all that was endured. We’ll talk more about that.

I embrace you, kiss you warmly, sincerely yours

G.A. GURZADYAN

All day medical examinations. They tested my orthostatic response on the tilt table — full program — and it showed near-complete recovery. Then we went outside for our first walk. Temperature minus 10, sunny. I stepped out of the hotel — the frosty air is delicious; it’s pleasant to feel the breeze on my face. Tension in the body is high; I control every movement. We walked one lap around the site, about 300 meters, and my legs were tired, and my heart felt a kind of scraping. All in all, I was tired. Came back to my room and lay down to rest. Began debriefings with the flight instructors for the mission report. This evening we’ll go for another walk.