Biography of Sergei Korolev. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. The Winding Road to Space Years in the Life of the Queen of a Rocket Designer

The daughter of the legendary designer and scientist Natalya Sergeevna Koroleva spoke about the life and fate of her father in an interview with the portal of the Russian Historical Society.

— Natalya Sergeevna, the surname Korolev is known all over the world. Sergei Korolev is a man who not only stood at the origins of Russian cosmonautics, he opened the space era in the history of mankind. How do you remember him?

“I was always amazed by his extraordinary determination, because from the very beginning he early years set his goal to conquer the sky. And of course, amazing organization and ability to work. Even at school, according to my mother, who studied in the same class with him, he did not tolerate empty talk, always kept a strict daily routine, and really valued time. He was very courageous in solving all important issues. A particularly bold decision was made when, during the landing of Belyaev and Leonov, the automatic landing system failed and it was necessary to give an answer literally in a minute. And what does it mean to give an answer in a minute? If you try automatic landing again, but it doesn’t work, then the ship could land outside the territory of our country. And this could not be allowed. It was necessary to give permission for manual landing, and he gave this permission. Or if we talk about the launch of Gagarin: after all, there were five tests of the ship with dogs and a dummy, but only two of them were successful - March 9 and March 25, 1961. However, this gave my father confidence that everything should be fine. He risked human life and the future of astronautics, because if there had been some kind of failure, then a negative attitude would have developed towards space flight in principle.

— What is your first memory with your father? He was repressed when you were just a child... Do you remember your first meeting?

“My father was arrested when I was three years old. My mother told me that my dad is a pilot and he is performing a responsible mission. And that’s what I told all the children who played with me. When he was brought from Kolyma, he returned back to Butyrka prison. And on September 18, 1940, he ended up in the “Tupolev charaga”. To raise the morale of imprisoned specialists, the NKVD leadership allowed them visits with their closest relatives. Mom said that dad had arrived and we would meet him. I was five years old then. I arrived at Butyrka prison, but did not know that it was a prison. We entered the small courtyard of this prison and then went up to the second floor, where there was a table and four chairs. We sat down with my mother, and with opposite side the father and the guard entered. I immediately asked him: “Dad, how could you land your plane here, there’s such a small courtyard here?” I thought he flew right here and landed here. The father didn’t have time to say anything, the guard answered for him: “Eh, girl, it’s easy to sit here, but it’s very difficult to get out of here.” This is my first memory of my father. When he was already released, he came from Kazan on a business trip to Moscow in November 1944. I was at home and recognized him immediately.

Earth's first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and designer Sergei Korolev Photo: TASS - KP Khabarovsk

— What did you usually talk about? Maybe some conversations were particularly memorable?

“I was struck by his conviction in the necessity and importance of the work to which he devoted his life. We had such a conversation with him in 1956, when I was doing an internship after the 4th year of medical school at the Khotkovo hospital. Father came there - he had a great time free time. We walked with him through the forest for three hours and talked. And of course, I was very interested in what he was doing. This was even before the launch of the first satellite. He told me about space trains, about space stations, that people will definitely be on the Moon, that there will be orbital stations. I, of course, didn’t believe it, but he said: “You don’t believe it, but it will happen, and it will happen very soon.” He was absolutely convinced of this. And that man will be on the moon. Back in 1945, I was very interested in Jules Verne and read “From a Gun to the Moon.” He saw this book and said: “You know, in 25 years people will be on the moon.” I then replied that this is fantastic, maybe it will happen, but not in our lifetime. And he said: “You remember this day and this hour. This will happen and will happen in our lifetime.” Indeed, he was almost not mistaken, only for one year. In 1969, 24 years later, the Americans landed on the moon. Of course, it’s a pity that it’s not us.

— Sergei Pavlovich was at the origins of the Soviet lunar program, but it was never completed...

“It wasn’t completed because he died.” After that, there were three unsuccessful launches, and then, when everything was already prepared for the fourth launch, this program was closed. By that time, the Americans were already on the moon. I think if my father had been alive, although, of course, history does not know the subjunctive mood, perhaps we would not have given the Moon to the Americans. He dreamed that we too would be the first on the Moon. In 1962, he wrote notes on a heavy interplanetary ship and a heavy orbital station, where he describes in detail what the orbital stations will be like (they didn’t exist then), what interplanetary ships will be like, he even describes what kind of dishes there will be, how the astronauts will eat, what plants will grow on orbital stations. I was simply shocked when I read these notes. They were published in my three-volume book “Father”. Sergei Pavlovich was absolutely confident in the importance of the work he was doing, and with this confidence he could convince literally everyone. Even if you listen to the recording, when he gives commands to Gagarin, he says: “Kedr, I am Zarya, can you hear me? Ready in a minute." And he says it very in a confident voice. In the book “Father” there is a chapter “Just a Man”. I write about him as a person. Because I’m not a techie at all, but a doctor, and I tried to avoid technical details.

— Did your father tell your family a lot about his work?

No. He never told his family about his work, he was classified and could not say anything. My parents separated in 1949, he had new wife. And we didn't meet that often. After the war, until 1952, I lived with two grandmothers and two grandfathers in the apartment of Sergei Pavlovich’s mother. We lived in Maryina Roshcha, my father came there, I had absolutely no idea what tragedy was coming in our family, and I only found out on the day of my parents’ divorce on June 24, 1949. And I dreamed that when I finished school, we would finally live as one family. My father strictly told me that I should never tell anyone what he was doing. In the questionnaires I wrote that Korolev is an engineer, and the surname Korolev is quite common, so no questions arose. And even when my father died and I called to work to say that I won’t come tomorrow because my father died. At that time, the obituary had not yet been published, no one at work even imagined that this was what it was. chief designer Korolev. Of course, except for the director of my institute, Boris Vasilyevich Petrovsky (USSR Minister of Health in 1965-1980 - Ed.), who operated on him. He died on the operating table during the operation.

Sergei Korolev with his wife and daughter

— Were these the consequences of the torture your father was subjected to during interrogations?

- Yes, his jaws were broken. Therefore, during the operation, three experienced anesthesiologists were unable to insert an endotracheal tube into his trachea. The surgeons did their job, but, of course, it was impossible for a patient with atrial fibrillation to be under mask anesthesia for eight hours. And his heart could not stand it.

— During interrogations, did he eventually admit his guilt?

“He admitted when he was told that if you don’t sign today, your wife will be arrested tomorrow and your daughter will be sent to prison.” Orphanage. And then, in the name of saving his family, he signed a confession and decided that at trial he would deny everything. My mother was always afraid that she, too, might be arrested, and was ready for this option: all the documents about my adoption were prepared in advance for my grandmother, my mother’s mother. But at the trial, the father was not allowed to say a single word, the court retired to a meeting that lasted only a few minutes, and then the verdict of guilty was read out: 10 years in forced labor camps. But thank God it was not an execution.

— What followed the verdict? Usually, relatives and friends of the repressed would knock on the doors of all offices to get the case reconsidered.

When I wrote a book about my father (the second volume is dedicated precisely to his arrest), I cried all the time. I wrote down from the words of my grandmother and mother how they survived this whole situation. It was, of course, terrible. But thank God, his grandmother saved him. It's grandma. With the help of Heroes' petitions Soviet Union Gromov and Grizodubova. From the transit prison in Novocherkassk, dad sent a letter in which he wrote: “I am alive and well, we here also heard about the flight of our famous pilots - Valentina Grizodubova...”. He mentions her specifically, and then at the end of the letter it was written: “My big bow to Uncle Misha.” And we never had men with that name in our family. Mom and grandmother thought for a very long time who he was hinting at, and decided that it could only be Mikhail Mikhailovich Gromov. Because his father was connected with him through work, respected him very much, even visited him at home once, and therefore he hints at turning to him. The grandmother, not knowing the address, knowing only the street, found Gromov and asked him to write an accompanying paper to her application addressed to the chairman Supreme Court, because without such accompaniment it was impossible to get to him, there were a lot of people who wanted to do it. Ultimately she got to him. I managed to write down my grandmother’s story a year before her death.

— Nevertheless, Sergei Pavlovich still ended up in Kolyma?

“After my grandmother got to the Chairman of the Supreme Court, he wrote: “Comrade Ulrich, please check the correctness of the conviction.” It was March 31, 1939, at that time Sergei Pavlovich was still in the Novocherkassk prison, he was not yet at the prison. Then my grandmother found Grizodubova, she also wrote a note to Ulrich. Ultimately, the sentence was overturned, and instructions were given to the head of the Novocherkassk prison to return Korolev back to Moscow. But at this time he was already mining gold in Kolyma. The papers arrived too late. My grandmother told me that when she came for an answer to the reception of the Chairman of the Supreme Court, the secretary gave her a postcard in which it was written that she had been refused. But it turned out that this postcard was not Balanina (this is the surname of my grandmother by my second husband), but Balakina. The grandmother believed that her son was dead. But then she was called, it turned out that the secretary had mixed up the postcards. As a result, the father was summoned from Kolyma to review the case. I, too, was in the NKVD archive and studied a personal file in 1989. In the book I give everything necessary documents, so my book about my father is documentary; in 2011 I received a prize from the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences for it as best book in astronautics.

— How did the family live while Sergei Pavlovich was in the camps?

— My mother worked at three jobs. Everyone knew that her husband had been arrested, people crossed to the other side of the street, even doctors refused to assist her in operations because she was the wife of an enemy of the people. Mom turned gray during this time. She was very beautiful, she was only 30 years old, she had a youthful face, but she was completely gray. We had no money, but it’s good that the nanny still stayed with us. Mom said that we had nothing to pay her, but she said that she would live with us for free. Mom was on duty 15 nights a month to earn money for us and to send more money to my father: this was possible while he was in Butyrka prison, and she transferred 25 rubles twice. Of course, if it weren’t for Gromov and Grizodubov, my father would not have been called to review the case, because practically no one from Kolyma was called. And of course, if not for the persistence of my grandmother, who wrote letters and telegrams to Stalin, Yezhov and other people. If not for her, he would have died in Kolyma.

Sergei Korolev in Butyrka prison, 1938

— Sergei Pavlovich was sent to correctional labor at the Maldyak gold mine. Decades later, when you were collecting material about your father, you also had a chance to visit there. Please tell us about this trip.

“I was in all the places where my father lived and worked, including at this mine. This was in 1991. Then we still had Soviet power, I called the Magadan regional party committee because I needed a car and an escort. They gave me the historian Raizman, who studied the history of this region and knew it very well. In the second car we were accompanied by a film crew from Magadan television. They did documentary about this trip, they wanted to broadcast it on central television. But just on the day when I returned from Kolyma, August 21, the State Emergency Committee happened, so central television had no time for this and the film was not aired. I drove along this Kolyma highway, along which prisoners were transported, and met with a doctor who worked in the camp when my father was there. Of course, she didn’t remember any Korolev, but she told me a lot and interestingly. True, she asked not to record the conversation, although, of course, I turned on the recorder anyway. She said: “Don’t write it down, I gave you a subscription.” Can you imagine? It was already 1991, and she worked there in 1939. They showed me the place where the prisoners' tents stood; there were only a few barracks left where the camp authorities lived.

“It was probably a very strong moment emotionally.” Do you remember the feelings you experienced when you saw this place for the first time?

- Of course, this is a depressing impression. The prisoners lived in canvas tents. And since winter sets in there very early and it can be very cold, these tents were heated by a stove-stove, which stood in the middle of the tent measuring 7 by 21 meters. There were 50-60 prisoners there. In winter, the outside of the tent was covered with snow to retain at least a little warmth.

— It is known that after Kolyma, Academician Korolev often said that he did not like gold...

Yes, he said: “I mined gold in Kolyma.” And he really didn’t like gold and aluminum, because the dishes in the camp were made of aluminum. He brought an aluminum mug from Kolyma, which he used in the camp; it is in my home museum. The name “Korolev” is scratched on her handle with a nail.

— Sergei Pavlovich almost died in the camp. How did you manage to survive in such inhuman conditions?

— My father fell ill with scurvy, and when he was almost dying, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Usachev appeared in the camp. He was the director of the plant where the plane on which Chkalov crashed was built. Of course, in December 1938 he was immediately arrested and exiled to Kolyma. Usachev was a master of sports in boxing. When he appeared in the camp, using his strength, he called the headman and demanded: “Show me your farm.” They entered the tent, and the headman told him: “And here lies the King, one of yours, but he will not get up.” Usachev came up and saw my father, whom he knew, under a pile of rags. My father was covered in scabs, all his teeth had fallen out, and he could not walk. And then, in the appropriate language, Usachev spoke with this headman, demanded that the criminals be given additional rations, and Korolev was transferred to the medical unit. The nurses brought it there raw potatoes, carrots and rubbed them on the gums of patients with scurvy, brewed a decoction of cones, there was nothing more. Eventually the father recovered.

— When the documents on the review of the case finally reached the addressee, your father was sent to Moscow. But on the road, Sergei Pavlovich almost died. The ship on which he was supposed to sail sank. And Korolev himself survived only by luck. It’s hard to call such a coincidence luck. But we can still say that your father was born wearing a shirt.

“Fate still looked after him.” When he was returning from the Maldyak mine, he did not get on the Indigirka steamer. He arrived, but the stage had already been formed; Indigirka left on December 8, 1939. He was already in Magadan and really asked to be taken on board. But he was told that there were no more places. More than a thousand people were traveling there: civilians and more than 700 prisoners. The prisoners were in the hold. During a storm in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, the ship hit the reefs. That is, the ship did not sink, it received a hole, and all the civilians remained alive. They landed on a sandbank and were then rescued by the Japanese the next day. And when the sailors rushed to open the hold, the head of the convoy forbade them, and every single prisoner died. When the Japanese came to rescue, they saw a terrible picture: people simply froze in this hold.

— It’s amazing: people who worked for the good of their homeland, went through the camps and who somehow managed to survive in these camps, having gained freedom, still continued to work for the state that subjected them to these terrible repressions. Do you have an explanation for this?

- Yes, none of them became embittered. I talked to many people. Both my father and everyone believed that there had been a mistake. He then personally met with Stalin twice, after the war, when he was appointed chief designer of product number one - long-range ballistic missiles BRDD. He was amazed at the competence with which Stalin asked him questions. This was in 1947. When Stalin died in 1953, my father was shocked by his death. In his letter he wrote: “Our comrade Stalin has died.” He was sure that Stalin had nothing to do with it. Maybe he changed his mind later, I don’t know. But we all experienced Stalin’s death: both my mother and I, who at that time was still a first-year student. Whole country. Everyone was crying. All these repressed people believed that someone had reported on them, that Stalin was not to blame. It is difficult to judge this now.

Valentina Tereshkova before her flight into space and Sergei Korolev, 1963

— Let's return to the topic of space. Sergei Pavlovich supervised the preparation of the flights of the first Soviet cosmonauts. Among them was Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to go into space.

“Tereshkova risked her life. No matter how many more flights there were by women, she was the first. And she alone completed the flight in this ship. Everyone else flew at a station where there were also astronauts, but she was alone, so her flight was unique. All the flights that took place under my father, all 11 cosmonauts who flew, were different from each other. Each flight was different from the previous one: my father was always looking for something new. German Titov's flight lasted 25 hours, he made not one orbit, but many orbits around the Earth, and for the first time he filmed video. Then Nikolaev and Popovich flew - it was a flight of two ships in parallel. Then Bykovsky and Tereshkova flew - these were also two ships and the first woman in space. Then Komarov, Egorov and Feoktistov - they flew without spacesuits in the same ship, this was also new. And then Belyaev and Leonov flew, who made the first spacewalk.

— Your father was nominated for the Nobel Prize, but never received it. Did that upset him?

— He was nominated for the Nobel Prize twice. But the fact is that when the Nobel Committee turned to our government, Khrushchev said that our creator new technology is the whole people - we will not give a bonus to anyone separately. His father, of course, was very offended by him, as Khrushchev’s son recalls, because it was a lot of money. Of course, he would not take a single penny of this money for himself. He didn’t need anything, he was so unmercenary, he always went to the cosmodrome in the same “lucky suit”, the same coat. He didn’t need anything for himself personally, but this money could be used for the development of astronautics. Unfortunately, the Nobel Prize was never awarded, and according to Nobel’s will, it is not given posthumously. That's why it happened.

— More than half a century has passed since the first human flight into space, rocket launches have become an everyday occurrence. But when you personally look at how a rocket takes off from the Earth, how does this resonate with you?

— I’ve been to the Baikonur Cosmodrome many times, and last time I was there a few years ago and watched the night launch of the ship. Flying up to Baikonur, I am always amazed at what was built in this desert. This is, of course, incredible. Those military builders who built it accomplished a feat. Because it’s generally difficult to imagine that rocket launches began in Kapustin Yar already in 1947 - two years after the end of such a bloody, such hard war! And how many enterprises worked for space! It was necessary to organize everything, for this it was necessary to have a huge organizational talent, which my father possessed. He managed to unite the team of chief designers and the teams of many enterprises that worked for space. The launch of rockets is fascinating: I saw both a daytime launch and a night launch. It is very beautiful when a white rocket rises into the sky. Of course, my heart is filled with pride because it was ultimately discovered space age humanity and we are witnesses to the opening of this era. And it was discovered by Sergei Pavlovich and his associates.

Interviewed by Anna Khrustaleva

The biography of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev is full of ups and downs

Korolev is a major figure in Russian rocket science: thanks to this man, our country has become a leading space power. Under the leadership of the legendary designer, the first artificial Earth satellites, spacecraft for various purposes were created (“Electron”, “Molniya-1”, “Cosmos”, “Zond”, etc.), as well as spaceships, one of which for the first time in history a manned flight was made in airless space.

The great designer’s love for the sky began with a childhood impression: at the age of seven, sitting on his grandfather’s neck, he watched the famous Odessa pilot Sergei Utochkin doing circles in the air. The stepfather, who insisted that the boy study at home (after the revolution, the gymnasium was closed, and in other educational institutions God knows what was going on), developed in him an interest in exact sciences. The boy read Jules Verne's novels about traveling to the moon from a cannon, as well as the brochures of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, which dealt with the conquest of outer space. In construction vocational school, where he entered after graduation, Sergei studied in circles in several fields at once. The Queen was especially interested in aircraft modeling. The young man had the opportunity to become a professional glider pilot during his studies at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, which was famous for its aviation school. In the fall of 1926, Korolev transferred to the Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU) named after N.E. Bauman.

Here, a capable young man participated in the development of new aircraft: under the leadership of Andrei Tupolev, he created a project for the SK-4 aircraft, which became his diploma work, built the Koktebel and Krasnaya Zvezda gliders - the latter was the only Soviet glider at that time designed to perform figures aerobatics. However, Korolev did not become an aircraft builder: he was interested in jet propulsion and flights into the stratosphere. This was greatly facilitated by the meeting with her childhood idol, Tsiolkovsky: the Queen again began to be occupied with the thought of conquering space. Having met with the prophet of Russian space, Sergei stated that “his goal is to break through to the stars.” Konstantin Eduardovich said that even a whole human life; Korolev replied that his life should be enough.

Engineer working for nothing

We emphasize that in the Soviet Union in the late 20s - early 30s there was neither a scientific and technical base that would make it possible to transform jet engines from a dream into a tangible reality, nor the industrial capabilities for the production of such engines. In 1931, Korolev, together with another talented enthusiast in the field of rocket engines - Friedrich Zander - and with the support of Osoaviakhim, created the Study Group jet propulsion(GIRD), the name of which the group members themselves deciphered as a Group of Engineers Working for Free. In the basement of a house on Sadovo-Spasskaya Street in Moscow, GIRD begins to work, trying to combine Tsiolkovsky's fantastic ideas with his understanding of jet propulsion. After some time, the group is noticed by the Office of Military Inventions, a government agency that was involved in promising developments for the Red Army - and allocates small funding. Then DOSAAF pays attention to them, under whose auspices the GIRD creates in all major cities countries, groups for the study of jet propulsion - circles working on pure enthusiasm. Rocket science quickly became fashionable in the USSR. Over the course of these two years, the group itself managed to prepare and carry out the first successful launch of a GIRD rocket. And in 1936, Korolev managed to bring to testing two cruise missiles that had potential military significance: anti-aircraft (with a powder rocket engine) and long-range (with a liquid rocket engine).

Like many talented specialists in the 1930s, Korolev did not escape persecution - he was arrested on June 27, 1938 on the delusional charge of sabotage. Year genius designer spent in Butyrka prison, where during interrogations he was severely beaten (among the consequences were a concussion and a fracture of both jaws).

Korolev’s guilt was “proved” and he was given 10 years in the camps. Instead of launching rockets, he was forced to start mining gold in Kolyma. Closer to the war, the leadership became concerned with the development of bombers and “discharged” Korolev to the capital - in 1940 he was tried a second time and sent to the Moscow NKVD special prison TsKB-29. Ironically, the same Tupolev became his leader here - the teacher and student no longer met in freedom, but within the walls of the “sharashka”. As part of the Tupolev team, Korolev took part in the development of the Pe-2 and Tu-2 bombers, projects for a guided aerial torpedo and a new missile interceptor. During the war, Korolev was transferred to another “sharashka” - OKB-16 at the Kazan Aviation Plant No. 16, where work was carried out on rocket engines that could be used for aviation needs.

Korolev’s talent helped the country win the war, and the Soviet government did not forget his merits: in 1944, Korolev finally “atone” for his fictitious sins against the Motherland and was released. True, rehabilitation followed only after Stalin’s death, in 1957. And soon after the war, in 1946, Sergei Pavlovich was appointed chief designer of the Special Design Bureau No. 1 (OKB-1) and began developing long-range ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad near Moscow (later renamed Korolev in his honor). His primary task was to develop a Soviet analogue of the German V-2 rocket, with a greater flight range than the original - up to 3 thousand km. An analogue was created in just a few years - already in 1950 ballistic missile R-1 was put into service. And in 1956, under the leadership of the designer, the first domestic strategic missile R-7 was created, which became the basis of the missile nuclear shield countries. A year later, the first Soviet ballistic missiles were developed (mobile ground and sea-based) on stable fuel components.

Dream of space

By the mid-50s, Korolev was the recognized creator of the Soviet missile program: the Soviet government listened to his opinion. This allowed Sergei Pavlovich, together with his colleagues, to return to his old dream - launching rockets into space. The idea he proposed to create the first artificial Earth satellite aroused the approval of the government: such a project was considered, among other things, as an important political step - the USSR hoped to be the first in space in every sense of the word. It was originally planned to launch on September 14, 1957, on the day of the centenary of Tsiolkovsky’s birth, but for technical reasons it had to be postponed to October 4. At 22:28 Moscow time, a bright torch soared into the sky over the steppe of the Kazakh SSR. On the day of the launch, Korolev addressed his comrades with an impromptu speech: “The prophetic words of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky that humanity will not remain on Earth forever have come true. Today, the world's first artificial satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit. With its withdrawal, the assault on space began. And the first country to pave the way to space, our country has appeared - the country of the Soviets! Allow me to congratulate you all on this historical date.” The satellite spent 92 days in orbit, completing all its tasks.

This first step into space was soon followed by others - a geophysical satellite was launched into orbit, and then the paired Electron satellites, designed to study the planet’s radiation belts. In 1959, the Soviet lunar program- To natural satellite Three automatic spacecraft were launched to Earth. And on April 12, 1961, the first manned launch in history took place - the Vostok-1 spacecraft developed under the leadership of Korolev allowed USSR citizen Yuri Gagarin to become the first person in space. Gagarin's flight was followed by the launch of the Vostok-2 spacecraft, which carried the second Soviet cosmonaut, German Titov, then the Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 spacecraft. And on March 18, 1965, a man visited airless space, leaving the confines of the ship: Alexey Leonov was the first in the world to perform a spacewalk in a spacesuit through the Voskhod-2 airlock.

It is difficult to say what new successes the Soviet cosmonautics could have achieved if Sergei Pavlovich had lived at least ten years longer - it is known, for example, that he made attempts to convince the country's leadership of the need for a manned flight to the Moon. However, the designer's health was undermined by a serious illness - sarcoma of the rectum. On January 14, 1966, the legendary designer died after an unsuccessful operation. Having opened the road to space for humanity, he left it to others to follow.

Korolev's colleagues noted his rare working quality - his integrity coexisted with a lack of pride and openness to dialogue. “Working with Korolev was difficult, but interesting,” recalled his collaborator, later academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Boris Raushenbakh. - Increased demands, short time and novelty... He always wanted to know in detail the problems that his employees were solving. When reporting to him on this or that issue, I often heard: “I don’t understand, repeat it.” Not every manager could afford this “I didn’t understand”, for fear of losing his authority in the eyes of his subordinate. But such human weaknesses were completely alien to Sergei Pavlovich. All our projects were implemented in rocket technology primarily thanks to Sergei Pavlovich, whom no one and nothing could stop if he needed something for his business.” And cosmonaut Alexei Leonov many years later formulated the scale of the loss: “That’s it! We can put an end to the development of our space. And so it happened. We have space, but there is no development. It’s kind of like how we drove Zhiguli cars 35 years ago, and we still drive them to this day. We couldn't think of anything better. We just change the bodies on them, but there are no revolutionary breakthroughs like under the Queen!”

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Robert Bartini, little known to the general public and also to aviation specialists, was not only an outstanding designer and scientist, but also the secret inspirer of the Soviet space program. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev called Bartini his teacher. At different times and to varying degrees, the following were associated with Bartini: Korolev, Ilyushin, Antonov, Myasishchev, Yakovlev and many others. The main works on aerodynamics, the term “Bartini effect” appears in the literature.

Fans of Soviet power are proud of the achievements of the USSR, but they were made by the intelligentsia, most which consisted of class “enemies of the people”: Vavilov, Korolev, Tupolev, Glushko, Landau, Sakharov and thousands of other lesser known ones. We can say, well, it’s not all that bad, because some talented people survived, and humiliation and broken jaws are no big deal. Yes, some (mostly physicists and engineers, with others not on ceremony) of them remained alive, but only because the Soviet government needed them as scientific slaves.

In the short biographies of outstanding Soviet engineers, the words “arrested”, “arrested”, “arrested” inevitably appear... As if the word “arrested” was an eternal and unchanging attribute of any biography, as natural as “born” or “died”... Many of the people listed here still use worldwide fame and respect. Dirt and all kinds of accusations will never stick to their names, because they have proven their devotion to their fatherland with their entire lives. And when some next unscrupulous “historian” begins to claim that they were arrested correctly, that the victims of repression were in fact traitors and scoundrels, remember that we are also talking about these people whose biographies are given here.

Like most prominent scientists of his era, Glushko had the opportunity to work in the “sharashka”: in March 1938 he was arrested. It took Lubyanka investigators only two days to extract a confession: “I am a member of an anti-Soviet organization in the defense industry, on whose instructions I carried out destructive subversive work. In addition, I was engaged in espionage work for Germany."

How to become a nominee Nobel Prize, without leaving the camp: several stories about Soviet scientist-prisoners who worked, invented and made discoveries in “sharags” - closed institutes and design bureaus behind barbed wire.

In March 2002, the International Society "Memorial" and the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation released the electronic disk "Stalin's execution lists" (Stalin's execution lists. M.: Zvenya, 2002. ISBN 5-7870-0057-9). These are lists of persons whose fate was determined by members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, L.M. Kaganovich, K.E. Voroshilov, A. Mikoyan, S. Kosior and candidate members Politburo A.A. Zhdanov and N.I. Ezhov. The lists cover the period from February 27, 1937 to September 29, 1938, and there are also two fragments of the October 1936 list and several lists from 1940, 1942 and 1950. Until December 1998, these lists were classified as “secret”. Now, thanks to the efforts of Memorial and the staff of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, historians have finally gained access to these lists.

Natella Boltyanskaya

This lecture by Natella Boltyanskaya is based on unique historical documents– CIA report on the potential for resistance within the communist bloc, Congressional investigations into repressed peoples, known and unknown attempts to link international economic relations and human rights. The lecturer will tell you details about real and imaginary American spies, about congressmen who visited the Perm camps, and senators expelled from the USSR, as well as about the participation of completely unexpected people in supporting Soviet citizens.

Alexander Prishchepa

“Soviet strikes,” as a rule, were not specially prepared. It is very difficult to identify their leaders and activists. In most cases they took the form of a spontaneous explosion of desperate people. During such riots, ultimatum demands were formulated to the heads of enterprises, which were of a specific socio-economic nature. Such speeches, associated with the refusal of work or its suspension by the collective of an enterprise, site, shift, or a separate group of workers, can be considered as a “Soviet strike.”

At first glance, it seems as if popular unrest in the USSR took place only under voluntarism, stagnation and perestroika - in the memorable times of the cult of personality there was nothing like that. The time has come to expand our understanding of popular unrest in the world's first state of workers and peasants. The lower chronological limit will be 1927, when Stalin finally crushed any organized opposition to himself within the party and established his dictatorship (which quickly resulted in tyranny), and the upper one will be the year 1952.

Elena Shmaraeva talks about the Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the motherland, or, as the prisoners themselves called it, ALZHIR - a zone in the middle of the Kazakh steppe, where the widows of “traitors to the motherland” who were executed in 1937 served their sentences.

The personal life of the outstanding Soviet design engineer, the main organizer of rocket and space technology and rocket weapons, the founder of the Russian cosmonautics cannot be called calm and cloudless, and in many ways the reason lay in his character.

Sergei Korolev's first wife Ksenia Vincentini was his first youthful love. Ksenia always had many admirers, and in order to win her favor, Sergei was ready to do the most reckless things - he even did a handstand on the roof of the Odessa morgue.

Such exploits did not leave the young girl indifferent, and she began dating him. Before going to study at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, Sergei Pavlovich proposed to Ksenia, but she refused to marry him because she decided that she must first get an education and become an independent person.

After graduating from the Kharkov Medical Institute, Ksenia Vincentini was assigned to the Donbass, where Korolev came more than once from Moscow, where he was studying at the Moscow Higher Technical School at that time. However, getting consent to marriage turned out to be not so easy - Ksenia did not see the point of getting married and then living separately for several years. However, Sergei, not accustomed to retreating from difficulties, ensured that the girl was released early, and in the summer of thirty-one she became the wife of Sergei Korolev, and they left for Moscow together.

In the photo - Sergei Korolev with his first wife and daughter

But family life did not please his wife - Korolev, who had been trying to ensure that Ksenia Vincentini became his wife for seven whole years, quickly lost interest in her and other women began to appear in his biography.

The wife suspected her husband’s infidelity and more than once found evidence of this, but remained his wife for seventeen years, of which they were destined to live together for no more than eight - in 1938, Korolev was arrested on charges of sabotage, and he spent several years in the camps .

Seventeen years later life together Korolev's wife wrote a letter to his mother, in which she said that she had decided to leave her husband in order to let him live the way he wants. The daughter of Sergei Korolev and Ksenia Vincentini, Natalya, who learned about her father’s infidelities at the age of twelve, took it very painfully and was able to forgive only when she herself became an adult woman. She didn’t understand why her two most beloved people treated each other this way, and her father, who had sought her mother’s favor for so long, suddenly changed a lot.

In the photo - Natalya Sergeevna, daughter of Korolev, with her mother

When Sergei Pavlovich was in the camp, and he managed to forward letters to his wife, they were filled with love, tenderness and hope for their happy future, but after returning home, the family life of Korolev and Ksenia did not work out. Natalya Sergeevna did not maintain a warm filial relationship with Sergei Pavlovich, and when she got married she did not even invite him to the wedding. Korolev was very worried that he and his daughter were like strangers and almost never saw each other.

When Korolev's daughter herself became an adult, she explained the separation of her parents by the fact that they were strong personalities, and it was difficult for them to get along with each other. After many years, Natalya Sergeevna was able to find the strength within herself and take a step to get closer to her father. She called him first, and when he arrived, she told him how much she loved him.

The second wife of Sergei Korolev was the translator Nina Ivanovna. When they met, Sergei Pavlovich was forty, and she was twenty-seven years old. At first she simply came to him to translate articles from English and American magazines, and then she felt that Korolev began to show her signs of attention. Then he was still married to Ksenia Maximilianovna, but this did not stop him. A romance began between the young translator and Korolev, which ended in a wedding. The news that he was leaving the family was a terrible blow for everyone, but, having recovered from this blow, his first wife told her daughter only good things about her father.

In the photo - Korolev with his second wife

Nina Ivanovna completely devoted herself to Korolev, left work and always waited for him at home, but he did not get out of endless business trips and was constantly busy at work. They had no children, and Natalya became the only daughter of the great designer. Later, her relationship with her father was restored, and she began to visit him often with her husband and son Andrei. Her relationship with her father’s second wife, Nina Ivanovna, also improved.

(1907-1966) - Soviet scientist and designer in the field of rocketry and astronautics, chief designer of the first launch vehicles, artificial Earth satellites, manned spacecraft, founder of practical astronautics.

He was born in 1907 in Zhitomir (in the north of what is now Ukraine). Already at the age of three, little Seryozha and his mother moved first to Kyiv, and then to Nezhin. In Nizhyn he lived with his grandmother - his own parents had just divorced at that moment.

In 1915, young Sergei entered preparatory classes at the Kyiv gymnasium. A year later, Korolev’s mother got married, and the whole family moved to Odessa. In 1917, Sergei entered the Odessa gymnasium. Four months later, another change occurred: due to the outbreak of the revolution, Seryozha began studying at a unified labor school. Subsequently, Sergei’s parents took him to study in the gymnasium program. After all, both Seryozha’s mother and stepfather were teachers. Korolev’s stepfather, moreover, had an excellent engineering education.

In 1921, a seaplane detachment was formed in Odessa. Fascinated by thoughts about aeronautics, Korolev, two years later, began studying in a gliding club. And a year later, in 1924, Sergei designed the K-5 glider, which was defended before the commission and approved for construction. At that time, young Korolev was extremely active image life. In addition to lectures in gliding circles of Odessa factories, which he himself gave from the age of 16, Sergei was a newspaper delivery man, a loader, a roofer, a carpenter, but he still did not live well. In the same year, Korolev entered the Kiev Polytechnic Institute.

In 1926, having already studied for two years at the institute, Sergei transferred to the Moscow Higher Technical School - the leading technical university of the Soviet Union at that time. Korolev’s parents also moved to Moscow.

In 1930 he graduated from the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School. In 1931, together with F.A. Zander, he participated in the organization of the Jet Propulsion Study Group, which he headed in 1932. Since 1933, S.P. Korolev has been deputy head of the RNII, since 1934 - head of the rocket aircraft department.

At the Jet Research Institute, Sergei Pavlovich carried out extensive organizational research and design work at this institute, directing his creative efforts to the creation of rocket aircraft. The main attention was paid to cruise missiles. Along with the development cruise missiles V pre-war years S.P. Korolev worked on the scientific substantiation of the need for human exploration of the stratosphere with the help of manned jet aircraft. In the book “Rocket Flight in the Stratosphere,” published in 1934, he, from a scientific point of view, seeks answers to questions already posed by life itself: what are human flights in the stratosphere for, what are the ways and methods of their implementation. This book received high review K.E. Tsiolkovsky.

An experimental single-seat version of the rocket plane as a means of exploring the stratosphere was created by Korolev based on his SK-9 glider, which received the index RP-318-1. Under the control of test pilot V.P. Fedorov, this rocket plane successfully flew three times - on February 28, March 10 and 19, 1940. These were the first human flights in an aircraft with a liquid rocket engine in the USSR. Museum visitors can see a dynamic model of the RP-318-1 rocket plane on display.

In 1938, S.P. Korolev was unreasonably repressed and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. At first he served it in Kolyma, and during the Great Patriotic War was sent to OKB special regime, where he dealt with the problem of equipping serial combat aircraft with liquid rocket boosters. In 1944, S.P. Korolev was released from prison and in 1945 he was sent to Germany as part of the Technical Commission to familiarize himself with German captured rocket technology.

In 1946, Korolev was sent to NII-88 and appointed chief designer of long-range ballistic missiles. Since 1956, Sergei Pavlovich has been the head and chief designer of OKB-1. Under his leadership, the first high-altitude rockets in our country were created, which gave Soviet science the opportunity to launch extensive geophysical research in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Under the leadership of Sergei Pavlovich, the first rocket and space systems, which provided our country with an important political priority, the world's first artificial Earth satellite, the world's first manned spaceship, in which on April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin opened the way to space for humanity. The name Korolev is associated with the creation of the powerful Soviet rocket and space industry, as well as new area human activity- astronautics.

Since 1958, full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (corresponding member 1953).
Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1956, 1961). Lenin Prize (1957). Golden medal named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1958).

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev is an outstanding Soviet designer and scientist of the 20th century, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, founder of astronautics, creator of programs and a leading specialist in the field of rocketry and shipbuilding.

Sergei Korolev was born on January 12, 1907 (old style December 31, 1906) in Zhitomir. His father was a teacher, one of the commoners. After the breakup of the family, the boy was sent to Nizhyn to live with his mother’s parents, where he was raised in merchant family. Since 1917, he has lived in Odessa with his mother Maria Nikolaevna and stepfather Grigory Mikhailovich Balanin. School curriculum studied houses, from 1922 to 1924 he studied at a construction school.

• In 1921, he met the pilots of the hydraulic squadron and took part in aviation life: at the age of 16, he gave lectures on aviation. His first invention, created at the age of 17, was the K-5 motorless aircraft, recommended for construction.
• 1924-1926 – studied at the Kiev Polytechnic.
• In 1926 he was transferred to Moscow to a higher technical school. Participates in the organization of a glider school, becomes an instructor and tester of gliders, graduates from a pilot school, attends an aerodynamics club and develops light aircraft and gliders. Since his fourth year, he has been working at the design bureau.

• Since 1927, he has participated in the All-Union Glider Competitions in Koktebel four times in a row.
• In 1929 he met with K. E. Tsiolkovsky, who advised him to take up space flights and gave him the book “Space rocket trains"and recommends contacting Friedrich Arturovich Zander, an engineer at TsAGI (Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute).
• In February 1930, under the leadership of A.N. Tupolev defends the SK-4 aircraft project. At the same time, Korolev created the SK-3 “Red Star” glider, on which Nesterov’s loops were performed in free flight. The designer was unable to carry out the flight himself because he fell ill with typhus with complications such as deafness and memory loss. Before his illness, he had a phenomenal memory.

• In March 1931, he began working at TsAGI as a senior flight test engineer. The main event of this period was a meeting with Zander, who was testing the OR-1 engine. Korolev also gets involved in the work. In September 1931, a group led by Zander began developing and testing the RP-1 rocket plane with a liquid engine.

The first steps of domestic rocket science

Sergei Korolev heads the scientific and technical council of the Moscow GIRD. Priority is given to missile weapons necessary to strengthen the country's defense capability. Korolev creates the first design bureau, from members of the Central State Research Institute, which went down in the history of rocket science.

Most areas of domestic rocket science began here. The achievement of this period was the launch liquid rocket GIRD-09, which rose to a height of 400 m. Korolev describes the results of his work in the book “Rocket Flight in the Stratosphere” (1934). Here he also highlights the possibilities of non-space use of rockets for military and scientific purposes.

In September 1933, 26-year-old Korolev was appointed deputy director of the Jet Institute. The hopes of the Girdovites about the transition to serious projects were not justified, the scope of development was reduced, and in 1934 Korolev was relieved of his post. He remained to work at the institute as an ordinary engineer, focusing his efforts on the development of cruise missiles.

Guided missile weapons

In 1936, Korolev was appointed chief designer of the RNII department developing missiles. aircrafts. Sergei had amazing intuition, encyclopedic knowledge and experience. For the first time, he substantiated the concept of a missile interceptor fighter, reaching a high altitude in a few minutes, attacking aircraft that threaten the protected object.

During the tests, which Korolev planned to conduct personally, an accident occurred, during which the designer received a head injury and ended up in a hospital bed. After the hospital, on June 27, 1938, he was arrested as a member of the Trotskyist counter-revolutionary organization. Korolev was sentenced to ten years and sent to Kolyma.

Arrest of Sergei Korolev

Due to the arrest of Marshal Tukhachevsky and the authors of the new weapon, development stopped. The research of the rocket plane, which Korolev was engaged in, was continued, but without his participation it was not possible to build a combat rocket plane.

Victory and trophies

In September 1940, at the request of Tupolev (although he himself was arrested in 1938), Korolev was summoned from Kolyma. He immediately began developing a new bomber. After the first flight in December 1941, Tupolev’s team was evacuated to Omsk. Here the Tu-2 aircraft was put into production. It was the best front-line bomber.

Sergei Korolev continued to work in the prison design bureau of Kazan, developing aviation rocket launcher. Based on the results of his activities, he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and released from prison. At the end of the war, he created the D-1 and D-2 RDD projects with solid fuel engines. It turned out that similar projects have already been implemented in Germany, so it is sent to German enterprises. Korolev comes to the conclusion that at home he has the ability to create similar missiles, but with improved characteristics.

In May 1946, the Soviet leadership adopted a resolution that marked the beginning of the development of rocket science. In Kaliningrad near Moscow (today Korolev) the State Union Research Institute of Jet Weapons (NII-88) is being created. Korolev is appointed one of its main designers.

• On Stalin's orders, a copy of the German rocket is being created;
• Tests are being carried out on A-4 missiles assembled from captured units at the Nordhausen and NII-88 institutes;
• The first R-1 missiles are being tested, reproducing the A-4 from their materials according to domestic documentation.

Constructor

Sergei Korolev turned out to be not only a talented designer, but also an organizer who managed to coordinate the work of all departments.

Mastering the peaks military equipment began with the creation of a rocket with a range of 300 km. In 1948, the R-2 missile was created with a range of 600 km, capable of reaching some American bases. As a result of further developments, the R-5M RDD appears with a range of 1200 km and a nuclear warhead. Tests strategic missile were carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site on February 2, 1956.

Korolev’s main focus was the development of multi-stage intercontinental missiles. The R-7 ballistic missile (ICBM) he created had a range of 8 thousand km, the modernized version of the R-7A ICBM had a range of 12 thousand km. Liquid ICBMs were inferior to American solid-fuel ones, so an experimental rocket, the RT-1, was created using solid fuel. Modern missile systems are equipped with solid fuel missiles, based on the RT-2 ICBM created by Korolev.

Cosmonautics

Military developments were for Korolev a condition for further space exploration. On October 4, 1957, for the first time in the history of earthlings, an artificial satellite was launched. A month later, on November 3, a second satellite was sent into orbit, with the dog Laika on board. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin flew into space.

Specialists from the Council of Chief Designers, created by Korolev, were involved in the implementation of these projects. During his lifetime, seven more flights of manned spacecraft were successfully carried out, satellites, space research stations and systems were launched.

The life of the chief designer ended early, it happened on January 14, 1966. The cause of death was surgery, during which the heart stopped. After his departure, the pace of development of space programs decreased. Neither Russia nor the United States has produced a person equal to him in terms of personality and talent.

Personal life

Sergei Korolev was married twice. He first married in August 1931 to classmate Ksenia Vincentini, and in 1935 she gave birth to his daughter.

Sergei Korolev with his wife Ksenia and daughter

In 1948, the family broke up.

He met his second wife, Nina Ivanovna Kotenkova, who was a translator at NII-88, at work. Article found on 24smi.org