Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk
Pyotr Klimuk was the commander of the Soyuz 13 and Soyuz 10 spaceships, and he spent more than two months in outer sрасе aboard the Salyut 4 orbital station. He was born in the small Byelorussian village Komarovka, not far from the legendary Brest fortress. The boy never felt his father's hand patting his head, he never sat in his lap, never heard his voice. He saw his father only in the old photograph taken by the village photogra-pher on the day he married Pyotr's mother. They are both in their wedding dress and smiling. "After school I'll become a flier," Pyotr decided. That was in 1953, when he was in the fourth form. He was not a very good pupil. He liked mathematics and mechanical drawing, but studied the other subjects only as much as necessary. Every year some of the graduates of the Komarovka school entered military schools. During holidays boys in cadet uniforms came home to visit their village. Pyotr listened to their stories of army life and smiled at the arguments between tankmen and sailors about who was "more important". Re knew that when he finished school he would go to a flying school. The first two years at the school passed quickly. Everything was so new and interesting. But then one day he turned on the radio and heard about the launching of the Vostok space-ship. It was the memorable morning of April 12. The cadets discussed Gagarin's flight exci-tedly. From that day a new drem entered Pyotr's heart. He finished the flying school with excellent marks, then served as a pilot in the Air Force. But he kept thinking how he could join the cosmonauts' group. As often happens, the offer to come to the selection committee came unexpectedly. Pyotr passed the medical tests and was accepted to the team of cosmonauts. Pyotr especially remembers his first meeting with Yuri Gagarin. He approached each of the newcomers, greeted them, asked where they had served, what planes they had flown, how many hours they had spent in flight. Then he showed the group the flight simulators, explained their purpose and told them about the work they would have to do. "It is impossible to forget the meeting with Cosmonaut #1," Klimuk said. "To me and my 'contemporaries Yuri Gagarin is a man from a legend. He was and will always remain an example of indomitable courage, will-power and persistence, boundless devotion to his duties, to the country. I shall be very happy if I am able to make my contribution to the work he began." Pyotr especially likes engineering and technology. To him clever electrical and mechani-cal devices are not just mechanisms built to perform some Function but an exciting world of human thoughts and emotions. The people in Star Town speak highly of him. They say that he has a great ability to un-derstand technical things deeply. "We ourselves learned many things after listening to his replies at examinations," one of the design engineers said.