Starman_ The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin - Jamie Doran [76]
In its 1960s heyday, the Kissely dacha at Foros was a luxury sanatorium complex designed to accommodate only the most privileged group bookings. Warm seas, fresh meat and fruit, fine wines, perhaps a certain freedom from everyday restraints: all of these pleasures were available, and more. It was not expected that officials would record too closely how the guests at Foros enjoyed themselves.
The first cosmonauts and their associates also came to Foros for their holidays, with their wives and families in tow.
Call her ‘Anna’; perhaps there were two Annas. Anna Rumanseyeva, a young nurse, was on duty at the Kissely Sanatorium on September 14, 1961, when Gagarin and his cosmonaut comrades came to stay. She speaks with intimate knowledge of another nurse called Anna, also working at Foros when Gagarin came to stay. Maybe the two Annas are one and the same person? It is not important. Today Anna Rumanseyeva is a married woman, a respectable grandmother and professional medical practitioner.
‘There are some people in life, especially men, who are constantly looking for adventure,’ she says. ‘I would say, Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was this kind of person. There was a small episode, a jump from a terrace – we can tell a short version of the story, yes? – I don’t think he wanted to hide anything from his wife, Valentina. No, he was simply showing off, being childish, just to say to her, “You were mistaken, thinking I was in there, doing something wrong.”’
The longer version of Anna’s story is more revealing.
There were twenty-eight people in the group. Yuri and Valentina arrived at the sanatorium with their second daughter Galya, nine months old and still in need of her mother’s constant attention. Gherman Titov was there; Alexei Leonov; the journalist Yaroslav Golovanov; a large crowd of cosmonauts; some technical people; even the dreaded Nikolai Kamanin, sharing a friendly drink with the boys, taking a rest from being (as Golovanov puts it) a ‘complete Stalinist bastard’.
Kamanin noticed that Yuri and Valya were not getting along. He was rude, distracted and paid her very little attention. She would sit sulking in the car while her husband strode off to see the sights or meet with local Crimean dignitaries for a drink. Sometimes he behaved so unpleasantly that Valya burst into tears. Kamanin and his wife Maria were shocked and surprised at Gagarin’s behaviour. A few days into the vacation, Kamanin took him aside. As he noted in his ever-vigilant diary, ‘I said to him, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt ashamed for you. You’ve offended Valya deeply.” Gagarin admitted he was at fault and promised to mend his ways.’1
Titov’s behaviour at Foros was hardly any better. The discipline so much admired by Kamanin in the lead-up to the first Vostok flight seemed largely to have evaporated by now. Kamanin felt the need to warn both his prime cosmonauts that they were ‘slipping onto a dangerous path’.
Gagarin’s conduct did not improve, and he seemed desperate for distraction. In the second week he took some of his companions out to sea in a small motor boat. The Foros staff pleaded with him: it was against the rules, he did not know the local conditions, the wind was offshore, the weather could be difficult, he should not go. But he went anyway, taking the boat far from shore and driving it recklessly, making tight turns to splash his passengers with spray. The swell picked up, just as he had been warned.2 The boat was carried over the horizon and out of sight of the shore, and a larger motorboat had to be sent out to make a rescue. When they hauled him back ashore, Gagarin went to the medical