A Cosmic Wedding

November 3, 1963

On November 3, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, married her fellow cosmonaut, Andriyan Nikolayev. The marriage, which was celebrated with great fanfare, lasted until 1982, 19 years. As Tereshkova put it, her husband had a “difficult personality.”

After the wedding there were rumors that the two had been forced to marry to allow for a very particular kind of experimentation on people who traveled to space. Later, there were also rumors that their child was born with birth defects due to the radiation her parents were exposed to while on missions. In fact, Nikolayev and Tereshkova produced a perfectly healthy daughter who grew up to be a surgeon. As for the rumors of a forced marriage, it is easy to understand their origin. The wedding had all the hallmarks of an official event. The famous aviator, General Nikolai Kamanin, who at the time was head of the cosmonaut training center, described preparations for the wedding and the event itself in his diary.

November 2

Yesterday I was informed at 18:00 of Khrushchev’s decision that the Communist Party’s Central Committee and the government of the USSR would hold Tereshkova and Nikolayev’s wedding on November 3 at 13:00 at the House of Receptions, 42 Vorobyovskoye Highway. The number of participants has been set at 180-200 people. The wedding expenses will be covered by the government, but invitations to the wedding feast will be issued in the name of the cosmonauts. The invitation list will be determined by the groom and bride.

Today at 9:30 Valya and Andriyan came to see me with the invitation list. We rather quickly agreed on the list and went to the Commander-in-Chief [of Soviet aviation] to settle all the issues involved in the upcoming ceremony. It was agreed that the bride and groom would arrive at the Wedding Palace at 11:40 and at the House of Receptions by 13:00. After the government reception in honor of the cosmonauts’ wedding, the celebration will continue, beginning at 19:00, at the cosmonaut base and later at the groom’s apartment. Through it all, Valya smiled “bravely,” but I knew that she was barely holding it together, that she was reaching the breaking point. I thanked her for the fine speech at the congress of labor unions and after the groom and bride signed the invitation cards I let them go so they could prepare for the wedding. I reported to Leonid Ilyich [Brezhnev] on the invitation list, the invitations, and the protocol for the entire ceremony at the Wedding Palace and the ball. Brezhnev agreed to all our proposals, except that he crossed out the ministers and members of the Central Committee Presidium, saying that Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and, maybe, Mikoyan would be the only ones from the leadership.

Today I had the craziest day. All five telephones rang incessantly. Everyone, from the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers to the ministers and the members of the Central Committee, wanted to know whether or not they would be getting an invitation. Here’s a typical episode. Raisa Yakovlevna Malinovskaya* called me and told me about her telephone conversation with Nina Petrovna Khrushcheva. Nina Petrovna asked her, “Will you be at the cosmonaut wedding?” Raisa Yakovlevna: “Yes, my husband got an invitation and we are planning to use it.” Nina Petrovna: “I envy you; Nikita Sergeyevich [Khrushchev] told me, ‘If they invite us, you’ll go, and if they don’t, you won’t.’ So far no invitation. Well, if we have to, we’ll watch the wedding through the fence.” Raisa Yakovlevna, after telling me about this conversation, recommended that I call Nina Petrovna to invite her to the wedding and send her an invitation. I called Nina Petrovna and invited her to the wedding on behalf of the groom and bride. Nina Petrovna thanked me for the invitation and asked that invitations be sent to Sergei Nikitich and Yelena Nikitichna [the Khrushchevs’ children].

There were millions of people who wanted to attend the wedding, thousands who had that right, but only 200 actually got in. Everyone left out thinks that Kamanin is responsible for their “misfortune.” Today I made so many enemies that I’m expecting trouble at work. I had to cross ministers and marshals and friends off the list.

In the evening I spent time at the House of Receptions and went over all the arrangements for the ball.

November 3:
The Day of Tereshkova and Nikolayev’s Wedding 

At 8:30 two Chaika limousines pulled up in front of our building and Musya and I set out for Chkalovskaya Street to pick up the bride and groom. Musya went to Valya’s apartment and I went to Andriyan’s. They were already up and dressed, even though they had not gone to bed until four in the morning. At 10:50 the bride and groom got into the first Chaika, and Valya’s mother and brother, Andriyan’s mother, and Musya and I got into the second, while the Gagarins, Titovs, Bykovskys, Karpovs, and Nikeryakovs followed in Volga sedans. At 11:40 the cortège arrived at the Wedding Palace on Griboyedov Street. After the marriage was registered, the newlyweds were congratulated by the chairman of the Moscow City Council, Promyslov, by Sayushev and Zhuravylova on behalf of the Komsomol Central Committee, and by me on behalf of the Ministry of Defense. After that they were congratulated by their relatives, friends, and people from their hometowns.

At 13:00 sharp, the wedding cortège reached the House of Receptions, and a few minutes later N. S. Khrushchev arrived. After all the guests had taken their seats at the tables, the groom and bride appeared, accompanied by Khrushchev. Nikita Sergeyevich opened the festivities. He said, “A wedding is a special thing, a thing of life, youth, and cheer, and we decided to have as few old people here as possible. The government and the Central Committee asked me to salute the newlyweds, which I take great pleasure in doing. I wish Valya and Andriyan great family happiness and new achievements in their great and noble labor. The wedding of our renowned cosmonauts is an event of international importance. To the health of the newlyweds!” This was followed by speeches and toasts by Gagarin, Zhuravlyova, Keldysh, Malinovsky, Voroshilov, and the secretaries of the Chuvash and Yaroslavl oblast committees of the Communist Party. Nikita Sergeyevich also offered a few more toasts (to the parents, to the relatives, to the scientists and design engineers, to the military). Then the newlyweds, together with Khrushchev, made the rounds of all the guests. When my turn came, Nikita Sergeyevich congratulated me on a “cosmic” wedding and added, “You’re the guilty party responsible for all this celebration, Kamanin.” Yes, of course if it hadn’t been for the first flight of a woman cosmonaut, there would never have been this “cosmic” wedding. And the idea of sending a woman into space was my idea, the decision to send Tereshkova on the flight was my decision, made official by a State Commission protocol. Here, in my diary, I can write that Tereshkova, in her capacity as the most famous woman in the world, was my creation. I am proud of my creation: she has every right to universal love and respect.

At 18:00 we left for the Cosmonaut Training Center. To me, it seemed silly to have two big wedding celebrations back-to-back, but most of those present had never been to a wedding like this. Six to eight hours of toasts, gifts, shouts of “gorko” and kisses** exhausted both the guests and the newlyweds. I did everything I could to make sure the festivities did not drag on too long, but it was after 23:00 before we finally managed to tear the newlyweds away from the guests and take them to Andriyan’s apartment. Valya, Andriyan, Musya, and I traveled from the training center to Chkalovskaya in the same Chaika. Andriyan spent the entire drive thanking me and offering evidence that all the cosmonauts love me and trust me, while Valya sat silently in the corner and coughed intermittently. Her dry cough worried me, while Andriyan, not noticing his wife’s state, was smoking and repeating in a drunken voice, “The simpler, the better. Right, Valya?” Valya pretended not to understand what Andriyan was talking about and asked several times, “Simpler what?” But Andriyan was never able to explain his thinking to her. He just added, “The simpler it is in a family, the better.” He was obviously referring to the tiff they had the day before. Valya felt that it would be better to keep her maiden name, while Andriyan insisted that she take his. The argument dragged on, and Valya blew up and, after slamming the door, had gone to her apartment...

Nikolayev’s apartment turned out to be full of relatives and friends (about 60 people). For more than an hour there was again congratulating and drinking and only around half past one in the morning was it possible to get rid of all the guests and send the newlyweds to rest.

* Wife of the famous WWII general Rodion Malinovsky.

** At Russian weddings, vodka toasts are followed by shouts of “горько” [bitter], meaning that the bride and groom should kiss to remove the bitter taste of the champagne or vodka.