RIP Alexei Leonov

On October 11 a chapter closed in the Soviet Space Age.

Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space (March 1965), the first human to sketch art in space, and the last living member of the inaugural class of Soviet cosmonauts, passed away at the age of 85.

Leonov was born in a large family which lost their home and had to relocate after his father was arrested in 1937. He was released two years later, and the family (with ten children) lived in extreme poverty in two rooms of a communal flat, in the Siberian city of Kemerovo. Leonov did not start school until he was 9 years old.

Young Alexei wanted to study art, but didn’t have money to pay for housing in Riga, where an art academy had accepted him, so instead he finished flight school in Kremenchug, Eastern Ukraine. He was picked to be on the first Soviet cosmonaut team, but continued to put his art skills to good use, painting large, space-themed canvases or making sketches of fellow Soviets or Americans in orbit.

“I stepped into the abyss, and felt something in my chest. Stars were on the left and right, above and below. I was among the stars, and I understood that I was a small part of this giant world, where the human was just a grain of sand,” Leonov recalled years after his space walk.