Eduard Belyaev

- You probably regret now that you contacted this letter...

- Why should I be sorry? I agree with what was written in the letter. It was only later, when everyone started arguing, that I asked who organized the signing. It turned out to be the Party of Pensioners. Well, I don't mind. I am a pensioner myself, I am 74 years old. But I'm not a member of the party.

- Wait, so you signed the letter first, and then found out who the organizer is? How did you even get it?

- Sent. Either with a courier or with a driver. You see, I’m not interested in who, where. For me, the main thing is whether I agree or not. The essence of the letter is important to me. Khodorkovsky evaded taxes. Fact? Fact. Why did the Soviet-Vietnamese company, which has two towers, pay more taxes than the entire huge YUKOS? Even if you smash your forehead against the wall, you won’t be able to prove that Khodorkovsky worked honestly. I am an astronaut, I know Baikonur, I know that there was also an offshore zone through which Khodorkovsky evaded taxes. In my opinion, not paying taxes means harming your country. Khodorkovsky, together with similar tax evaders, brought the country to the brink of collapse!

“I just don’t believe that, let’s say, Anastasia Volochkova is in any way concerned about the problems you’re talking about. And she also signed the letter. The composition of the signatories raises questions.

“Are you implying that we were all paid?” How much did Volochkova need to pay? She's already a rich woman!

— Why did you “pay” right away? Some good person could call her and ask her to sign...

- So, maybe he really was a good person? The letter was signed by many good people. Rodnina, Tretyak... There is reason to think. Why can’t I say that those who walked before the court with posters and portraits were paid? After all, it happens that people pay for participating in rallies. Those who defend Khodorkovsky have no arguments at all. They say the verdict will frighten investors. Lord, they imprisoned one - well, who will be scared? In China, dozens are shot, but investments do not stop. Novaya Gazeta scolds us for this letter. I once wrote it out because I thought it was objective. And then I started thinking: whose money is in Novaya Gazeta? And he stopped writing. When purchased newspapers scold you, it’s even an honor. I often think that suddenly they will issue a decree: stop lying to everyone. What will begin then? Newspapers will stop, television will stop... Imagine: everyone who speaks on TV is connected to a lie detector. Let him speak in front of the camera, and the viewer can see whether the person is lying or not. But then no one will go on television.

— In Novaya Gazeta there was a letter from Khodorkovsky’s mother to you personally. Have you read it?

- I haven’t read it yet.

“She writes that out of 50 names, only yours upset her, because the Khodorkovsky family always followed your flights.

“I understand Mom perfectly well.” I myself have four children and six grandchildren. Mothers forgive even more terrible crimes. For a mother, a son is always a son, and God forbid if he goes to prison or to another world. So I understand her very well.

— You seem to be twice Hero of the Soviet Union?

- Actually, yes, but I’m not interested. In space, during the flight with Romanenko, we set either 15 or 16 world records. Almost 30 years have passed, and I still haven’t asked what kind of records they were. I'm not at all interested in these titles.

- I'm not asking about titles. Now a group of Heroes of the Soviet Union, including several cosmonauts, have gone on a hunger strike to protest against the monetization of benefits. Do you support them? Why aren't you starving?

— We have more than a hundred astronauts. I don't communicate with everyone. Apparently, those who are starving do not know me very well either - otherwise they would have invited me. And monetization, of course, is a blatant deception. A brazen, criminal thing: a person is deprived of benefits, instead two hundred rubles are added to his pension, and then people like Khodorkovsky raise prices by the same two hundred rubles.

— So you also suffered from monetization?

— I’m not much, my pension is normal. But I... This is a complicated thing. I started as a part-time technician, that’s 35 rubles a month. Then he became a scientist, became an astronaut, and started earning normal money. But I know that all my colleagues from those times now live in poverty. I can’t calmly react to this!

— When was the last time you were in space?

- In eighty-five. At first, when I returned, I dreamed about space every night. Then less and less. Now I don’t dream at all. And if they suddenly offer me now to fly, they say, I won’t fly.

- Why?

— I wiped up too much vomit from other cosmonauts in my time. I don't want them to wipe up after me. Sending tourists into space is the same as hammering nails with a microscope. No point.

- You are still the smiling astronaut in the world. You can no longer fly.

- This is true. People often meet me on the street and say: “Oh, hello, you’re an astronaut. I don’t remember your last name, but I remember that you always smile.” I was offended by this for a very long time. It seemed to me that I should be known by my good deeds, and not by my smile. And they remember by their smile, motherfucker. I was very angry. And only recently I stopped being angry. At the Czech embassy, a Czech woman approached me and told me about her friend. My friend was seriously ill and had already buried herself; she had no doubt that she would die soon. And then she saw me on TV. And he says: “God, if this man smiles like that, even though it was harder for him in space than it is for me now, then I will survive.” And she survived. You see, our space was created through national efforts. And few are lucky enough to get there. Including me. I have to pay people for this. How to pay? I don't have any money. That's why I smile. There was a case when, after the second Hero star, they made a monument, a bust, to me in my homeland, Leningrad. At first the sculptor sculpted me so serious and arrogant. I tell him: “What are you doing? Let's redo it - make my eyes slits, my hair a crew cut. And be sure to smile."

- He did?

- Did. He grumbled, but did it.

Georgy Grechko, cosmonaut