For the first time for thirty years

A book of poems by the national poet of Belarus, Yakub Kolas, which had been in the space, has been presented in Minsk. The book has been taken into the Starry Heaven exposition of the national painter of Belarus, Ivan Misko, which opened in the State Memorial and Literature Museum of Yakub Kolas.

The size of the book is 8.5х7cm. This miniature tome was published in 1972 to celebrate the 90th birthday of the poet.

In 1975, Piotr Klimuk took the book in orbit. It was the second flight of the first Belarusian spaceman. The spaceman conquered the stars as commander of the Soyuz spacecraft, together with onboard engineer Vitaly Sevastyanov. The spacemen took the flight on the Salyut-4 orbital scientific station docked with the Soyuz-18 spacecraft. They spent more than 60 days alone with the Universe.

In October of 1975, Piotr Klimuk presented the ‘starry’ book to Daniil Mitskevich — the son of Yakub Kolas and the first director of the museum. Workers at the museum confess that they don’t remember when the book was last exhibited. They say that it may have been the first time in 30 years.

The exhibition acquaints visitors with 40 works of the famous sculptor and painter, Ivan Misko. Photo portraits of Piotr Klimuk, Vladimir Kovalenko, Alexey Leonov and Valentina Tereshkova from the personal archive of Ivan Misko are among them. A bust of Yuri Gagarin — the only sculpture of the spaceman that was (posthumously) sculptured by Ivan Misko — is also presented here.