In 1965, Alexey Leonov was admitted in the Union of Artists of the USSR. He managed to carry color pencils aboard, that’s why many of his paintings are based on his sketches made in the orbital space station. Throughout his life he created over 200 paintings; the most famous ones are: “Spacewalk”, “Sign of Time”, “Humankind Was Created Just About Here”, “River of Childhood”.
Alexey Leonov — astronaut-pilot of the USSR #11, the first person to conduct a spacewalk, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Air Force major general. He was born on May 30, 1934 in the village of Listvyanka, the Kemerovo region. He finished high school in Kaliningrad. Leonov was interested in art even in his childhood. He intended to enter Academy of Arts of Latvia, but couldn’t move to Riga due to financial problems.
Also, Leonov was keen on airplanes. In 1955, he finished 10th Training Military Flying School in Kremenchug, and in 1957, Chuguev Higher Air Force Pilots School. In 1960, Leonov was enlisted to the first Soviet Astronaut Unit.
On March 18–19, 1965, together with Pavel Belyaev he conducted the first space flight onboard the ship ‘Voskhod-2’. It was the time when the first spacewalk in the history of astronautics took place. An emergency overshadowed this event: while Leonov was in outer space, his spacesuit became inflated so much that he couldn’t get through the air-lock. For the successful flight and the courage and heroism shown, lieutenant-colonel Leonov was entitled Hero of Soviet Union and was awarded the Order of Lenin and medal “Golden Star”.
In 1975, Leonov set off in the second flight with Valeriy Kubasov on board the spaceship “Soyuz-19”, according to the program “Soyuz — Apollo”. It was the first time spaceships of two countries was docked.
