The famous Ural artist Alexander Burak created a large painting “The Return” (the full title “The Return. Landing of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft in the Urals” is featured on the back of the canvas). The picture was dedicated to one of the most important engineering achievements of the USSR.
The Voskhod-2 space mission in March 1965 with the commander Pavel Belyayev and pilot Alexei Leonov on board became a crucial event in the history of Soviet cosmonautics.
The flight lasted a little over a day. During this time, the Russian cosmonauts became the first people to conduct a spacewalk. The painting by Alexander Burak depicts the final stage of the epic journey — the landing.
On March 19, the descent module of the spacecraft landed in the remote and deserted Ural taiga, on the territory of the Usolsky District of Perm Oblast. The landing took place in an unplanned location due to an emergency: the malfunction of the automatic landing system forced the crew members to use its manual backup.
The place of the cosmonauts’ return is located 180 kilometers north of Perm and 18 kilometers from the nearest housing. On the day of landing, the day temperature in the taiga was -19 °C, which became even lower at night. The depth of the snow cover reached two meters. All those factors were life-threatening, so a rescue party was immediately organized by the ground service. Despite all the precautions taken, the crew members were discovered and rescued from the taiga only on the third day.
Burak was impressed by this historical event and decided to depict it. The snow-covered taiga landscape is painted in a cold color scheme and features an image of the descent module. The space capsule is above the snow hanging on the top cords of a large striped orange and white parachute. The module is lit by spotlights that add warm hues to the color palette.
The landscape depicted by Burak is not just the artist’s imagination. Burak visited the landing site to make sketches for the future canvas. He also met with the participants in the events: he showed his sketches to the Voskhod commander Pavel Belyayev when the latter visited the artist’s workshop in the city of Sverdlovsk. And then Burak brought sketches to Zvyozdny gorodok (Star City), a cosmonaut training center in the Moscow region, to show his works to other cosmonauts, including Alexei Leonov. In 1967, the canvas was complete.
The Voskhod-2 space mission in March 1965 with the commander Pavel Belyayev and pilot Alexei Leonov on board became a crucial event in the history of Soviet cosmonautics.
The flight lasted a little over a day. During this time, the Russian cosmonauts became the first people to conduct a spacewalk. The painting by Alexander Burak depicts the final stage of the epic journey — the landing.
On March 19, the descent module of the spacecraft landed in the remote and deserted Ural taiga, on the territory of the Usolsky District of Perm Oblast. The landing took place in an unplanned location due to an emergency: the malfunction of the automatic landing system forced the crew members to use its manual backup.
The place of the cosmonauts’ return is located 180 kilometers north of Perm and 18 kilometers from the nearest housing. On the day of landing, the day temperature in the taiga was -19 °C, which became even lower at night. The depth of the snow cover reached two meters. All those factors were life-threatening, so a rescue party was immediately organized by the ground service. Despite all the precautions taken, the crew members were discovered and rescued from the taiga only on the third day.
Burak was impressed by this historical event and decided to depict it. The snow-covered taiga landscape is painted in a cold color scheme and features an image of the descent module. The space capsule is above the snow hanging on the top cords of a large striped orange and white parachute. The module is lit by spotlights that add warm hues to the color palette.
The landscape depicted by Burak is not just the artist’s imagination. Burak visited the landing site to make sketches for the future canvas. He also met with the participants in the events: he showed his sketches to the Voskhod commander Pavel Belyayev when the latter visited the artist’s workshop in the city of Sverdlovsk. And then Burak brought sketches to Zvyozdny gorodok (Star City), a cosmonaut training center in the Moscow region, to show his works to other cosmonauts, including Alexei Leonov. In 1967, the canvas was complete.
