55 Facts About Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was born on 6 March 1937 and is a Russian engineer, member of the State Duma, and former Soviet cosmonaut.

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963.

Valentina Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times, spent almost three days in space, is the only woman to have been on a solo space mission and is the last surviving Vostok programme cosmonaut.

Valentina Tereshkova joined the Air Force as part of the Cosmonaut Corps and was commissioned as an officer after completing her training.

Valentina Tereshkova later graduated from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and re-qualified for spaceflight, but never went to space again.

Valentina Tereshkova retired from the Air Force in 1997 having attained the rank of major general.

Valentina Tereshkova was a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices including being a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1974 to 1989.

Valentina Tereshkova remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union but twice lost elections to the national State Duma in 1995 and 2003.

Valentina Tereshkova was later elected in 2008 to her regional parliament, the Yaroslavl Oblast Duma.

Valentina Tereshkova has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.

Valentina Tereshkova was born on 6 March 1937 in the Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a village on the Volga River 270 kilometres northeast of Moscow and part of the Yaroslavl Oblast in central Russia.

Valentina Tereshkova's father, Vladimir Tereshkov, was a former tractor driver and a sergeant in command of a tank in the Soviet Army.

Valentina Tereshkova died in the Finnish Winter War when Tereshkova was two years of age.

Valentina Tereshkova was first enrolled in school at 8 years old and graduated at 16.

Valentina Tereshkova began working at a tire factory, and later at a textile mill, but continued her education by taking correspondence courses and graduated from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960.

Valentina Tereshkova became interested from a young age in parachuting, and trained in skydiving at the local Aeroclub, making her first jump at age 22, on 21 May 1959.

Valentina Tereshkova joined the local Komsomol in Yaroslavl, serving as the secretary of the organisation in 1960 and 1961.

Valentina Tereshkova became a member of the Communist Party in 1962.

Valentina Tereshkova had not expressed any particular desire to go into space before being recruited, Rather, her experience at skydiving contributed to her selection as a cosmonaut.

On 16 February 1962, Valentina Tereshkova was selected, along with four other candidates, to join the female cosmonaut corps.

Valentina Tereshkova underwent water recovery training at sea, as part of which several motorboats were used to agitate the water, in order to simulate the rough conditions of space travel.

Valentina Tereshkova began studying at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and graduated a few years after her flight.

Valentina Tereshkova was promoted to lieutenant before her flight and to captain mid-flight.

Valentina Tereshkova maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.

Valentina Tereshkova's mission was used to continue the medical studies on humans in spaceflight and offered comparative data about the effects of space travel on women.

Valentina Tereshkova later disclosed that she encountered challenges in managing her parachute due to violent gusts of wind.

On 22 June 1963, Khrushchev greeted Bykovsky dressed in his uniform who saluted while Khrushchev hugged and kissed Valentina Tereshkova who was dressed in civilian attire.

Sometime after her mission, she was reportedly asked how the Soviet Union should thank her for her service to the country; Valentina Tereshkova requested that the government search for and publish the location of where her father was killed in action.

On 1 October 1963, Valentina Tereshkova arrived in Havana, Cuba, and met Fidel Castro.

Valentina Tereshkova toured the country which at the time was dealing with the effects of Hurricane Flora.

Except for a few-months break that year, Valentina Tereshkova went on a continuous and exhausting world tour, returning to her public duties only two months after the birth of her daughter.

Valentina Tereshkova was a well-known representative of the Soviet Union abroad.

Valentina Tereshkova became a member of the World Peace Council in 1966 and a member of the Yaroslavl Soviet in 1967.

Valentina Tereshkova was the Soviet representative to the UN Conference for the International Women's Year in Mexico City in 1975.

Valentina Tereshkova led the Soviet delegation to the World Conference on Women in Copenhagen and was "interested in socialist internationalism and women's roles in guaranteeing world peace".

Valentina Tereshkova was chosen for several political positions; she was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Valentina Tereshkova was appointed vice president of the International Woman's Democratic Federation and president of the Soviet-Algerian Friendship Society.

Valentina Tereshkova remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union but lost elections to the national State Duma during 1995.

In 2003, Valentina Tereshkova ran again for a seat in the State Duma.

In 2007, Valentina Tereshkova was invited to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo for the celebration of her 70th birthday.

Valentina Tereshkova was later elected during 2008 to her regional parliament, the Yaroslavl Oblast Duma.

On 4 December 2011, Valentina Tereshkova was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, as a representative of the Yaroslavl Oblast and a member of the United Russia party.

On 18 September 2016, Valentina Tereshkova was re-elected to the 7th State Duma.

Valentina Tereshkova serves as deputy chairperson of the Committee on the Federal Structure and Local Government.

In December 2022, the European Union had placed sanctions on various Russian media personalities and politicians including Valentina Tereshkova, which involves freezing assets and banning them from entering EU member states.

Valentina Tereshkova married cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev on 3 November 1963 at the Moscow Wedding Palace with Khrushchev presiding at the wedding party together with top government and space programme leaders.

Valentina Tereshkova told the biographer Antonella Kerr that the marriage ended in 1977; she and Nikolayev divorced in 1982 and Valentina Tereshkova married Yuli Shaposhnikov, a surgeon she had met during her medical examinations to re-qualify as a cosmonaut.

Valentina Tereshkova crater is located on the far side of the Moon.

In 2003 Valentina Tereshkova was portrayed by Apollonia Vanova in the 2003 made-for-TV movie of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

In 1997, London-based electronic pop group Komputer released a song entitled "Valentina Tereshkova" which gives a more-or-less direct account of her career as a cosmonaut.

In 2015, a short film entitled Valentina Tereshkova's Dream was released by Meat Bingo Productions.

The film stars Rebecca Front as Valentina Tereshkova and is based on an interview by the former cosmonaut where she expressed a desire to journey to Mars.

Valentina Tereshkova was a torchbearer of the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay in Saint Petersburg and the 2014 Winter Olympics torch relay in Sochi.

Streets in Ukraine that bore Valentina Tereshkova's name have been renamed due to her support of Russia's military actions against Ukraine and in accordance with the country's 2015 decommunisation law.

In January 2021,24 Ukrainian streets were still named after Valentina Tereshkova; including a street in Busk, located in the same province as Lviv.