Colonel (Ret.), Ing. Oldřich Pelčák

„I watched with the delegation that flew from Czechoslovakia. Who was its head… some bigwig from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, I think it was one Lenárt. We were right at Baikonur on such an observation platform and it was interesting because under that platform, there was a sort of bunker where a celebration of the launch was held. Vodka poured, there were canapés, people were talking and suddenly, the loudspeakers announced: ‚Attention, launch in five minutes.’ And everyone run up to the platform. But that view that you have from that platform! Among others, that platform is about two kilometres from the spacecraft but when the motors ignite, the platform shakes, you tremble and you look at that wonder of science and engineering, how it launches and within ten minutes, it’s on the orbit.”

“One night, suddenly a thundering roar, planes are flying, all that clamour. In the morning, I came to the airport and there were Russians. And a tank. In front of the gate, in front of the airport, there stood a tank. I thought: “For goodness’ sake, what’s going on here?’ Obviously, the airport was taken over by the Russian airmen. I was a senior lieutenant then so I was grounded. All pilots in Czechoslovakia were grounded. For several months before it got all sorted out. We were observing the situation, as they say. So, our spaces, instruction rooms, regimental headquarters and sich, they did not care much about it. We could go there. We could live there with them, sure. But we couldn‘t fly. There was a flying ban.”

“The Russians classified it as ‘garnizon’. It‘s a town which is surrounded by a fence and there’s army-style order. One has to have a permit to enter, there is a guard at the gate and so on. But there are shops and a cinema and all public amenities. So, that Monino, it was exactly like this, it was a garnizon. [Note: In Soviet classification, there existed a category of urban-type settlement which had different legal standing than a town, and these had several subtypes. Monino was so-called work settlement because its main purpose was industry-related in a wide sense, in contrast with recreational or agricultural urban-type settlements.]For us coming from Central Europe, it was different from what we knew But you need to understand that this is a different world. Russians explained it their way, they told us: ‘You know, when we want to be armed, and we have to be armed, we invest a lot of money in jet fighters and tanks and everything so do not wonder that we do not have such a high standard of living.’ But those conditions were livable, it was not that bad.”

“When the Russians chose the cosmonauts of the Gagarin type, they stressed the physical fitness. Muscles, pull-ups and so on. Because they did not know what to look for. And then they found out that physical strenght is not necessary. No, he had to be resilient health-wise. He had to have stamina. When there was a flight in cooperation with the Americans, the cosmonauts talked about their training and they agreed, both Russians and Americans, that it’s not important to be strong, as in, weight lifter strong. No, no, one has to have stamina, grit. That’s the right word, grit. I do stuff and it’s done, full stop. That was the main criterion. And I’m that way. I’m from Moravian Slovakia. It‘s Southern Moravia. And even now, I have grit. And that’s what my wie sometimes complains about, that I’m such an odd character.”

“Vladimír’s flight happened on the 2nd of March and on the 1st of May, we stood on the scaffolding at Letná plain and waved at the workers and youth and everyone who marched across Letná in the First of May parade. What was interesting that apart from us two and some Soviet cosmonauts, there were all the Communist Party leaders.” “You joined the Party so that you could fly or did you actually support the ideology?” “How do I answer that… Frankly, if I were not in the Communist Party, I wouldn’t be a pilot. Sure, there were some who were not Party members but they had no future. They couldn’t hold any position of command. Those were just ordinary pilots – soldiers.”