CHEBOKSARY. July 5 (Interfax-Volga) - Soviet cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev will be buried on premises of the Space Exploration Museum in the village of Shorshelly, Chuvashia, on Tuesday.
The Chuvashia governmental commission made the decision on Monday with due consideration of Nikolayev's will and the wishes of his family, the press service of the Chuvashia presidential administration reported.
Nikolayev had his first space mission on board the Vostok-3 spaceship on August 11-15, 1962. He was the third man in space. Nikolayev joined the Soviet cosmonaut unit in 1960. He married Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut, in 1963. Nikolayev led the Soviet cosmonaut unit in 1963-68 and was a deputy head of the cosmonaut training center named after Yury Gagarin in 1968-74.
Nikolayev was trained under the Soviet lunar program and headed one of the lunar flight crews. He was trained for flying Soyuz spaceships after the closure of the Soviet lunar program.
Nikolayev had his second space mission as the commander of the Soyuz-9 spaceship. That was the longest space flight, 17 days, 16 hours, 58 minutes and 55 seconds, back then. The Soyuz-9 crew had acclimatization problems on Earth. The crewmembers felt bad and could not walk as a result of scanty physical exercise in space.