ALL ABOUT IVAN IVANOVICH

2. Spacesuit

3. Research on the Text Markings on Ivan

Unlike the usual CCCP lettering seen on standard Soviet cosmonaut helmets, the text on Ivan's helmet appears to be unique. In every photograph I was able to find online, the full text is difficult to read clearly. With the help of my Russian-speaking friends Liu Tianquan (who also voiced the recipe in the video) and Anbo, I arrived at the following preliminary reading:

- Left, first line: НЕ ТРОГАЙТЕ (Do not touch)

- Right, second and third lines: СРОЧНО ОПАСНЫЙ ГРУЗ / МЕСТНЫЙ ОБРАЗЕЦ (Urgent hazardous cargo / local sample)

5. The Korabl-Sputnik 4 Spacecraft that Carried Ivan

Korabl-Sputnik 4 (Russian: Корабль Спутник 4, meaning "Satellite Ship 4"), also known as Vostok-3KA No. 1 and referred to in the West as Sputnik 9, was a Soviet Vostok program test mission designed to send animals into orbit and return them safely. It was the third such attempt within the program.

6. Ivan's Story

On March 25, 1961, in a snow-covered field, a spacecraft landed in the countryside not far from Perm, an old city in the Soviet heartland. An ejection seat parachuted down from the capsule. With the help of local villagers, rescue workers discovered a motley crew on board: the dog Chernushka, dozens of mice (according to some accounts, forty white mice and forty black mice), along with guinea pigs, frogs, and flies, all alive and healthy. Their commander - an astronaut in a bright orange spacesuit - had landed some distance away from the others, seated beside his parachute in the ejection capsule seat.


Who was this mysterious traveler from space? No human being had yet flown in space. Could he have come from another world? Or, worse still, perhaps from the decadent West?

Officials warned curious onlookers that this was not a dead cosmonaut, only a mannequin. When the rescuers finally reached the seat, they approached the motionless figure quietly sitting there: Ivan Ivanovich. Attached inside his helmet was a label reading MAKET (model). Even so, Ivan caused at least a moment of confusion. A photographer hired to document the landing later recalled the look of disappointment on the volunteer rescuers' faces when they realized they had "rescued" only a dummy.

Ivan's creators gave him not only a face, but also a voice. Beyond surviving the hard landing of Korabl-Sputnik intact, one of his primary tasks in Earth orbit was to test the ground-to-space communication system using that voice. But what should a foolish dummy astronaut say to the world below? This was a delicate problem, since the Soviet Union fully expected the West to intercept any radio transmission sent during the flight. To avoid Western surveillance, Soviet authorities devised a sound system loaded with a cabbage soup recipe and choral music. Anyone receiving the broadcast would be unlikely to associate it with crewed spaceflight; it would sound more like an ordinary cooking channel, and in any case no choir could possibly fit inside the capsule. Ivan completed every task successfully, paving the way for Yuri Gagarin's historic flight.

A few weeks later, Yuri Gagarin made history as the first human to orbit the Earth. When he returned, a Soviet icon was born, and the achievement was undoubtedly a major blow to the United States. Gagarin's feat had to remain unique. So while he appeared on postage stamps and was celebrated as a hero, Ivan was quietly placed into storage as a secret. Perhaps every legend has a silent phantom behind it. For many years afterward, conspiracy theories about "lost Soviet cosmonauts" continued to circulate. It was not until the 1990s that Ivan was purchased by the Ross Perot Foundation for close to USD 200,000, or perhaps nearly USD 3 million, depending on the account. He was dusted off and installed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.