MI Kalinin (М.И. Калинин) Guides My Hand (28.9.1942)

Stalingrad, that big city with historical fighting traditions, has for two months now held the enemy hordes at bay in bitter battle, inflicting such losses on them as have to all intents and purposes, stabilised the rest of the front. Here heroic deeds are a daily occurrence. This should be shown by citing facts, without indulging in rhetoric and loud phrases. Our men do not need a reporter’s praises – the best praise for them is a faithful account of their deeds.

USSR: Valentina Tereshkova (Валентина Терешкова) – First Woman in Space (1963) By Andrey SidorchikAiF (Андрей СидорчикАиФ) (2013)

Tereshkova, contrary to the opinion of experts, was personally chosen by Nikita Khrushchev, who liked the woman’s origin: Valentina’s parents were from a simple family. Her father worked as a tractor driver, he died in the Soviet-Finnish war, her mother worked at a textile factory. In addition, Valentina Tereshkova herself began her career at a weaving mill, where she became the secretary of the Komsomol. In this, she favourably differed from Ponomareva, who came from a family of engineers and had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and Solovieva, a famous athlete, and world champion in parachuting. Tereshkova also parachuted, but Solovieva, for example, had about 700 jumps by that time, whilst Tereshkova had less than a hundred. 

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