Today is Maksim Surayev’s birthday. He made a flight to the ISS in 2009-10. He was also the first cosmonaut to keep a blog while on orbit. Hopefully he’ll continue it when he goes up again in 2014.

(Source)

This blog turns 1 year old today! Thanks to everyone who enjoys this blog.

To celebrate, here are my favourite cosmonauts in no particular order.

Fashion and cosmonauts!?! This is from the December 1999 issue of Vogue Russia with model Natalia Semanova. Featuring the 1997 Air Force selection of cosmonauts: Dmitri Kondratyev, Yuri Lonchakov, Roman Romanenko, Aleksandr Skvortsov, Maksim Surayev, Konstantin Valkov and Sergei Volkov.

More at the source.

A festive Oleg Kotov and Maxim Surayev aboard the ISS. (2009)

Happy Halloween! There’s no pumpkins on the ISS, so an orange will do! This is from Maksim Surayev’s stay in 2009.

Maksim Surayev working in the Russian segment in the ISS (2009)

Here’s something cute to ease the sting of the last shuttle. It’s from May when Yuri Lonchakov and Maksim Surayev went to China. It’s in Russian but if you let it load you can watch some cuteness @2:16 when they get mobbed by children and @4:52 when Lonchakov kisses a girl. There’s also Surayev in an Ernie(of Sesame Street fame) shirt.

Maksim Surayev on the ISS (2009-10)

(Source: enigmaland)

Maksim Surayev and Roman Romanenko (2009)

Oleg Kotov and Maksim Surayev on the flight deck of space shuttle Endeavour during STS-130 (2010)

Endeavour launches on her final flight tomorrow.

Space makes juggling a lot easier. Maksim Surayev (2009)

Maksim Surayev hugging his plant (2009-10)