The diaries of Vasily Mishin appeared in the public domain.

Vasily Pavlovich Mishin - probably the most criticized of the patriarchs of the Soviet cosmonautics. He met with Sergei Korolyov as early as 1945 as part of a special group to study the V-2 captured missiles. Vasily Mishin participated in the creation of the Soviet ballistic missiles R-1, R-2, R-5, R-7, was the first deputy Korolev in the OKB-1. And after the death of Sergei Pavlovich by a vote of deputies, he was almost unanimously elected chief designer and head of the OKB-1, which means he enjoyed the trust and respect of his colleagues. However, it was at the time of his leadership that the most tragic failures of the Soviet cosmonautics fell - the death of Komarov on Soyuz-1, the failure of the Soviet manned lunar program, the death of Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev on Soyuz-11.

The personality of Vasily Mishin can be tried to be imagined from the recollections of those who worked with him. The history of the Soviet cosmonautics and Mishin’s participation in it is described in detail in Boris Chertok’s “Rocket and People” tetralogy, but Chertok is an excellent diplomat and very polite person. He describes a lot of facts, but he never gives emotional assessments and does not point a finger at those who, in his opinion, are to blame. In contrast to Chertok, in the diaries of General Kamanin, Mishin's personality is evaluated very negatively. Kamanin wrote his diaries on the table, so he was not embarrassed in expressions, plus, it seems that the life experience of the polar pilot and aviation commander of World War II made him completely merciless to people. Who is right? Now, thanks to the efforts of a whole team of wonderful people, we can look at Mishin, probably as close as possible. What can tell about a person better than his own diaries?

The diaries themselves have an unusual fate. Vasily Mishin personally put them up for sale at the Sotheby’s auction in 1993 without making copies. Thirty-six notebooks of unique records went to the US businessman Ross Perot. Fortunately, the Perot Foundation agreed to make copies of diaries after Mishin’s death in 2001. Almost fifteen years were spent on processing, decoding and digitizing material. Now, thanks to the team of altruists, we can look at the history of the Soviet cosmonautics and the personality of Vasily Mishin from a new point of view.

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