The Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics hosted a memorial evening dedicated to the 98th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Soviet scientist and engineer, lieutenant-general of artillery, the chairman of the State Commission on flight testing of manned spacecraft, Kerim Kerimov.
One of the founders of the Soviet space program, who made a significant contribution to space exploration, Kerim Kerimov, was born in Baku on November 14th 1917. He graduated from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute. During the war he was engaged in receiving mortar units such as ‘Katyusha’ and ammunition for them from industry, he was awarded with the Order of the Red Star for this work. After the war, together with a group of scientists among whom was Sergei Korolev, he went to Germany to study German rockets. After returning, they started working on the creation of Soviet missiles. In 1966 he was appointed as the chairman of the State Commission for manned flights and headed it for 25 years. In October 1967 Kerimov was awarded the rank of lieutenant-general for the successful docking in orbit between two unmanned spacecraft (‘Kosmos-186’ and ‘Kosmos-188’). In 1987 he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the creation of the multi-module space station ‘Mir’ and providing flights to the station.
Azerbaijan did not know for a long time that it was Karimov who headed the state commission for manned flights. The information was declassified only after he retired.
The People's Artist of Azerbaijan, Vasif Babayev, created a documentary ‘Revival’ about the life and activities of the scientist. "The film is covering the Soviet period. The great achievements of the Soviet cosmonautics that were in the USSR. We saw the pictures, where the cosmonauts were accompanied during the flight and met afterwords. We did not see the person who sent and received the cosmonauts, we heard his voice only. And nobody knew that he was Azerbaijani. No one could even imagine that an Azeri could be one of the leaders of the Soviet space program. We have collected a lot of material about Kerim Kerimov, survey materials. And in the end I decided to make a movie about him, but this film is not only about Kerim Kerimov, about General Kerimov, the chairman of the state commission for space flight, this is a film about Azerbaijan and cosmonauts, " Vasif Babayev told to Vestnik Kavkaza
