FLOWN SOKOL GLOVE FROM COSMONAUT ANTON SHKAPLEROV

Provenance:
From the collection of cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov

Certificate:
Letter of authenticity directly from Anton Shkaplerov

This glove is part of a Sokol space suit, which was used for a space mission on the ISS by seasoned cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov This kind of suit is used by all flying on the Soyuz spacecraft, was introduced in 1973, and is used to this day.

This original right-handed glove of a Sokol suit is made of white nylon, black leather and rubber, and is held in place with a blue metallic ring closure. It was worn by Shklaperol on his fourth space flight, when he piloted movie director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild to the ISS, where they stayed for twelve days to do a film shoot. This was actually the first time ever that a part of a feature film was shot in space.

The director Klim Shipenko commented on the difficulties of such a task in an interview in 2021: '...I knew I couldn’t bring any other actors up there other than Yulia, so I had to come up with a script that works with cosmonauts playing themselves. Anton Shkaplerov, for instance, was helping me with basically anything I asked him to help me with, such as set designing, because space modules needed to be freed up of some equipment for me to be able to fly through them, or because it would look better if it was rearranged a little bit. So, he was helping me with all of that along with the other cosmonauts'.

Shkaplerov stayed much longer: the certificate of authenticity states that the glove was worn during take-off and landing with the Soyuz MS-19, thus spending 165 days in space on the ISS mission 66 which lasted from October 17, 2021 until March 30, 2022.