Aug 25 1998
From The Space Library
Cosmonauts Talgat A. Musabayev and Nikolai M. Budarin returned to Earth from a 207-day sojourn aboard Mir, along with former Kremlin aide Yuri M. Baturin, who had accompanied the cosmonauts' replacements to the space station, spending 12 days in space. The two cosmonauts arrived in Russia to find a devalued ruble and the return of Viktor S. Chernomyrdin as Acting Prime Minister. Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin had not yet fired Chernomyrdin's government at the time Musabayev and Budarin left for Mir, and the two cosmonauts had missed the entire four-month term of Prime Minister Sergei V. Kiriyenko. Yeltsin had dissolved Kiriyenko's government the week before the cosmonauts' return flight to Earth. Because Yeltsin had devalued the ruble, the two cosmonauts also found that their pay had diminished.
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