Balashova, Galina Andreevna

Born in Kolomna in the family of Andrei Fedorovich Bryukhov, who came from a Murom noble family, and Polina Alexandrovna. Father's brother, Sergey Bryukhov, was an architect. Mother’s grandfather was a village headman on the Oka with a population of 1,500 people. Galina's parents graduated from the Murom Forest Technical School, but could not get a job in their specialty due to their background and were forced to move a lot in search of work.

Galina’s childhood passed away in Dmitrov and Lobnya near Moscow. The family loved drawing, his father was engaged in photography. Galina drew from childhood, so her father gave her two years to study drawing to a 19th-century watercolor painter Nikolai Alexandrovich Polyaninov, who then taught watercolor painting at the Stroganov School .

After graduating from school with a silver medal, on the advice of his father in 1949 he entered the Moscow Architectural Institute on the specialty "Architect". Galina's teachers at the institute were the students of I. V. Zholtovsky, Yu. N. Sheverdyaev and M. F. Olenev , as well as N. P. Sukoyan . Her fellow students included future film director Gia Danelia and science fiction artist Andrei Sokolov .

In 1955, she completed her studies at the institute, and by distribution she was sent to Kuibyshev , where she had to work on reworking architectural projects for the Khrushchev campaign to " fight against excess ".

In 1956, he married a schoolmate of Yuri Pavlovich Balashov, a graduate of the Physical Mat of Moscow State University , distributed to SP Korolev , Special Design Bureau No. 1 (now RSC Energia ), and he and his husband move in Kaliningrad, situated near Moscow.

In 1957, at the request of her husband, Balashov was recruited in the OKB-1 to the department of the chief architect, in which she was the only certified architect. Until 1964, she was engaged in building up the city and the enterprise, she designed the workshops of the plant, the building of the Palace of Culture of Kuibyshev, and was engaged in greening the city.

In 1963, an additional residential compartment, the orbital module, appeared in the new Soyuz spacecraft. Initially, it was an ascetic room that fulfilled only functional goals, about which Korolev said: "In space, a person cannot fly in the toilet." Korolev offers to design a residential interior for the module. On the instructions of K. P. Feoktistov , head of the design department, Balashov in a few days designs the interior design of the orbital compartment. After several revisions, Korolev approves him in 1964. On the left in the orbital module is a table-sideboard, designed to store equipment and household items, on the right is a sofa for rest, which also contains various equipment. At the top of the compartment there are 4 windows and handrails, at the bottom there is a landing hatch. The module is made in the form of a sphere to account for the internal atmospheric pressure, all furniture and appliances are located evenly in the volume of the compartment for balancing the sides. At the request of Korolev, the furniture in the compartment was made in the then modern aesthetics of the 1960s. The orbital modules of all subsequent "Unions" in interior design adhere to the same layout principle.

In 1964, Balashov was accepted as an engineer in the design department for developing a lunar orbital ship (LOC). Balashov not only designs the interior of the residential module, but also deals with the placement of equipment and appliances inside it. She offers a new form of the ship - it is a sphere expanding at the bottom. The “non-oriented” composition, dictated by weightlessness, is implemented in the interior of the orbital module: there is no division between the top and the bottom, there are no doors and partitions, the free space performs several functions. Along the sides of the module there are two closed racks of a streamlined shape, which hide the devices in themselves. After the Americans landed on the moon in the late 1960s, the Soviet program was closed, the LOC was almost built, but it never saw the light of the day.

In the late 1960s, he was engaged in the development of the orbital compartment and the descent module of the Soyuz-T .

In 1971-1975, he participated in the creation of the Soyuz-19 under the Union-Apollo program . Balashov is designing the Soyuz-19 orbital compartment. For an exhibition in Le Bourget in 1973, he created a project of the exposition of the docking of two ships and an icon with the program symbol. Later, the badge was approved by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and NASA as the emblem of the whole “Soyuz-Apollon” program. The same emblem was used on the strip of costumes of the crews of the USSR and the USA, but at the last moment because of the confusion, the pattern on the strip was changed to another one. The emblem became world famous, it was used in souvenir products. However, the authorship of Balashova was classified, she was ordered to refuse fees for the emblem, and besides the OKB-1 leadership no one knew about Balashova’s attitude towards it.

In 1976–1987, he participated in the design of the Salyut-6 and Salyut-7 orbital stations, the Buran spacecraft , and the Mir space station . When working on the "Mir" deals with a wide range of works from interior design to accommodate a large number of onboard systems. Unlike “Soyuzov”, the “Mir” station had an order of magnitude greater volume, therefore functional areas were allocated: work area, lounge - rest area, sleep cabins, medical area, repair area. Each zone was assigned its own color: the work zone was blue and green, the interior was warm. The floor and the ceiling are also highlighted in colors to simplify the orientation of astronauts in space. The main scheme laid down by Balashova in Mira was used in the design and construction of the ISS .

In the 1960s, she created landscapes that were sent into space in the orbital compartments of the first Soyuz to relieve the psychological burden of astronauts. In addition to the main work, in 1977-1991, Balashov created space pennants in honor of Soviet spacecraft and stations, and in honor of international spaceflight . Pennants in limited quantities produced the Leningrad Mint , they were distributed to astronauts, sent to the museum of astronautics and to the countries that took part in the flight. In 1982 he creates a sketch for a commemorative bronze medal in honor of the 25th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, which was cast at the Leningrad Mint.

Since 1975 - a member of the Union of Architects .

In 1990, G. A. Balashov retired and devotes himself to watercolor painting. Currently lives in Korolyov.

During Soviet times and until recently, the authorship of the works of Balashova and her very activities were classified, the general public knew almost nothing about her role in the USSR space program. The first small exhibition of works by Galina Andreevna was held in the Moscow Central House of Architects in 2000. Two more exhibitions were held in Germany in Bonn and the German Museum of Architecture in Frankfurt am Main, materials from the personal archive of Balashova were exhibited. The organizer of the exhibition in the German Museum of Architecture, German architect Philip Moiser, published a book dedicated to Galina Andreevna. In April 2016, the TV channel “Russia - Culture” showed a documentary about G. A. Balashova. In 2018, for the first time in the United States, international academic conferences at two leading universities presented reports on the work of Galina Andreevna Balashova. ^{[4] [5] The} work of G. A. Balashova will be covered in two main planned foreign editions. ^{[6] [7]}

The family - the daughter Tatyana, has a grandson Peter, a granddaughter Olga and two great-granddaughters and one great-grandson.

Interior design, design of spacecraft and stations

• "Union"
• Lunar orbital ship (LOC)
• "Soyuz M"
• "Union T"
• Soyuz-19 (program Soyuz-Apollo)
• Salyut-6
• Salyut-7
• Ship "Buran"
• Orbital station "Mir"

Cosmic symbols

• About 40 space pennants ( gallery ) dedicated to spacecraft (Soyuz, Progress), stations (Salyut-6, Salyut-7, Mir), international space flights (USSR - France, USSR - India, USSR - Japan and others.)
• The emblem of the program "Union - Apollo"
• Commemorative medal in honor of the 25th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite

Buildings, plants

• Palace of Culture in Samara

• 12/14/2000- ?. Moscow, the Central House of the architect . The exhibition presents for the first time works on the design and architecture of Soviet spacecraft. ^{[8] [9]}
• 03.10.2014-22.02.2015, Germany, Bonn, . “ Outer space. Faszination Weltraum " ^[10]
• 06.27.2015-15.11.2015. Germany, Frankfurt am Main, ( it. Deutsches Architekturmuseum ). “ Design of the Soviet space program. Architect Galina Balashova ”( Design Design Für Die Sowjetische Raumfahrt. Die Architektin Galina Balaschowa ). ^[eleven]

• Philipp Meuser . Raumkunst für das Leben in einer anderen Welt. Galina Balaschowa, Designerin der Sowjetischen Raumfähren Sojus, MIR und Buran. // Outer Space. Faszination weltraum. - Katalog zur Ausstellung vom 3. Oktober 2014 bis 22. Februar 2015 - Bonn 2014 - ISBN 978-3894798734 - S. 40-43
• Philipp Meuser . Galina Balashova. Architect of the Soviet Space Program - Vol. 43 of Basic Series - DOM Publishers - ISBN 978-3-86922-355-1
• Philipp Meuser . Galina Balaschowa. Architektin des sowjetischen Raumfahrtprogramms - Band 33 der Reihe Grundlagen - DOM Publishers - ISBN 978-3-86922-345-2
• Moiser, Philip. Galina Balashova. Architect of the Soviet space program / Philip Moiser; per. with him. Anton Bratishko and Irina Bushuyeva. - Berlin: DOM Publishers, 2018. - 192 p .; ill. (Ser. "Theory and History")

• Galina Balashova. Space Architect . Documentary film (Russia, 2016). Directed by Mikhail Kuzovenkov.

• Biography G. A. Balashova
• The film Galina Balashov. Space architect on the site of the TV channel "Russia - Culture"
• Gallery. Spaceship interiors - site created and maintained by Peter Vinogradov, the grandson of Balashova Galina Andreevna
• Gallery. Cosmic symbolism - the site was created and maintained by Peter Vinogradov, the grandson of Galina Andreyevna Balashova
• Exhibition "Galina Balashova: Architect of the Soviet Space Program" in Frankfurt am Main (eng.)