The Story Of The Famous Photo 'The Soiling Of Old Glory' And...
All That's Interesting | 06.02.2026 22:00
On June 30, 1971, a Soviet retrieval team anxiously awaited the return of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts in a remote region of Kazakhstan. A nearby recovery helicopter spotted the scorched parachute of the spacecraft’s descent module as it plummeted toward Earth. After the team made their way to the crashed module, the would-be rescuers opened the hatch and discovered a gruesome and horrific sight: the dead bodies of cosmonauts Georgi T. Dobrovolski, Vladislav N. Volkov, and Viktor I. Patsayev.
