One of the finalists in the contest to select the first Bulgarian cosmonaut lives in the Sarafovo district of Burgas

In the Burgas district of Sarafovo lives one of the finalists who reached the final rounds in the competition to select the first Bulgarian cosmonaut in 1979. This is Mihail Kostov, who at that time was a major and served in the 15th regiment in Ravnets. This was told by Slavi Kostadinov, chief specialist at “Aviation Museum – Burgas”, at the presentation of LIK magazine – “Bulgarian Footprint in Space” at the National Press Club of BTA in Burgas.
“When the competition for the selection of the first Bulgarian cosmonaut was announced, the condition was that the candidates must be military pilots who graduated from the military school in Dolna Mitropolia after 1964, which was at an extremely high level at the time. Then, for health reasons, many of the candidates drop out. One of the pilots who reached the last rounds of the selection is Major Mihail Kostov, who served in the 15th regiment in Ravnets. He lives in Sarafovo and is a frequent guest of the Air Museum,” added Kostadinov.
It is also a little known fact that the double of the second Bulgarian cosmonaut Alexander Alexandrov was the then lieutenant Krasimir Stoyanov. He also served in the 15th regiment in Ravnets, but as part of the squadron in Balchik. He reached the final round of the cosmonaut selection together with Alexander Alexandrov’s brother – Plamen, who served in the same squadron, Slavi Kostadinov also told. This year, combining the 45th anniversary of Georgi Ivanov’s flight and the celebration of the International Day of Aviation and Cosmonautics , “Air Museum – Burgas” offered residents and guests of the city an interesting program with various events and initiatives in the period between April 12 and 14. Among them were various workshops for children, as well as the presentation of the first issue of the “Aviation Museum – Burgas”, dedicated entirely to the Bulgarian footprint in space, the expert added. “The most impressive, both for children and adults, was the tasting of space food, which is becoming traditional with us. For the third or fourth year in a row, we use the services of the Institute of Cryobiology and Food Technologies (BAS), which still produces so-called lyophilized food , which is created under special conditions. Thus, visitors were able to see the qualities of the food, that it can be preserved and consumed after treatment with hot water,” added Slavi Kostadinov. He added that the visitors of the museum had the opportunity to try different fruits, dishes such as chicken with rice, cereal breakfast, macaroni and cheese. According to Kostadinov, Burgas offers interesting ways for young people to get to know aviation and cosmonautics up close. In the Aviation Museum, for example, there are F16 flight simulators, as well as a Cessna 172 flight simulator, located in the Vocational High School of Mechatronics and Electronics in Burgas. The Planetarium, newly opened last year, also gives children the opportunity to study the stars, space and its phenomena, and in the children’s science center “PlanetUm” they can also explore the depths of the sea.
According to Kostadinov, Bulgarian aviation and cosmonautics have experienced many ups and downs over the years. During the development of aviation, Bulgaria was a leading country producing aircraft. Likewise, in space exploration, our country is the sixth in the world to have sent an astronaut beyond Earth’s orbit with the help of the Intercosmos program developed jointly with the Soviet Union. According to his observations, there are few visitors who know that Bulgaria sent a total of two cosmonauts and that by 1988, when the flight of the second Bulgarian cosmonaut took place, only the USA, the USSR and Bulgaria could boast of such an achievement. “One of the main goals of our museum is to preserve the history of Bulgarian aviation for the current generations and thus build the future on the basis of history,” Slavi Kostadinov also commented.