Sergei Krikalev was 240 miles away from Earth when he watched his hometown Leningrad become St. Petersburg, but he says it didn’t affect their routine at first. “It was a long process, and we were getting the news, not all at once, but we heard about the referendum, for example. I was doing my job and was more worried about those on the ground — our families and friends — we had everything we needed,” he recalled (via The Guardian).

Before the Soviet Union collapsed, President Mikhail Gorbachev tried to improve the relationship with other countries and announced that a Kazakh cosmonaut would replace Krikalev. However, there was a problem: Kazakhstan didn’t have a trained cosmonaut, and Krikalev had to stay longer than he planned.

In October 1991, the other crew members left, and Krikalev remained alone. The Soviet Union collapsed in December, and the chances to send someone to replace Krikalev were vanishing, and he became known as the “the last Soviet citizen.” After 311 consecutive days in space, the cosmonaut was allowed to come back in March 1992, thanks to a join Russian-German space mission (via History Net).

“After the landing, I left Russia a few months later to train for the joint shuttle program [with the U.S.]. My work didn’t change significantly; it was straight back to training,” Krikalev said (via The Guardian).

Krikalev went to space four more times, and his last mission was in 2005.