In May 1991, Sergei Krikalev blasted off from the Soviet Union towards the Mir space station. He was supposed to be up there for five months. But while he was circling the Earth, the country that sent him up began to disintegrate. Tanks rolled into Red Square, the hammer and sickle was lowered, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Down on Earth, chaos reigned. The space agency ran out of money. They couldn't afford to bring him back. Krikalev was told he had to stay—indefinitely. He became "the last citizen of the USSR," circling a planet that had radically changed, floating in a tin can while his hometown of Leningrad became St. Petersburg again. "The Last Citizen" is the harrowing, claustrophobic, and deeply human story of the 311 days Krikalev spent in orbit, twice as long as planned, waiting for a country—any country—to bring him home. It is a story of duty, abandonment, and the ultimate perspective on political borders.
