Sergei Krikalev left Earth in May 1991 as a Soviet cosmonaut, on a five-month mission to the space station Mir. While he was up there, the country that launched him ceased to exist. There was no money to bring him home, so he stayed, orbiting a planet on which his nation no longer appeared, for 311 days. He landed in March 1992 as a Russian, and the press called him the last Soviet citizen.