On August 12, 2015, the TP-82 pistol, a special cosmonaut firearm, was solemnly donated by RSC Energia to the Moscow Kremlin State Historical and Cultural Museum and Heritage Site. This weapon has been created for self-defense and survival of cosmonauts landed outside the specified area. The famous cosmonaut Alexey Leonov has initiated the development of the “space” gun and participated in its elaboration.
The Moscow Kremlin Museums preserve the unique collection of arms and armor which includes more than eight thousand items of the 11th – 20th centuries. The works of Russian, Western European and Eastern armourers allow tracing the history of the world arms culture for the period of several centuries. Firearms, executed by Russian and foreign masters of the Armoury Chamber, are of special interest from the artistic and technical point of view.
As for the TP-82 pistol’s story, in 1965 the crew of “Voskhod-2” space mission, consisting of Alexey Leonov and Pavel Belyaev, had to wait for evacuation for three days after landing in dense taiga in the Perm region. In 1979 Leonov suggested to constructors of the Tula Arms Plant creating multifunctional pistol for cosmonauts and long-distance aircraft crews. Leonov also became one of the elaborators of the firearm. In 1982 the nonautomatic hunting triple-barreled TP-82 pistol was officially adopted as a part of the Soviet space missions’ firearms survival kit SONAZ.
Various sources claim that up to 100 TP-82 pistols were assembled during the production in Tula, which makes the pistol a rather rare firearm. Some museums display either a model of the pistol or a nonoperational item. The specimen donated to the Moscow Kremlin museums is a functioning pistol that has visited the orbit several times – in 2009 and in 2010.
According to Elena Gagarina, the General Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the fact that this “space” pistol has replenished the Moscow Kremlin Museums’ collection is of symbolic significance as it’s in the Armoury Chamber, that its predecessors, unique firearms forming the substantial part of the Museums’ collection, were executed. “We appreciate that RSC Energia gave us the opportunity to replenish our funds with such a significant and interesting item, connected with the name of Alexey Leonov, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. The pistol is sure to have one of the most important places in our collection”, said Elena Gagarina.