On April 2, on Khovanskaya Street in Moscow, a memorial plaque was opened to Nikolay Rukavishnikov, a graduate of the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. He was a pilot astronaut, twice given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The opening of the memorial plaque coincides with the 50-anniversary of Nikolay Rukavishnikov's first flight and the 60-anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first journey into outer space.

        The students and teachers of MEPhI laid flowers at the memorial plaque. Representatives of the Moscow government, the Tomsk community in Moscow, the Roscosmos State Corporation, veteran organizations, relatives, colleagues, and comrades, among whom was cosmonaut Sergei Avdeev, also a MEPhI graduate, attended the event.

Nikolay Rukavishnikov was born in Tomsk, in this city also grew up. He graduated from MEPhI in 1957 and received the qualification of an engineer-physicist in "Dielectrics and semiconductors" at the Faculty of Electronic Computing Devices and Automation Means.

After graduation worked for Sergey Korolev's design bureau. 1967 he was enrolled in the Soviet cosmonaut corps and completed a full-scale flight training course. Nikolay Rukavishnikov was the first civilian to command a Soviet spacecraft and became the first space test engineer.  During the third flight into space due to an engine failure, the ship made a manual emergency landing for the first time in history.

Chairman of the USSR Cosmonautics Federation in 1981-1991. President of the Russian Cosmonautics Federation from 1991 to 1999, since 1999 - its honorary president. Under his leadership, the Federation was one of the initiators of the International public scientific and educational space project  (Banner of Peace).  The decision to install a memorial plaque to the cosmonaut was made at a meeting of the commission for perpetuating the memory of outstanding events and figures of Russian history and culture.