Personal Life
The Soviet émigré Leonid Vladimirov related the following description of Korolev by Glushko at about this time:
- "Short of stature, heavily built, with head sitting awkwardly on his body, with brown eyes glistening with intelligence, he was a skeptic, a cynic and a pessimist who took the gloomiest view of the future. 'We are all going to be whacked and there will be no obituary' (Khlopnut bez nekrologa, Хлопнут без некролога - i.e. "we will all vanish without a trace") was his favorite expression."
Korolev was rarely known to drink vodka or other alcoholic beverages, and chose to live a fairly austere lifestyle. He remained a handsome and solidly-built man, and he was as fond of women as they were of him.
About 1946, the marriage of Korolev and Vincentini began to break up. Vincentini was heavily occupied with her own career, and at about this time Korolev had an affair with a younger woman named Nina Ivanovna Kotenkova. Vincentini, who still loved Korolev and was angry over the infidelity, divorced him in 1948. Korolev and Kotenkova next were married in 1949, but he is known to have had affairs even after his marriage to Kotenkova.
Read more about this topic: Sergei Korolev
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