New Delhi (Sputnik): A group of Indian school children had the experience of their lifetime on Thursday when they got to hear from two Russian astronauts orbiting the earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
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Oleg Artemyev and Anton Shkaplerov said they received more than 12000 letters from students of the Atomic Energy Central School of Kudankulam in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu seeking answers about space technology.
"We have received a lot of letters and congratulations on International Cosmonauts Day. One of those letters was quite unique. It was full of warmth and love and we could not resist ourselves from replying. They have sent us warm greetings, congratulations and asked to show their picture from the space" Oleg Artemyev, cosmonaut, said from the International Space Station.
Besides letter from Russia and India, the cosmonauts said they also received letters from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Spain, Cuba, Brazil, Latvia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic.
In July last year, global nuclear technology giant Rosatom had conducted an interaction of astronauts and the Indian school students in Chennai as part of the Rosatom Festival of Science. During the program, Russian Space Pilot Mikhail Kornienko shared interesting details about the modern manned space flight, stoking the curiosity of the students and prompting them to send queries to the ISS.
"The children were so impressed by his visit that they decided to write letters to the international space station," a Roscosmos official said in a press release on Thursday.