Space Flight Participant, Russia 

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: April 20, 1963, Moscow, RSFSR.

EDUCATION:
In 1980 he graduated from Secondary School ¹ 170 in Moscow. In June 1985 he graduated from Moscow Oil and Gas Institute after Gubkin, specially: mechanical engineer.

FAMILY STATUS: Married, has a son, born in 1991.

WORK EXPERIENCE:
From 1992 to 1993 he held a post of General Director of the Ritm company, the tobacco products manufacturer.
From 1996 to 1998 he was General Director of Russian company Latrek. He was responsible for deliveries of different coffee grades, tobacco products, the sales promotion of the Disnei company.
From 1998 to 2000 he was Director of Russian company Kosmopolis.
Since April 2000 he is the Head of the Space Adventures Company Office in Russia and also a member of the Board of the Company Directors and bears responsibility for implementation of programs proposed by the Space Adventures Company in the Russian territory.

SPACE TRAINING:
In April 2004 he began to pass a medical examination at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) and got a permit to special training as a backup of Gregory Olsen, 3-rd space tourist.
On April 14, 2004 he began preliminary theoretical training at Yu.A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center as a member of the Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft backup crew the launch of which was planned to be performed in October 2004. In this case his appointment to crew-1 could take place only if the major candidate was removed from training in the final phase.
In connection with the fact that during the physical training medical men stated that Gregory Olsen was unfit for a space flight (g-loads) he was kept out of training; in June 2004 Sergei Kostenko also suspended training.
In spring 2005 he passed a medical examination again and got a permit of State Medical Board (SMB) to special training.
He is a backup of Gregory Olsen who got the SMB permit on May 4, 2005.
On May 16, 2005 be began training at Yu.A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in the backup crew under the ISS-9 program (Russian visiting crew – 9) as the space flight participant.

September 2005
Based on the data presented by Yu.A. Gagarin CTC and sites www.astronaut.ru and www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru.