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Cosmonauts wish Russians happy New Year in a video from space station

The cosmonauts said they will gather around an improvised New Year’s table together with the fellow astronauts

MOSCOW, December 31. /TASS/. Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov have wished Russians a happy New Year from aboard the International Space Station.

"Friends, in the remaining hours [of 2021] we’d like you all to immerse yourselves in the magic holiday mood of the New Year’s Eve and say the warm words of greetings to those who’s expecting them," Shkaplerov said in a video posted on the Roscosmos website.

Dubrov wished everyone health, perseverance, prosperity and new accomplishments. "Be friends and be happy," he said.

The cosmonauts said they will gather around an improvised New Year’s table together with the fellow astronauts. "It will be a really festive table but without champagne," Dubrov said. "The station has a no drinking policy."

"But the other conditions, including the menu, are much like what we’d have on Earth, which is especially nice on a holiday like this," he went on to say.

The Russian cosmonauts will have only two days off to mark the New Year: January 1 and 2, Roscosmos said earlier. They are planning to spend some of the time meeting the families, which usually happens by video link. Starting from January 3, the cosmonauts return to work including preparations for a spacewalk.

There are seven crew members onboard the ISS currently. In addition to the Roscosmos cosmonauts, they are US astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer.

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