Valentin Gavrilenko

Captain Valentin Konstantinovich Gavrilenko is a Soviet naval officer who was captain of the Smuglianka, a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine stationed in Santiago de Cuba. 
== Biography ==
Valentin Gavrilenko was born in post-war Ukraine, the son of a soldier was killed during the Battle of Berlin and a Ukrainian sharecropper of Tatar origins. His mother married a sailor in the Red Fleet when Valentin was ten years old, which inspired Valentin to enroll in the Soviet Naval Academy after turning 18.
Gavrilenko served as a crewmember on board the Soviet submarine K-77, patrolling the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea, allowing him to rise through the ranks of the Soviet Navy. In 1976, he was promoted to Captain 2nd Rank, and in early 1978 was called to Leningrad to begin training with the new Minsk-class SSBNs. In late 1978 he was made commander of the Minsk-class submarine Smuglianka, arriving in Santiago de Cuba in August 6th, 1979.