Michael Carnes wrote:

You might need a slightly larger chute to slow you down a little more, but nylon's cheap. If I remember correctly, they didn't just rely on parachutes. They also had small retros that fired very close to the ground.

By the way, the Soviets did lose a couple of cosmonauts when a chute didn't open. That's one I remember all too well as it occurred on my birthday in 1967.

James Oberg's Red Star in Orbit has a hair raising account of Vladimir Komarov trying to fly his Soyuz 1 manually after some on orbit system failures forced an early return to Earth. Apparently he made it most of the way but when he deployed the main parachute it malfunctioned. He then attempted to deploy the reserve and it entangled with the main. Just before impact, Soviet premier Kosygin is said to have told Komarov his country was proud of him. Officially Komarov's reply was inaudible, but I've heard stories that say he died cursing the people that designed the spacecraft.