Zatayev was subsequently employed on shore. From 1962 to 1965, he studied at the Naval Academy in Leningrad, and was subsequently employed as a department head at the Leningrad Naval Base and at naval headquarters in Moscow. In 1972, he was head of the navy trials department responsible for acceptance of new ships from the shipyards. He retired in 1986, and after 1990, he was actively involved in Soviet Navy veterans' affairs. He died in 1998 from a disease of the lungs, and is buried in Moscow next to some of his comrades from the "K-19".