Yuri Alexeyevich GAGARIN
Hero of Soviet Union, Colonel
It seems as if was only yesterday. But more than fifteen years have passed since that memorable day. The now historic words, “Up we go!” Mankind`s first 108 minutes in outer space. The Russian name “Gagarin” echoing all over the world. The orange-coloured spacesuit, the white helmet with the red letters “USSR”. And his arms lifted in a gesture of farewell. The mighty roar of the engines. The stream of fire and smoke. The rocket climbing into the sky. Such was that April morning of 1961.
In Star Town, near Moscow, where the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre is situated, there is a small museum. It contains cherished relict and mementos of the first space flight: the sky0blue silky flight suit worn by Cosmonaut Number One.
His life was simple like thousands of others: schoolboy, vocational school student, fighter pilot, husband, father of two children. He was a part of our whole life.
The Saratov Air Club, the Orenburg Air Pilot School, service in Air Force units in the North, and the Cosmonaut Training Centre in 1960. The dawn of the space age was breaking over the planet.
The first group was made up of strong young men, professional airmen knowing their job, clever, purposeful, prepared to take risks and work hard.
He received the awards of big and small countries; he was greeted by the triumphant salutes of cannons; he was escorted by guards of honour in brilliant uniforms; he was hailed by festive crowds.
In April 1967, Yuri Gagarin was at the take-off of the new Soyuz spaceship as Vladimir Komarov`s bask-up.
On March 27, 1968, Yuri Gagarin was killed in an air crash. On that day we lost a man of remarkable courage and spiritual beauty.
It is impossible to say what a man`s life would have been like if remained alive. Gagarin had talent. He put his whole soul, all his strength and temperament into “cosmic work”. At Star Town he was noticed by the Chief Designer. A Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, member of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, President of the Soviet-Cuban Friendship Society, he still found time to meet with writers and scientists, workers and young pioneers, the builders of industrial giants in Siberia and tillers of the land.
His name will remain immortal in the history of mankind, in the history of the Earth, which he affectionately called the Blue Planet.
It has become a tradition for cosmonauts, before leaving for the cosmodrome, to come to Lenin, to the Mausoleum, to the Red Square, and then to the Gagarin museum at Star Town. 