Yuri Gagarin. “He loved life”

March 9, 2020 marks the 86th anniversary of the birth of the legendary astronaut, Hero of the Soviet Union Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968). Digital collections of the Presidential Library contain unique materials dedicated to his life and feat. They entered the Outer Space collection, which includes newsreel fragments, periodicals, books, postcards, commemorative medals and badges as well as a separate large collection dedicated to the first astronaut.

In his books Yuri Gagarin describes himself. They are “The Road to Space”, “I See the Earth!”, “Psychology and Space”, which are available in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library.  

The childhood of Yuri Gagarin passed in the village of Klushino, Gzhatsky (now Gagarinsky) district of Smolensk Region. The school years of the future astronaut fell on the Great Patriotic War. After the Victory there were a vocational school in Lyubertsy near Moscow and the Saratov Industrial College. It was there that he began to dream about the sky and entered an aero club.

After graduating from the 1st Voroshilov Chkalovsky Military Aviation School, Gagarin worked in the aviation part of the Northern Fleet in the Arctic. He always read a lot and gulped down books about aviation, about Tsiolkovsky and his firm belief that humanity will go into outer space. “Flying over the Sahara, over African dense forests, Siberian taiga, polar ice... - all this is already accessible to man and his inquiring mind will soon be saturated. Soon the earth will already be cramped with humanity, and it will turn its eyes to heaven, planets and stars. A thought of man has long been rushing there. For a long time he has been studying the movements and properties of celestial bodies, but only recently appeared bold and scientifically grounded dreams to penetrate this “abode of the gods"”, - we read in the book of Nikolai Rynin, a Soviet scientist, author of works on aeronautics, aviation and astronautics Interplanetary communications. [Vol. 1]. Dreams, legends and the first fantasies (1928), posted on the Presidential Library’s portal.  

In December 1959, a young pilot turned to the Cosmonaut Training Center (today he bears his name) with a request to enroll him in a group of candidates. Having completed all the necessary examinations, he proceeded to training.

More than a year of hard work and this day has come! The last minutes before the launch of the Vostok rocket at the Baikonur cosmodrome on April 12, 1961 were captured in the newsreel Yuri Gagarin. The first human space flight, which is provided on the Presidential Library’s portal. Joy swept the whole Soviet Union when it was announced on the radio that Yuri Gagarin was the first person on Earth to fly into space.

And the very next day, all the newspapers wrote about the exploit of the first astronaut. The issue of Smena on April 13, 1961 published the “Conversation of Nikita Khrushchev with the First Cosmonaut Yuri. Gagarin” which took place by telephone shortly after the successful completion of the first space flight and the landing of Gagarin in a given area. Khrushchev first of all asked: “Tell me, Yuri Alekseevich, how did you feel during the flight? How did this first space flight proceed?” “I felt good in the space vehicle. The flight was successful, all the equipment of the spacecraft operated clearly. I saw the Earth from a great height. Seas, mountains, big cities, rivers, forests were visible”. “I am very glad that your voice sounds cheerful and confident. Let the whole world look and see what our country is capable of, what our great people, our Soviet science can do”.

For obvious reasons, contingencies during the flight were not reported at that time. And they could not do without them. The book Space published in 2010, says, in particular, about some technical obstacles that arose when Gagarin landed in the descent vehicle.

The writer and journalist Anton Pervushin spoke about this in detail at a lecture in the Presidential Library. A video version of his speech, entitled 106 minutes of Yuri Gagarin: declassified details of the first space flight, are also available on the library’s portal.

After returning from flight, Yuri became a welcome guest on all continents, many heads of state considered it an honor to invite a Russian astronaut to visit them. Many streets in cities throughout the territory of the former USSR, ships, planes, schools are named after Yuri Gagarin. Monuments to him are installed around the world. The Presidential Library’s portal provides access to a large number of postcards dedicated to Yuri Alekseevich. Of particular value is the reproduction of a 1961 postal card autographed by Gagarin himself.

The preface to Yuri Gagarin’s autobiographical book “The Road to Space” says: “He was not only the first astronaut in the world, but also the most cheerful person on Earth. He loved life. Going on his legendary flight, on the launch pad, before entering the spaceship, looking at the pearly glowing cirrus clouds illuminated by the first rays of the rising sun, he exclaimed: “What a cheerful sun!”