It is unlikely that those who are close to 60 in age, or older than these years, do not remember how they first heard about Gagarin's flight. I personally heard about this on the way to the military registration and enlistment office from the Frunze Academy. Suddenly, one of the loudspeakers, which, as it turned out, had been installed that day in advance on the central streets of Moscow, spoke up. Yuri Levitan chanted in a solemn voice: "On April 12, 1961, the first in the world satellite-satellite" Vostok "with a man on board was launched in the Soviet Union into orbit around the Earth."
Further, Levitan reported: "The pilot-cosmonaut of the Vostok spacecraft is a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, pilot Major Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin."
The last message was not news to me. Although I had nothing to do with space affairs, and everything related to space and the cosmonaut corps was kept in the strictest confidence, any system for protecting secrets has its own cracks, often unexpected. The leakage of information through such slots can go very far. One of these leaks of information reached the Frunze Military Academy, where from mid-January to April 12, 1961, I was at the training camp for military translators. At the end of March, one of the camp participants came running to the audience with the words: "And I know the name of the first cosmonaut! This is Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin!" It turned out that our friend during his studies managed to make an acquaintance in the machine bureau of the Academy. One of the typists was friends with her colleague from the Ministry of Defense, who was typing an order from the minister on conferring an extraordinary rank of major on Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin. The girl was explained that the leadership of the ministry decided that the first cosmonaut should have a more solid military rank than a senior lieutenant. In a matter of minutes, this news became the property of all the typist's friends, and they divulged the secret to their friends.
But even those Soviet people who did not previously know the name and surname of the world's first cosmonaut, had long hoped to hear such a TASS report. By that time, many people abroad were waiting for this. Four and a half years ago, in October 1957, the launch of the first Soviet satellite came as a complete surprise to the planet. An American friend of mine told me that, having learned about the launch of a Soviet satellite, he could not come to his senses for a long time and sat stupidly in place for a couple of hours. After all, the message about the Soviet space triumph destroyed all his stable ideas about the world. Like all Americans, he was sure that no one in the world would be ahead of the United States in launching the first artificial Earth satellite, which was announced by President D. Eisenhuaer back in 1955.
How the West assessed our successes in the development of science and technology
Despite clear evidence of the scientific and technological progress of the USSR, the Americans did not believe that our country was capable of getting ahead of them. This was the result of persistent ideas about the chronic inability of our country to scientific and technological progress. In the early 1930s, the United States did not believe in the reality of the data on the achievements of the first Soviet five-year plan.
In his report at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on January 7, 1933, JV Stalin quoted the statement of the American newspaper The New York Times, published at the end of November 1932: challenging a sense of proportion, pursuing its goal "regardless of cost," as Moscow has often proudly boasted, is not really a plan. It is speculation."
In an excerpt from an article by the American magazine Current History, quoted by Stalin, it was said: social principles.
Ignorance and bias, as always, gave rise to erroneous assessments in other countries of the world. Although a number of individuals in the Third Reich convinced Hitler that the Soviet Union was rapidly building up a powerful industry and a formidable military force, the Fuehrer ignored these reports. Former Minister of Armaments of Germany Albert Speer recalled that Hitler ridiculed the calculations of the head of the economic department of the General Staff of Germany, General Georg Thomas, testifying to the high military potential of the Soviet Union. He also rejected the data of the Department for the Study of Foreign Armies of the East of the General Staff of the Ground Forces. According to Guderian, Hitler called this data "the most monstrous bluff since Genghis Khan." But on the other hand, when some German military, who visited the Soviet-German border in 1940, told Hitler that Russian military equipment was primitive, the Fuhrer began to repeat that, compared to the campaign in the West, the war in the East would be like the fuss of children in sandbox.
True, life forced Hitler and his generals to reckon with the successes of Soviet defense production. Already at the beginning of the war, German troops were faced with a number of samples of Soviet military equipment that surpassed their types of weapons. On the eve of the war, BM-13 rocket launchers were created in the USSR, later called "Katyushas". By the beginning of the war, the first prototype of the Il-2 armored attack aircraft, which had no analogues in world aviation, was also built. The KV heavy tank and the T-34 medium tank created before the war were superior in their qualities to the tank equipment of foreign armies.
German general G. Guderian wrote that at the beginning of the campaign on the Soviet-German front in Germany, attempts were made to create an analogue of the T-34 tank. The general recalled: “The proposal of front-line officers to produce exactly the same tanks as the T-34, in order to rectify the extremely unfavorable situation of the German armored forces in the shortest possible time, did not meet any support from the designers. production with the required speed of the most important parts of the T-34, especially the aluminum diesel engine. In addition, our alloy steel … was also inferior to the alloy steel of the Russians. " But even at the end of 1927 the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K. Ye. Voroshilov informed the delegates of the 15th Party Congress: "We do not produce aluminum, this necessary metal for military affairs, at all." Our country did not produce alloy steel at that time.
Faced with the advantages of Soviet military technology, Hitler was forced to take its role models. Back in the early 30s in the USSR, the fastest-firing aviation machine gun in the world was created - ShKAS (Shpitalny Komaritsky aviation rapid-fire).
B. G. Shpitalny wrote: “When our valiant troops, who took Berlin by storm, broke into the chancellery of the Third Reich, among the numerous trophies seized in the Chancellery, there was a seemingly unusual specimen of weapons, carefully covered with a glass cover, and papers with personal The specialists who arrived to inspect this sample were surprised to find under the glass a Tula air machine gun ShKAS 7, 62-mm and Hitler's personal order that was with it, stating that the Tula machine gun would be in the office until the German specialists created the same machine gun for the fascist aviation. As you know, the Nazis did not manage to do this."
Desperate to get reliable weapons from Germany, German soldiers used Soviet weapons if they fell into their hands. On his way to the northernmost sector of the Soviet-German front at the end of 1943, Speer heard from the soldiers and officers "complaints about the lack of light weapons. They especially lacked machine guns. The soldiers had to rely on Soviet machine guns, which they sometimes captured as trophies."
It would seem that the Germans at the front have learned to respect Soviet weapons. However, Goebbels' screams about the "wild Mongol hordes" attacking Berlin, armed with Anglo-American military equipment, had an impact on the civilian population of the Reich. Despite the defeat of the Nazi troops, the idea of the "backwardness" of Soviet technology remained. Sharing fresh impressions of the capture of Berlin, war correspondent P. Troyanovsky wrote: "The most daring and curious Berliners approached huge gray heavy Soviet tanks and asked:" From America? " The Germans shook their heads and turned to the artillerymen: "English?"
The results of the war convincingly proved the advantages of the Soviet economy, including the defense one. In his speech on February 9, 1946, JV Stalin ridiculed foreign ideas that the USSR is a "house of cards", "a colossus with feet of clay," and its successes are just "Cheka's tricks."
And yet, the idea that the Red Army won by using Anglo-American military aid and piling up mountains of corpses on German troops was firmly rooted in the public consciousness of the West. The West did not know that the supply of weapons under Lend-Lease constituted an extremely small part of Soviet weapons, and that the losses of the Nazi troops only slightly exceeded Soviet losses. Nowadays, many of our compatriots, brought up on the pro-Western propaganda of modern Russian mass media, do not know this either.
Even after the creation of the atomic and hydrogen bomb in the USSR, the West did not believe that these achievements of the Soviet defense industry were the result, first of all, of the efforts of our scientists, technicians and workers. In the West, it was believed that these weapons were simply stolen by Soviet intelligence officers. That is why the signals sent from space by the first Soviet satellite came as a shock to public opinion in the West.
At the same time, attempts were made in the United States to downplay the importance of launching a satellite. One of the congressmen said that the satellite is, they say, just a piece of iron, thrown into space, and does not represent anything special.
Competition in space
True, there were sober people in the United States who realized that it was necessary to carefully study why the Russians were ahead of the Americans in space exploration. Someone in the United States rightly decided that the educational system played a significant role in Soviet success. Delegations of American teachers rushed to the USSR, trying to understand how Soviet schools work, what Soviet schoolchildren are studying.
The cover of Life magazine contained two photographs of the "first pupils" of two schools - Soviet and American. The American kid, who gained popularity at his school in sports battles, habitually smiled a wide smile at the photographer and looked like a movie star. The Russian boy was an excellent student. He was wearing an unprepossessing earflap and squinting at the flash of the camera out of habit. From the content of the large article, it followed that, although the young American was popular among the girls at school, he knew only the minimum of what every Soviet schoolchild knew, and significantly lagged behind the Soviet excellent student depicted on the cover.
The consequences of these comparisons not in favor of the United States were actions aimed at developing the American education system. However, without waiting for the long-term consequences of these measures, the Americans began to intensify their efforts to develop space science and technology.
I must say that by the mid-50s. Americans have made a lot of progress in the creation of space technology. Military operations in Germany were still going on, and special detachments of US intelligence officers had already begun to hunt down German scientists in the German rear who had participated in the creation of the V-1 and V-2 missiles. Wernher von Braun, the head of the Third Reich missile center, was taken from Germany to the United States. And soon in the state of New Mexico, the White Sands test site was created, where the development of American missiles began.
Already at the end of the 40s. Werner von Braun began to conduct experiments on the effect of weightlessness on a living organism. Later, journalist Tim Shawcross in his book "Aliens from Outer Space?" cited a lot of strong evidence that the rumors of UFOs and aliens allegedly discovered in Rosswell, New Mexico, were born of experiments with monkeys, which were carried out at the White Sands test site, located near the Rosswell air base. The monkeys were placed in capsules and sent to great heights with rockets. Sometimes farmers found in these deserted places unusual equipment and corpses of monkeys, which idle rumor turned into corpses of Martians.
In the Soviet Union, dogs were used for such experiments. Already the second Soviet satellite, launched a month after the first, in November 1957 had a Laika dog on board.
Only three months after this event, the first American artificial satellite was launched into orbit in the United States. However, in terms of its weight, it significantly lagged behind the two Soviet ones, which continued to fly over the planet.
The race in space continued. The launches of Soviet rockets towards the Moon were often timed to coincide with important political events. So, the launch of the first Soviet rocket towards the moon took place before the opening of the XXI Congress of the CPSU in January 1959. The launch of the rocket that landed on the moon took place before the start of Nikita Khrushchev's official visit to the United States in mid-September 1959. While in the White House, NS Khrushchev presented D. Eisenhuaer with a copy of the pennant, which was delivered by a Soviet rocket to the moon. Soon after the end of Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States, a Soviet rocket flyby around the Moon took place, during which photographs were taken of the opposite side, invisible on Earth, of the permanent satellite of our planet.
And so that the Americans do not forget about our achievements, the USSR Embassy in Washington on New Year 1960 sent New Year's cards to thousands of prominent US personalities, on which three pages of the calendar were depicted. Each of the leaflets was dedicated to one of the three launches of Soviet rockets to the moon in 1959.
But the Americans were not discouraged. In the newsreel, which was shown in US cinemas in the fall of 1959, there was a story about the preparation of an expedition to the moon. The plot ended with cheerful verses:
And very soon
The Yank will be on the Moon!"
("And very soon the Yankees will be on the moon!")
However, 1960 was marked by the clear superiority of the USSR in the space race. In May 1960, on the eve of a meeting of the heads of the four great powers in Paris, a spacecraft with a model of a man on board was launched into orbit in the USSR. In August 1960, two dogs flew into space - Belka and Strelka. A day later, they returned from space unharmed.
True, in December 1960 there was a failure: the dogs Mushka and Pchelka died along with the spacecraft. But soon there were successful flights and launches of ships with other dogs.
The planet rejoices, but not all
The announcement of the flight of Yuri Gagarin caused an explosion of joy in the Soviet country, sincere and spontaneous. People took to the streets with homemade posters expressing genuine enthusiasm for the event. These feelings were shared by people of different ages and different professions. Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician M. Lavrentyev wrote in Pravda: "The first manned flight into space is not only a victory for the brave Soviet pilot and teams of engineers, scientists, workers who created a wonderful spacecraft. It is also the greatest victory of the socialist system, a victory for the wise policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet government." The sculptor E. Vuchetich wrote: "The twentieth century is the century of our Motherland, the century of its glory and pride! … We were the first on Earth to storm the old world and achieve victory, opening the way for people to happiness and a new life. We were the first in the world to storm space." … Poet Nikolai Tikhonov wrote: "The miracle of a new era - the day of man's flight into space has become a fact! The world can be proud of a Man with a Capital Letter, a Soviet Man who, like the new Prometheus, kindled a new flame of feat, and this day will never be erased from the memory of people - April 12, 1961!"
From Kaluga, Gagarin received a telegram from the Tsiolkovsky family: "We greet you, the pioneer of space flight. We warmly congratulate you on the realization of the eternal dream of mankind." From Vyshny Volochyok Gagarin was greeted by the noble textile worker Hero of Socialist Labor Valentina Gaganova: “We learned the wonderful news on the radio: our dear Soviet man Yuri Gagarin visited space. Isn't it a miracle! Truly great and powerful is our Motherland … Glory to you, Comrade Gagarin! I send you respect and a deep bow from our entire brigade. " E. A. Dolinyuk, the Stalin link collective farm named after Stalin in the Melnitsa-Podolsk district of the Ternopil region, reported: the first cosmonaut is my compatriot. " (At that time, no one would have thought that a few decades later in the western regions of Ukraine the idea that the natives of Smolensk and Ternopil regions - compatriots would be regarded as sedition.) Dolinyuk recalled: “Many may seem strange, but I saw the train for the first time when I was already an adult woman. How could I then think and dream that our simple Soviet man would be the first in the world to fly into space. Today it seems to me that I have become 20 years younger."
These thoughts and feelings were shared in many countries around the world. Physicist and President of the World Peace Council John Bernal said: "Supporters of peace throughout the world applaud the first successful manned flight into space. This is an epoch-making achievement of great importance in man's knowledge of the secrets of nature." Professor of the University of Florence Giorgio Piccardi wrote: "The achievement is amazing, from the point of view of mechanics, But as a chemist, I find it amazing from the point of view of chemistry. A reaction has been discovered that allows a spacecraft to develop the speed necessary for flight … the meteor swept through the space around the Earth, our admiration became limitless. A completely new meaning is given to our relationship with the outside world, which feeds life on Earth. " The resolution adopted at the rally of the Parisian communists said: "In the peaceful competition between socialism and capitalism, the Soviet Union once again brilliantly demonstrated the superiority of a system in which the exploitation of man by man has disappeared."
The newspapers published greetings from the heads of the countries of the world. In his message, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: “This success is truly a miraculous achievement for mankind, for which the science of the whole world - and especially Soviet science - deserves the highest recognition. This victory of man over nature should make people think more and more about how foolish it is to think about wars on our small planet Earth. Therefore, I consider this success a great triumph for the cause of peace."
The President of the United Arab Republic, Gamal Abdel Nasser, wrote: "I have no doubt that the greatest horizons are now opening up for all mankind. The Soviet people will always have the honor of primacy in boldly mastering the mysteries of the unknown with daring courage based on the enormous potential of science."
Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro wrote in his message that "in the atmosphere of universal admiration for the Soviet Union," he "received the news of this grandiose victory of the camp of science and peace, which was achieved by the courageous Soviet people, the people-creator, the people-hero."
Despite the chill in Soviet-Chinese relations at that time, on April 12, 1961, Premier of the State Council of China Zhou Enlai sent a message to Nikita Khrushchev, in which he wrote: strengthened the confidence of the Chinese people and the peoples of all other socialist countries in building socialism and communism, and also greatly inspired the peoples of the entire globe to fight against the aggression of imperialism, for world peace, for national independence, democracy and socialism."
In the central newspaper of the Communist Party of China Zhenminzhibao, an article was published "A new era of human conquest of outer space has begun." In particular, it said: "The amazing pace of progress, the brilliant achievements of Soviet science and technology instill the greatest joy and inspiration in the hearts of millions of people in the world. The world's first satellite of the Earth, the first rocket on the Moon, the first rocket on the way to Venus, the spaceship-satellite was built and successfully launched by the Soviet people. And now the first person - a Soviet citizen, who was on board the spaceship, has returned with triumph from a flight in the Universe."
President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Guo Moruo published his poems in Pravda:
"Ship" Vostok "in space, And the sun is shining over the Universe.
People all over the Earth sing, rejoice, The whole planet suddenly became brighter …
So, glory, spring to humanity, And this day, and a daring feat, And the power of socialism that is visible
To distant stars in the depths of the universe."
Although not so emotionally, the leaders of foreign capitalist countries also highly appreciated Gagarin's flight. Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda said: “The launch and landing of a spacecraft with a man on board by the Soviet Union is a major scientific victory. connection with this, and pay tribute to the great achievement of the Soviet Union. " Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani said: “The success that the Russians have achieved makes it all the more urgent to carefully consider all the consequences of these technical and scientific achievements for science, for public life, for relations between states. conquest, for the free progress of mankind."
Congratulations were sent to the Kremlin from many leaders of Western countries, in which Gagarin was persistently called an "astronaut" and not a "cosmonaut." British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, congratulating NS Khrushchev "on the great success of your scientists, technicians and astronauts in human space flight", called the incident "a historic event." French President Charles de Gaulle wrote that "the success of Soviet scientists and astronauts does honor to Europe and mankind."
The President of the United States D. F. Kennedy also sent congratulations to N. S. Khrushchev. He wrote that “the people of the United States share the satisfaction of the people of the Soviet Union in connection with the successful flight of the astronaut, representing the first human penetration into space. We congratulate you and the Soviet scientists and engineers who made this achievement possible. I express my sincere wish that in the future, striving for the knowledge of outer space, our countries could work together and achieve the greatest benefit for mankind."
Speaking at his press conference on April 12, the President of the United States admitted: “The Soviet Union achieved an important advantage by creating powerful boosters capable of lifting a lot of weight … I hope that we can carry out our efforts this year with due attention to human life. lagged behind."
This circumstance was in the center of attention of many newspapers around the world. The West German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung wrote: "The first round in the competition for penetration into space was undoubtedly won by the Russians, thanks to their magnificent achievement on April 12th."
However, not everyone in the United States was ready to admit defeat. On April 12, The New York Times announced in one article that "it does not matter which country was the first to fly a man into space." In another article, the newspaper claimed that the United States took the first step in space exploration when it launched a German-American hybrid rocket in 1949. The third article said that the journey of man into space "began 600 thousand years ago, when the prehistoric ancestors of man stood on their hind legs."
Some Americans denied the very fact of Gagarin's flight. Prominent columnist David Lawrence, publisher of the influential United States News and World Report, which was considered the mouthpiece of the Pentagon, wrote that in fact the Russians had launched an ordinary satellite with a tape recorder on which conversations were pre-recorded. Lawrence persisted in his disbelief and, even after the flight of German Titov in August 1961, continued to repeat about tape recorders flying in Soviet spaceships.
These days, following the instructions of US President D. F. Kennedy, the American space industry made feverish efforts to catch up with the USSR or at least weaken the effect of Yuri Gagarin's flight. Less than a month after Gagarin's return to earth, on May 5, 1961, the so-called suborbital flight was made in the United States. Pilot Alan Shepard, who was in the Freedom-7 capsule, was lifted by a rocket from Cape Canaveral to an altitude of 185 km and flew 556 km, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. Exaggerating the significance of this event, the Americans declared it their "first space flight."
More than two months later, on July 21, the Americans repeated the suborbital flight. This time the pilot Virgil Grissom flew. However, this time the capsule could not be pulled out of the water in time. Immediately after splashdown, the capsule began to fill with water and Grissom barely had time to jump out of it. The astronaut was picked up in the ocean by a helicopter.
Only a few months after Herman Titov's 24-hour flight to the United States, the Friendship-7 spacecraft was launched with astronaut John Glenn on board. This flight was postponed ten times over the course of two months. However, it took place on February 20, 1962 and Glenn orbited the Earth three times.
Despite this flight, there was a growing conviction in the world that the United States was lagging behind the USSR in manned space flights. Belief in the scientific and technical omnipotence of the United States has significantly weakened, and the prestige of the USSR has noticeably increased.
Know what kind of guy he was
In addition to the recognition of the scientific and technical achievements of the USSR after the flight of the Vostok spacecraft on April 12, the world recognized the Soviet man, who for the first time in the world left the Earth and overcame Earth's gravity. Even before Gagarin was awarded the Gold Medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union, he became a hero of the Soviet country. On April 14, 1961, the capital of the USSR joyfully greeted the first cosmonaut of the planet. Then, for the first time, the words of the cosmonaut's report were heard, which were then repeated more than once as Gagarin's comrades in the cosmonaut corps returned from their flights: "I am glad to report that the task of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet government has been fulfilled … All the instruments and equipment of the spacecraft worked well and impeccable. I feel great. I am ready to fulfill any new task of our party and government."
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Moscow to greet the hero. The stream of people who walked to Red Square to see and greet Yuri Gagarin, who was standing on the Lenin Mausoleum, seemed to be endless. Gagarin answered the audience with his friendly smile, which became inseparable from his image.
The whole country listened and watched the speech of the faithful son of the Soviet people, a worthy member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Gagarin said: "The first plane, the first satellite, the first spacecraft and the first space flight - these are the stages of my Motherland's long path to mastering the secrets of nature. Our native Communist Party has led and is confidently leading our people to this goal." Even from this short speech of the number one cosmonaut, it was clear how the fate of the Soviet country was reflected in his personal life. He emphasized: "At every step of my life and study in a vocational school, in an industrial technical school, in an aeroclub, in an aviation school, I felt the constant care of the party, whose son I am."
With his responses to a press conference held at the House of Scientists in Moscow, Yuri Gagarin won over a sophisticated journalistic audience. Answering a question from journalists, he said that he did not take any talismans or photographs of relatives on the flight, as he was sure that he would quickly and safely return to earth. Answering a question about his earnings, he said with a cheerful smile: "My salary, like all Soviet people, is quite sufficient to satisfy all my needs. I have been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This is the highest award in our country." Answering a question from a Latin American correspondent what the continent of South America looks like from space, Gagarin replied: "He is very handsome." Then the astronaut did not yet know that he was to visit this, as well as other continents of the Earth.
France and England, Poland and Czechoslovakia, Japan and Liberia, Brazil and Cuba, as well as dozens of other countries enthusiastically received the first cosmonaut of the planet. He made speeches and answered journalists' questions over and over and was resourceful as always. After he bought dolls for his daughters in Japan, he was asked at a press conference: "Is there really no toys in the USSR to buy them for your daughters?" As always with a smile, Gagarin replied: "I always bring gifts to my daughters. I really wanted to surprise them this time: bring Japanese dolls. It's a pity that you started talking about my purchase. Tomorrow they will write about it in the newspapers and, possibly, they will even recognize them in Moscow. There will be no surprise. You ruined the joy of two little girls."
Behind the external charm hid a deep mind, high moral qualities, a comprehensively developed personality. This becomes even clearer when one gets acquainted with the contents of the book "Psychology and Space", written by Yu. A. Gagarin together with the candidate of medical sciences V. I. Lebedev. The book contains many personal observations of Gagarin about the behavior of the pilot, the training of cosmonauts and the experience of man in space.
At the end of the book, it was emphasized what high requirements Soviet science had set for cosmonauts: He should know a lot and be able to do a lot, keep abreast of the latest discoveries of scientists and know what is being done today in leading laboratories and design offices, in research institutes and factories."
“Mastering the heights of science these days is not easy. Astronauts have to study mathematics and physics, astronomy and cybernetics, radio engineering and electronics, mechanics and metallurgy, chemistry and biology, psychology and physiology. To withstand such a load, you must have excellent health along with the ability. Only a physically strong organism is able to cope with the cosmonaut training program for flight and the flight itself. Only a person with a perfectly trained body, strong nerves and a stable psyche will be able to successfully withstand all the tests that a person who decides to become an astronaut undergoes. Space is subject only to strong people."
"It is extremely necessary for an astronaut to possess outstanding abilities and excellent physical characteristics. And yet this is still not enough. Persistence in achieving the goal, perseverance, selfless devotion to the chosen work and love for it are still needed. Only these character traits will help a physically strong and highly educated person to become an astronaut. !"
Needless to say, Yuri Gagarin fully met these high requirements and possessed such qualities. For many people in the world, Gagarin became the personification of the Soviet country. Socialism acquired another bright human face, and this was the face of the first cosmonaut of the USSR, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin.
