From pastoral landscapes to a Major’s rank: Five stories from the life of Yuri Gagarin

This week, the exhibition Yuri Gagarin: I am an Ordinary Soviet Person opened at the Cosmonautics Museum, with regional museums contributing most of the exhibits that belonged to Gagarin during his lifetime.

This joint story was prepared by mos.ru and the Mosgortur travel agency.

Father’s tools and accordion

Yuri Gagarin was born in 1934 in the village of Klushino in the Smolensk Region, not far from the town of Gzhatsk, which was renamed Gagarin after his tragic death in an air crash in 1968. His mother Anna Timofeyevna was a milkmaid and his father Alexei Ivanovich worked as a carpenter/joiner at a local collective farm.

“I still remember the yellowish foamy wooden shavings that, sort of, engulfed his large hands of a worker. I can tell different tree varieties by their smell, including the sweet maple, the bitter oak and the astringent fragrance of pine. Father used to make some useful items from them,” Gagarin wrote in his autobiographical book Road to Space: The Notes of a Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.

Since childhood, Gagarin followed in his father’s footsteps. As a result, the exhibition features items used by the Gagarin family, including a small wooden frame that little Yuri made all by himself, as well as an accordion that was often played at rural events.

Gagarin’s desk

In late May 1945, the Gagarin family moved to Gzhatsk and took part in rebuilding the war-damaged town. Yuri was accepted as a third-grade student at a pedagogical centre’s primary school. Once there, he joined a technical hobby group and at one point helped assemble a fully functioning model of an aeroplane which could fly.

After graduating from the sixth grade, Gagarin decided to enrol at a vocational training school and become a worker, with the aim of continuing his education later on. First, Gagarin wanted to become a turner or a fitter, but this required a seven-grade formal education. So, he joined a non-classical secondary school whose headmaster chose his subsequent career.

Later, Gagarin recalled how he enrolled: “’Don’t worry, lad, we will sign you up as a foundry worker,’ the headmaster of the non-classical secondary school said. ‘Have you seen the monument to Pushkin in Moscow? Well, brother, that was made by foundry workers.’ This argument proved most convincing, and I enthusiastically agreed to become a foundry worker without a second thought.”

It was here that Gagarin received his first uniform, including a peaked cap with a corporate emblem on its cap-band, a neat tunic, trousers, shoes, an overcoat and a belt with a light-coloured buckle. His tunic can be seen at the exhibition, as well as Gagarin’s desk where he sat while studying at Lyubertsy Industrial Workers School No. 10, now the Gagarin Lyubertsy Technical School.

A pilot’s headgear

In 1951, Gagarin graduated from the school, also completing a seventh-grade course at a local evening school for workers, and was promoted to the Foundry Worker/Moulder Fifth Class. Gagarin’s factory jacket and an iron grating made by him and his fellow students highlight this episode of his biography.

While attending a physics hobby group at the technical school, Gagarin became interested in Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s works dealing with manned extra-terrestrial flights, and he joined the Saratov air club during his fourth year at school.

Gagarin’s pilot headgear recalls his first parachute jump. He remembered that flight all his life: When he pulled the ripcord, it seemed that the parachute would never open. Gagarin was already reaching for the reserve parachute’s ripcord when he experienced a powerful jerk and saw the white parachute canopy overhead.

He would later write: “That was how aviation taught me my first lesson: Don’t doubt the reliability of your equipment and don’t make hasty decisions, while dangling in mid-air.”

Jacket and overalls

A new dream arose for Gagarin while he was studying at the Saratov air club where he performed 196 flights in just over a year. In 1955, he was conscripted into the Soviet Armed Forces, thus failing to make a career as a foundry worker, and was sent to an aviation school in Chkalov, called Orenburg before 1938 and after 1957.

Gagarin’s graduation exams coincided with the beginning of the Space Age: On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik-1, the first man-made space satellite. The prospective air force pilots were really thrilled after learning about this landmark event. They debated how long it would be until the first man soared into outer space, and what occupation he would need. Each of them tried to draw the first spacecraft.

While in Chkalov, Gagarin met his sweetheart, Valentina Goryacheva, a medical-school student. They married after Gagarin graduated at the top of his class and received his first military jacket with a Lieutenant’s shoulder straps.

After graduation, Gagarin deliberately opted to serve with a naval aviation unit above the Arctic Circle where life was the hardest. In between flights, Gagarin and his comrades eagerly awaited news about the launch of a new satellite or multi-stage rocket. One day, he was listening to Nikita Khrushchev speak on the radio, and he realised that the Soviet Union was preparing to launch a manned space mission, and that it was not too late to request that he be listed among prospective cosmonauts.

Gagarin’s jacket, overalls and goggles help recall this period of his life.

A Pilot-Cosmonaut’s eyewitness account

Pilot Third Class Yuri Gagarin submitted an application on 9 December 1959, with members of a medical board finding him fit for space flights. On 11 January 1960, he joined the ranks of prospective cosmonauts.

Gagarin and his new buddies embarked on an extensive training course that included theoretical studies, physical training, simulated zero-gravity flights, and experience in a spacecraft mock-up and sound-proof chambers, as well as endurance tests inside centrifuges and vibration benches.

“While competing with one another, we regarded our comrades as like-minded persons, striving to achieve one and the same goal, rather than rivals,” Gagarin later recalled. “We knew that only one of us would be selected for the first space flight. But we also realised that all others would have a lot of work to do too, that they would accomplish more than the first man in space, building upon and expanding his achievements. Some of them would orbit the Earth once, others would circle it several times, still others would fly to the Moon, and all of them would become trailblazers.”

Many exhibits narrate the most important stage in Gagarin’s life, including his pilot-cosmonaut’s certificate, his training suit and the instruments he used when flying Mikoyan-Gurevich fighters. There is also the Soviet Defence Ministry’s order conferring the rank of Major on First Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin ahead of schedule and his Major’s shoulder straps. So, Gagarin jumped a rank after his epic space mission.

Gagarin’s smile

It is impossible to imagine Gagarin without his wonderful smile. People rarely saw him in a bad mood, and his numerous photos show his joy and good-natured disposition. This smile was part of his life, and it appears that Gagarin was smiling when he uttered his famous phrase “Off we go!” while lifting off into the unknown. The exhibition features an entire collage of portraits of a smiling Gagarin.