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In the course of the war, Gzhatsk was occupied by the German Army from October 9, 1941 until March 6, 1943, when it was liberated by the troops of the Soviet Western Front. In 1968, the town was renamed Gagarin in honor of the first person to travel into space, Yuri Gagarin , who was born in 1934 in the nearby village of Klushino .
Apr 12, 2019 · Once called Gzhatsk, the town was officially renamed Gagarin to honor him when he died, and it has since become a shrine of sorts, with several historic homes, memorials, and museums that ...
- His Family Suffered at The Hands of The Nazis
- He Had Always Been Fascinated by Airplanes
- A Cushion Helped Him Pass Pilot School
- He Was One of 20 Pilots Initially Selected For Cosmonaut Training
- His Background May Have Helped His Selection
- He Was in Space For 108 Minutes
- He Landed Using A Parachute
- He Became A Cultural Hero in The Soviet Union
- He Never Made Another Spaceflight
- Different Theories Surround His Death
Gagarin was born on 9 March 1934 on a collective farm in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk. His father Alexey was a carpenter, and his mother Anna a dairy farmer. Yuri was the third of four children. Like millions of other Soviet families, the Gagarin’s suffered at the hands of the Nazis in World War Two. Klushino was captured on 18 October 1941...
After the war, the Gagarin’s moved to Gzhatsk. Yuri’s favourite subjects at school were maths and physics, taught by a former Russian airman. Although fond of pranks, Yuri was keen on his studies and enjoyed building model airplanes, ever since a Yakovlev fighter plane had made an emergency landing in his village during the war. After completing an...
In 1955, Gagarin attended the Orenburg Military Pilot’s School. Apparently, he twice-struggled to land a MiG-15 aircraft, nearly causing his dismissal. His commander gave Yuri another chance, giving him a cushion to sit on which meant he could see more clearly fom the cockpit, and was able to land successfully.
After graduating in 1957, Yuri joined the Soviet Air Force as a lieutenant. Soon after marrying his wife, Valentina, Gagarin began a tour of duty as a fighter pilot at the Luostari Air Base. Luna 3 had been launched on 6 October 1959 – soon after Gagarin was promoted to senior lieutenant and expressed interest in becoming a cosmonaut. A secret nati...
While Titov came from a middle-class background, Gagarin was the son of humble workers – something the Soviet leadership may have sought to capitalise on as a demonstration that even those who came from modest families could succeed under Communism. However others insist that Gagarin’s performance during the selection process was the more important...
On 12 April 1961 at 09:07 local time, Gagarin blasted off atop a 30m-high rocket from the Tyuratam Missile Range (now Baikonur Cosmodrome), aged just 27 – exclaiming “Poyekhali” (“Here we go!”) at the moment of launch. Gagarin’s orbit of the Earth took 108 minutes, at a maximum altitude of 187 miles. No-one knew what effect zero-g would have, so it...
Cables linking the spacecraft’s descent module to the service module failed to separate during Gagarin’s re-entry through the atmosphere, causing violent shaking. Gagarin parachuted to a safe landing near the Volga River before his capsule hit the ground. Some reports stated Vostok 1 didn’t have engines to slow its re-entry and had no way to land s...
Charismatic Gagarin became an international celebrity, signing autographs and touring the world. Less than a month later, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space, but the honour of being first had gone to the Soviet Union – a triumph for them, but a political and diplomatic setback for America in the developing space race,...
Following his successful flight, in 1962, Gagarin served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. He later returned to the Star City training facility, helping work on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in June 1962, then colonel in November 1963. Gagarin and his wife Valentina had two daughters, ...
On 27 March 1968 (and still hopeful for a second space flight), Gagarin flew a MiG-15UTI fighter in a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin. Their plane crashed in a forest near Kirzhach, killing them both. Gagarin was laid to rest in the wall of the Kremlin on Moscow’s Red Square, and his childh...
- Amy Irvine
In the course of the war, Gzhatsk was occupied by the German Army from October 9, 1941 until March 6, 1943, when it was liberated by the troops of the Soviet Western Front. In 1968, the town was renamed Gagarin in honor of the first person to travel into space, Yuri Gagarin, who was born in 1934 in the nearby village of Klushino.
Apr 10, 2011 · Gzhatsk, the town where he spent much of his childhood, was even renamed Gagarin. ... The first human spaceflight intensified the incipient space race between the superpowers.
Apr 4, 2011 · This house is an exact replica of the one where Yuri's family lived before they moved to the nearby city of Gzhatsk (now renamed Gagarin). Not only did the family take along all their possessions ...
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On a small unassuming Russian farm in what is now known as Smolensk Oblast on 9 March 1934, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born to his parents Alexey Gagarin and Anna Gagarina. Although they lived comfortably, they suffered under Nazi occupation during World War Two and, following the war in 1946, they moved to the nearby town of Gzhatsk (renamed ‘Gagarin’ in 1968).
