Yuri Gagarin :

Great Russian hero

Richard Basnayake

Yuri Gagarin, the great Russian hero went into space 50 years ago on April 12, 1961 at 9.07 am, Moscow time. The world’s first manned spaceship ‘Vostok 1’ was launched from the Cosmodrome Baikonur in the Soviet Union, piloted by Yuri Gagarin. It made one circuit of the globe at a speed of 27,358 km an hour. The flight lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes

Yuri Alexayevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in a remote village called Agsatsky. There were four children in the family. Valentin was his elder brother born in 1924 and Zoya his elder sister, Yuri third in the family and Bovis was his younger brother. His father Alexei Ivanovich Gagarin was a Carpenter and his mother Valantina was a dairymaid in a collective farm.

Yuri Gagarin entered a technical institute in Moscow in 1951 and obtained a degree in Statuary. Later he entered Zartov Higher Technical Institute and followed a course in aeronautics. Soon after he completed this study course, he was lucky enough to join the Soviet Air Force as a Cadet Officer. He was a very efficient officer and in 1957 he got his degree, and joined the Soviet Space Institute.

The Soviet Union had planned to send a spacecraft in 1961, and to make this dream come true the greatest engineers and scientists of the Soviet Union were working hard day and night.

They were planning to send a man to space and to bring him back alive was their utmost responsibility. By February 1961, they completed the spacecraft and were under observation.

This spacecraft was named Vostok 1 and 4 3/4 tons in weight. The most important thing was to select an efficient man to send into space. There were many competitions to select a person of high calibre and intelligence, and it was Yuri Gagarin who emerged from these hard competitions.

Vostok I

On April 12, 1961 at 9.07 am, the world’s first manned space-ship Vostok I was launched into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, piloted by Yuri Gagarin. It made one circuit round the globe at a speed of 27,358 km an hour and the flight lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes.

At 10.55 am the space-ship having completed its orbit round the earth landed safely in a predetermined land on a ploughed field to the Southwest of the town Engles.

It was exactly the same place that Yuri Gagarin first learnt to fly an aircraft. (Sputnic 1981)

Yuri Gagarin’s name was announced all over the world instantly on TV and radio, as the greatest man on earth. That day his father had gone to do some carpentering away from his house on a ferry across the river, the old ferry man had asked Gagarin’s father, what his son’s name was, when he replied Yuri Gagarin, the ferry man had informed that the radio had reported one Gagarin had flown into outer space.

His father simply had replied that there were many Gagarins in the world, and ignored the news.

Yuri Gagarin was a very pleasant man, who always had a broad smile on his face, and this smile mesmerized not only children but also adults as well. Many buildings, roads, and parks were named Yuri Gagarin and specially his village Agsatsky was re-named Yuri Gagarin, to honour this great man.

Outstanding feat

Just after his extraordinary feat Yuri Gagarin and his family members were invited to a reception given in the Grand Kremlin Palace in honour of the outstanding feat by scientists, engineers and technicians who made history’s first manned flight possible. Yuri Gagarin was given a red carpet welcome at the Red Square, first.

At the beginning of the reception, Leonid Brezhnev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR read the decrees and pinned the order of Lenin and the Gold Star of a hero of the Soviet Union on Yuri Gagarin’s tunic.

He further said that what Gagarin had accomplished abroad the ‘Vostock 1’ was an extraordinary feat and a symbol of the radiant and the sublime which was being brought to the Soviet people by communism.

(Sputnik 1981 - Page 18)

After his historic space flight, Yuri Gagarin received many invitations from different countries of the world to visit their countries.

He accepted all invitations and visited Sri Lanka on December 7, 1961 to honour the invitation extended to him by Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and President, Sri Lanka-Russia Friendship Association Minister George Rajapaksa. He visited many interesting places including Sri Dalada Maligawa, Kandy and proceeded to Matale. S B Wijerathne (Attorney-at-law) President, Sri Lanka-Soviet Friendship Association, Matale and I as the secretary had the rare honour of receiving Yuri Gagarin, along with Upali Guneratne, GA Matale and T Thambirajah Chairman Urban Council, Matale at Gunasena Hall, Vijaya College, Matale.

More than 5,000 people gathered to see this great human being and Gagarin said in Sinhala ‘Mama Lankawata Adarei’ (I love Sri Lanka). And the people of Matale burst into a thundering applause and cheered him. Long live friendship of Sri Lanka and the Soviet Union.

Gagarin continued to train pilots to handle spacecraft but on March 27, 1968, a jet-planet piloted by another pilot crashed into his two-seated jet plane and Yuri Gagarin died instantly. He was only 34 years old, and had two daughters.

The whole world mourned the sudden death of Yuri Gagarin.

To honour this great hero, his ashes were entered near the walls of Grand Kremlin Palace along with other heroes of the Soviet Union.

To this day on March 27 every year people from all over Russia come to honour this great man with flowers and to pay homage, to Yuri Alexayevich Gagarin.

(The writer is the Secretary, Sri Lanka-Soviet Friendship Association, Matale branch from 1960 to 1990.)