Iurii Gagarin

A Hero Of The Soviet Union, colonel Gagarin Iurii Alekseevitch, space pilot, member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1960, a deputy with the Supreme Soviet (convocations 6, 7), an honorary member of the International Academy of Astronautics and Space Exploration was born on March, 9 1934 in the town of Gzhatsk near Smolensk.

On April, 12 1961 he was the first in the world to perform a spaceflight on board of orbital craft "Vostok" - he circuited the Earth (it took 1 hr. 48 min.) and landed safely. It was this flight that proved manned spaceflights to be possible.

On March, 28 1968 Iu.Gagarin perished as a result of unsuccessful training airplane flight. He was buried on the Red Square in Moscow.

Air Force Academy in Monino, holding the orders of Kutuzov and the Red Banner, was named after Iu.Gagarin. His native town Gzhatsk was also renamed after him, as were a crater on the reverse side of the Moon and a research craft of the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union.

The picture and the text taken from a set of 41 post-cards ""Liotchiki-kosmonavty SSSR", M., Planeta, 1978, 100,000 copies "