12th April 1961 - 60 years anniversary of first man in cosmos - Yuri Gagarin

From Wikipedia

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino, near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).His parents worked on a collective farm - Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer. Yuri was the third of four children. His older brother Valentin was born in 1924 and by the time Yuri was born was already helping with the cattle on the farm. His sister Zoya, born in 1927, helped take care of "Yura" and their youngest brother Boris, born in 1936.

Situated along the path of several invasions into Russia, Gagarin's hometown  at the west of Soviet Union has been the site of many wars and conquests from foreign nations. Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, his family suffered during the Nazi occupation of his country during World War II. During the German advance on Moscow, Klushino were his family lived was captured on 18 October 1941. On their first day in the village, the Germans burned down the school, ending Yuri's first year of education. A German officer took over the Gagarin house. On the land behind their house, the family was allowed to build a mud hut (zemlianka) measuring approximately 3 by 3 metres where they spent 21 months until the end of the occupation.

In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the First Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School in Orenburg. On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces.
In 1960 Yuri Gagarin was chosen for the Soviet space program. The commission limited selection to pilots between 25 and 30 years old. The chief engineer of the programme Sergei Korolev also specified that candidates, to fit in the limited space in the Vostok capsule, should weigh less than 72 kg (159 lb) and be no taller than 1.70 metres (5 ft 7 in);  VOSTOK 3KA capsule

Gagarin was 1.57 metres (5 ft 2 in) tall.From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet government. 

On 8th April 1961 the State commission decided that Gagarin will go to space.

On 12 April 1961, at 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or cedar).The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:

Here is the conversation in the moment of start:

Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.
Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends
Poyekhali! (Поехали!, 'Off we go!

The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan. Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth.
At about 7,000 metres (23,000 ft), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute.
The flight in Vostok 1 took 1 hour 48 minutes

During the year 1961 Gagarin visited many countries - Czechoslovakia, Bulgary, Finland, Great Britain, Poland, Cuba, Brazil, Canada, Iceland, Hungary, India, Ceylon, Afganistan, other countries followed in the next years.

 These are Soviet and international orders and awards of Gagarin

Gagarin (on the left) with US vice president vice president Hubert Humphrey, French prime minister George Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts, Paris 1965

Gagarin died on 27th March 1968. 
During a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed with their MiG-15UTI  near the town of Kirzhach. 

60 years ago began to totally new chapter - for Man, the road to outer space has opened !

              Thanks for reading

                                                            Margaret