Not even those closest to Yury Gagarin – including his wife Valentina, his parents and children – knew what was due to happen on April 12, 1961. And even if the project had not been classified, Gagarin’s daughter Galina would not have understood – she was just one month old at the time.
Not even those closest to Yury Gagarin – including his wife Valentina, his parents and children – knew what was due to happen on April 12, 1961. And even if the project had not been classified, Gagarin’s daughter Galina would not have understood – she was just one month old at the time.
The Soviet TASS news agency had prepared three reports about Gagarin’s space mission. The first report, to be released in the event of a successful mission, was the one that was released to media outlets. The second report called on the governments of other countries to help locate the Soviet cosmonaut in the event that he landed abroad or in the world’s oceans. And the third report was to be released in the eventuality that Gagarin did not survive the flight. Photo: June 1961. Valentina Gagarina, the wife of Yury Gagarin, pilot and cosmonaut of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union and the first man in space.
But there was also a fourth message. Two days before liftoff, Yury Gagarin wrote a letter to his wife, but he hoped that she would never read it. Valentina Gagarina was to have received this letter in the event of her husband’s death.
At the end of the letter to his wife, Gagarin wrote: “Don’t forget my parents.” As requested, Valentina Gagarina received the letter after Gagarin was killed in a plane crash in 1968. Photo: Anna Gagarina, the mother of Yury Gagarin.
Yury Gagarin, his wife and daughter relax at a resort in the Crimea.
Yury and Valentina Gagarin had two daughters – Yelena who was born in 1959 and Galina who was born in 1961
After his space flight, Gagarin traveled extensively and met with many people. Sometimes he had to deliver speeches up to 20 times a day. Nevertheless, he and his family were able to go to the Crimea in the summer.
Gagarin received letters from all over the world. The entire family would look through the letters.
In all other respects, the life of the Gagarin family differed little from that of other Soviet families.
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© RIA Novosti . I. Snegirev
The city of Gzhatsk in the Smolensk Region. Yury Gagarin with his parents.
Yury Gagarin with his wife Valentina.
This is one of the last photos of Gagarin, taken on February 9, 1968. Yury Gagarin is pictured together with his daughters Yelena, left, and Galina, right. Gagarin was killed in a plane crash about six weeks later, on March 27, 1968.
Valentina Gagarina with her daughters Yelena and Galina.
