Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was born on the 9th of March, 1934. He was born in the village of Klushino in the Smolensk region.

Yuri was an active, brave and curious boy. His father was jack of all trades and he helped his son when Yura made toy planes by hand. But the war began. Yuri Gagarin and his mother, father, brother and sister left their house and had to live in a dug-out. After the war Gagarin's family moved to Gzhatsk. Now it is Gagarin. It was named after the first cosmonaut.

In 1951 Gagarin graduated from a vocational school in Lyubertsy near Moscow. Yuri Gagarin attended an aeroclub and began to fly when he was a student of a technical secondary school in Saratov. In 1955 he entered a school for pilots. Then he became a pilot and joined the first group of cosmonauts. In 1960 Gagarin began to prepare for the flight into space.

On April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin flew into space and spent 108 minutes there. It was the first time in history that the Russian spaceship "Vostok" with the man on board was in space. After his flight he visited many countries and saw millions of people. Gagarin became a Hero of our country.

He died in 1968, but people always remember the first Russian cosmonaut.