Yury Gagarin was the firt man to orbit the earth in a man-made

Prominent Russians: Yury Gagarin

March 9, 1934 – March 27, 1968

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Yury Gagarin was the first man to orbit the earth in a man-made spacecraft leading the world into the era of the space exploration.

Early Years

Yury Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near the town of Gzhatsk in the Smolensk Region on 9 March 1934. Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honor. His parents, Aleksey and Anna, worked on a collective farm, and, though generally considered heavy manual laborers, were educated and intelligent people. Gagarin’s mother was a well-read woman; his father, a carpenter, preferred to be discreet about his skills to avoid Stalin’s purges against private proprietors. As his parents spent most of their time at work, Gagarin owed much of his upbringing to his elder sister.

World War II cast a gloom over the school years of young Yury. The Nazis had taken over the village of Klushino the same year Yury started school. Two of Gagarin’s elder siblings were taken away to a German labor camp in 1943 and did not return until after the war. The German troops stayed in the