At home of Gagarin: the first cosmonaut was remembered in the Smolensk region
Space week on MIR TV channel. In the homeland of Yuri Gagarin, in the village of Klushino, where he spent his childhood, they are proud of the famous countryman. Although there are only four hundred people left in the village, the house of the first man in space is being carefully looked after. There is now a museum. The dugout, where the family lived during the German occupation, has also survived. MIR 24 correspondent Maxim Krasotkin visited the cosmonaut's homeland.
At home of Gagarin: the first cosmonaut was remembered in the Smolensk region
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FOLLOWING
In Gagarin's childhood, this city was called Gzhatsky. Typical province – wooden huts and stove heating. But everything changed after the first manned flight into space. A person from here.
Tamara Filatova is the niece of Yuri Gagarin. Today she works in the museum, which is located in the house of the parents of the first cosmonaut. On April 12, 1961, she was in class when her uncle made the first ever orbit around the Earth.
“The class teacher Polina Viktorovna just came to recess and said:“ Tamara, do you have uncle Yura? ” “Yes”. “Gagarin?” “Yes”. “You know, he flies in space.” It was a horror that is impossible to convey. I loved him madly, and suddenly he decided to fly into some black abyss, ”shared Tamara Filatova.
Yuri Gagarin arrived in his hometown only two months after the flight. The astronaut had the foresight to choose Saturday for this trip. Otherwise, the working day in the city would have been disrupted. They made an appointment with fellow countrymen in the city park.
“There, this central alley, along which the people poured a shaft, there were huge concrete vases in which flowers were planted. So these flowerpots were dumped. This is how the crowd went – everything was knocked down, ”recalls Yuri Gagarin's niece.
The Gzhatsk family – parents, two brothers and a sister – moved to Gzhatsk after the war from the village of Klushino, which is 12 kilometers away. They survived the occupation, huddled in a dugout for a year and a half. The house was taken away by the Germans. Now this place is also a museum. The hut was recreated, since in 1945 the father of the future cosmonaut moved the real one to the city. Here Yuri Gagarin finished the sixth grade. And when I was in Gzhatsk, I always stopped by the school. In 1966, he planted a tree there as a keepsake.
“The beautiful first tree is larch. It still grows in our schoolyard and with its mighty crown goes far, far into the sky, reminding us of our famous graduate, “said Natalya Tabak, head of the museum of school №1 in Gagarin.
Yuri Gagarin traveled around the Smolensk region for a reason. After the flight, he was twice elected to the Supreme Soviet, and that was his job. Once the milkmaids of the Radishchev collective farm complained to the astronaut: there is not enough feed. After a while, the farm was allocated 200 tons of compound feed.
The collective farm was very surprised, as they asked for only four. Andrei Skakunov at that time was the chairman's driver, and Yuri Gagarin often drove in his car. They could stop at any shop and talk to old people.
“They all asked about God:“ Have you seen God there? How is he there? What is there in the sky? ” He loved them all, he would hug them like this, two or three more. He was a simple man, ”recalls Andrei Skakunov.
In Gzhatsk, thanks to the efforts of Yuri Gagarin, a plant was opened that produces speakers for the radio industry. The first cosmonaut was even enrolled in the staff and paid a salary. True, he immediately asked to transfer her to the fund for the development of his native city.
