58 years have passed since the first human flight into space. The moment Yuri Gagarin managed to enter Earth's orbit, all of humanity believed in the possibility of space travel. If earlier it was something out of science fiction, then after Gagarin’s flight, going into space became a reality.
Seeing the tiny planet surrounded by darkness and twinkling stars, Yuri realized how dear the blue ball was to him. Returning to Earth, Gagarin called on everyone to take care of it.
The astronaut became for people something like a man of the future, who saw more than any of the earthlings. He turned into an idol of millions, and his phrase “Let's go!” gained enormous popularity.
Nevertheless, Gagarin remained the same person as everyone else. He had his own friends, his own family. And we decided to find out what the children and grandchildren of the first person to fly into space look like and what they are doing now.
Biography
On March 17, 2020, on the birthday of Rudolf Nureyev, sad news came from the family of the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. At an advanced age, his widow Valentina Ivanovna, who gave her beloved husband two daughters, Elena and Galina, passed away. For many years, the woman worked in the medical control laboratory of the Mission Control Center and lived in Star City. From the window of her apartment on the 4th floor, a monument to her husband could be seen, clutching a daisy in his hand.
Polina Gagarina with her family: photo
The artist met her husband while she was studying at a studio school. The couple got married in 2007, and a few months later their son was born. But with the advent of their son, their life did not get better, but rather began to worsen. Constant quarrels and scandals began to visit the family. Then his love for alcohol began to be clearly noticed. Then she couldn’t stand it, and the star couple broke up. Unfortunately, the couple, Polina Gagarina and her husband Pyotr Kislov, did not last long, but as they say, it doesn’t happen to anyone.
Childhood and youth
Many books have been written about the acquaintance of cadet Yura Gagarin of the Orenburg Military Aviation School and Valya Goryacheva, who worked as a telegraph operator before entering a medical school.
The widow of the first person to conquer outer space touched on this topic in “108 Minutes and a Lifetime.” Yuri Nagibin touched upon their meeting in more detail in “Stories about Gagarin.” Lev Danilkin did not pass by in “Yuri Gagarin” from the series of biographies “The Life of Remarkable People”. And, of course, Valentin Gagarin did not remain silent about the origin of feelings in the story “My Brother Yuri”.
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Galina Gagarina with her parents and sister
The latter told how his younger brother, having unexpectedly arrived to celebrate the 39th anniversary of the October Revolution, surprised his family with a sharp change in mood. Usually he infected everyone with inexhaustible fun and energy, but here he was silent, thoughtful, detached from the world. More than others, understandably, the mother, Anna Timofeevna, was worried, having started a heart-to-heart conversation with her son only just before leaving.
So in the fall of 1956, relatives found out about Yuri’s beloved, whom he met at a dance and had been friends for more than a year. The young man was welcome in her house and got along well with his parents. Exactly a year later, on October 27, 1957, the young people got married in Orenburg, and then had a wedding in Gzhatsk, where the husband’s family lived.
Soon they were already nursing their first child, Lena, who was born on April 17, 1959. And on March 7, 1961, just a couple of days before her husband’s birthday and a month before the legendary flight, his wife gave him Galya as a gift. After April 12, the couple and their children moved from Moscow to the village of Chkalovsky, and from there in the spring of 1965 to Star City, where the girls went to school.
For Children's Day:) Gagarin's girls: Galya (Galchonok), Valentina and Lena (Professor).
That’s what Yuri himself jokingly called them:)))… Published by Sergej P. Pavlov / Sergej Pavlov / Sixties Monday, June 1, 2020
Galina Gagarina and sister Elena Gagarina with mother Valentina Gagarina
The man doted on his daughters and tried to spend every free minute with them. He took them out into the forest to pick mushrooms or just for a walk, took them boating, skating or skiing, had picnics and entertained them with singing. From childhood, Galina remembered her father as an extremely disciplined, organized, punctual person with a colossal capacity for work, who did not tolerate the slightest deception.
“Our day began with morning exercises, we exercised for 40 minutes every day. Whims were not allowed. At the age of 5, he taught me to ride a two-wheeler. I fell, broke my knees, he picked me up, sat me down again: “Forward!” I didn't cry. It was impossible to cry,” she testified.
As you know, on April 10, Yuri Alekseevich wrote a letter to his beloved woman. In it, the pilot-cosmonaut asked his chosen one to raise his heirs “not as white-haired people, but as real people who wouldn’t be afraid of the bumps in life.”
Having received secondary education, the graduate ended up at the Faculty of Economics of the current Plekhanovka. The girl graduated from the university in 1982, but did not part with him subsequently. Her older sister connected her life with art criticism.
Elena Gagarina
The first daughter of the spouses Yuri and Valentina was born on April 17, 1959. As a child, she was actively involved in sports. Elena tried herself in figure skating, swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics. Gagarina also played the piano.
Photo: twitter.com/RusAcademyofArt
The girl graduated from school with a gold medal and entered the history department of Moscow State University. At the age of 22, Elena began working as a researcher at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. There she remained for 20 years.
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Shortly before her 42nd birthday (April 12, 2001), Gagarina became the general director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. She currently continues to hold this position and, according to Elena, she is happy to work in the museum.
Photo: vk.com/kremlinmuseums
Gagarina said about her father that he was very organized and active. On weekends, I tried to get out into nature with my family or friends, and on weekdays in the evenings I went out with friends to play football or otherwise released my energy. Yuri also had an excellent sense of timing. He could say that he needed to sleep for 40 minutes, fell asleep and woke up exactly 40 minutes later.
Personal life
The youngest daughter of the first cosmonaut arranged her personal life with Konstantin Leonidovich Kondratchik.
Her chosen one is the chief freelance pediatric hematologist, head of the department and head of the city center of oncology and hematology of the Morozov Children's City Clinical Hospital. The man, who also has an academic degree, also teaches at the pediatric faculty of the Nikolai Pirogov Medical University.
Yuri Gagarin's grandson became director of Khabarovsk airport Famous journalist Sergei Khamzin, who drew attention to...
Published by Komsagram • Komsomolsk-on-Amur Thursday, October 10, 2020
Yuri Kondratchik, son of Galina Gagarina,
the only son of the couple, named Yuri in honor of Galina’s father, graduated from the Federal State University of Moscow State University, became a candidate of economic sciences, tried his hand at politics and gave his parents a grandson.
Ekaterina Karavaeva
Elena's daughter. Born in 1987. Ekaterina graduated from the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, then entered graduate school, while simultaneously working in the structure of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
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Photo: facebook.com/KremlinMuseums
In 2011, Karavaeva married diplomat Pavel Vnukov and went to live in London for several years (presumably 3 years). Like her mother, she works at the Kremlin Museums and is the director of the department of international exhibition activities.
Photo: instagram.com/paul_vnuk0v
In 2020, she published a historical book telling about life at the court of Henry VIII Tudor.
Career
The younger Gagarina has completed postgraduate studies, an academic title (associate professor) and a degree (Doctor of Economic Sciences), many scientific works and teaching activities as head of department and professor at her native Plekhanov University.
More than once, the woman took advanced training courses - at the international business school of the University of Navarra IESE, at the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation, at the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg State University, etc. The full list is presented on the official website of the university under the photograph of the employee.
“The choice of my future profession was mainly influenced by communication with graduates of our school in Star City, who had already studied at different universities and told me about it,” Galina Gagarina said in an interview in 2011.
Test of Glory
“If something happens, then I ask you, and first of all you, Valyusha, not to die from grief. After all, life is life, and no one is guaranteed that they won’t be run over by a car tomorrow. Please take care of our girls, love them as I love them. Please, grow them up not to be white-handed children, not mother’s daughters, but to be real people who would not be afraid of the potholes of life. Well, arrange your personal life as your conscience tells you, as you see fit. I don’t impose any obligations on you, and I don’t have the right to do so,” Yuri Gagarin wrote to his wife in his farewell letter.
Article on the topic
He played the trumpet and danced the waltz. Unusual facts from the biography of Yuri Gagarin
He left it with his fellow cosmonauts on April 12, 1961, in case the Vostok 1 flight ended in disaster. Gagarin’s letter will then be forgotten and remembered only in March 1968, when a plane crash near Kirzhach will take the life of the Earth’s first cosmonaut.
And then, in April 1961, the Soviet Union rejoiced. In 108 minutes of his stellar journey, Gagarin turned from senior lieutenant to major, from an unknown pilot to the idol of the entire planet.
Awards, honors, a certificate with the laconic note “Skip everywhere”, dinners with prime ministers, presidents and even the Queen of England. Gagarin lacked knowledge in the field of etiquette, but his dazzling smile was able to melt any ice of mistrust.
Valentina, who worked as a laboratory assistant in the Star City Medical Administration, became the “first lady” of the space pioneer, who had to accompany him on international trips and correspond to his new high status.
It was not an easy test for both. Let's put it this way: Gagarin endured the “copper pipes” better than many of his colleagues. He won the right to return to training for new flights, became Vladimir Komarov’s during the Soyuz-1 flight, and dreamed of the Moon.
Yuri Gagarin with his daughter Galya and wife Valentina on vacation in Crimea. Photo: RIA Novosti
Galina Gagarina now
Galina Yuryevna continues to teach students at the Georgy Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, heading the department of national and regional economics. Now the teacher lectures them on the following disciplines - location of productive forces, the basics of regional development, the basics of sustainable and safe development of the regional economy, regional economics and economic geography.
Widow and daughter Galina of Yuri Gagarin / in fur coats /
Published by Nikolai Vashchilin Thursday, April 12, 2020
Galina Gagarina and mother Valentina Gagarina
In mid-March 2020, after a long illness and coma, Valentina Gagarina died. The daughters did not leave their mother’s bedside, who remained faithful to their father even after his death. In connection with the loss, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the relatives.
“I realized: everything is already predetermined, and it cannot be averted”
From Valentina Gagarina’s book “108 minutes and a whole life”: “One day (I don’t remember now what day it was and for what reason Yura’s workmates gathered with us) I involuntarily witnessed the following conversation:
“It’ll be soon now... Yura will probably go.” Or maybe Hera or someone else...
This was said by one of the guys, it seems, Boris Volynov . Yura answered:
- So what? Whoever they send will fly...
My heart trembled. The thought flashed like lightning: “He’s talking about this very calmly.” Probably everything has already been decided.”
On March 7, 1961, the Gagarins had a second daughter, named Galina. Yuri was happy, but Valentina saw that, besides his newborn daughter, his thoughts were occupied by something else.
Valentina Gagarina with her daughter Galya. Photo: RIA Novosti/Yuri Abramochkin
From the book by Valentina Gagarina: “I understood, or rather, felt where he was going and why, but did not ask him. He joked, chatted about different things, but he also realized the absurdity of this “hide and seek.” It was difficult for him to hide his direct involvement in the impending events...
“Take care of the girls, Valyusha,” he said quietly and suddenly looked at me very kindly.
I understood: everything is already predetermined, and it cannot be averted. A lump came to my throat, it seemed I couldn’t stop myself from crying. But I restrained myself."
Polina Gagarin's family
After all the problems and failures in family life, Polina finally found peace and love. For her, family is her whole life. As Polina Gagarina herself says, her family is now looking forward to a new addition. Which will take place very soon. All that remains is to wish good luck and patience to the young family, and many years of shared happiness. And to the children health and great love. May happiness come to every home who waits.
This is an interesting life story of Polina Gagarina. It remains to wish her good luck in her creative life. Many awards, victories and new hits. And most importantly, personal happiness, understanding, love in the family.
Yes, our world is full of celebrities, but not every one of them is worthy of this profession. No matter how hard they try to hide their shortcomings, they are still visible, just like a talented person. Our heroine is one of these. A talented, beautiful, bright woman, with a kind soul and heart. Something that is sorely lacking in our music business world right now. God willing, such people will appear every year.
