"When I looked at my child's head I was not like other fathers. Other fathers would see themselves or their wives. Me, only the cosmos."
(Yuri Gagarin, Road to the Stars)
Gagarin, centre, sitting on chair. "Even as a little boy I never really felt gravity's downwards push. People would say to my mother it is as if there are hands lifting his head towards space. Is it God, Lenin or the call of the stars? And since the Communists had dispenced with God, she would always say it could only be the stars"
About these harvest fields outside the village of Klushino where Yuri Gagarin was born, Gagarin wrote, "I always dreamed the women of my village as planets to themselves, working in our fields but with their own orbits, revolving round but of what, to whom and for what purpose? Communism? It seemed to me that my goal in life was to fly to the heavens to find this out. And for this I saw no choice except one - to become a cosmonaut."
About this suit Gagarin wrote, "Other than my military uniform, this is the first suit I owned, the one I fell in love with Valentina in, the one I married in, the one I expect to be buried in.
(Yuri Gagarin, Road to the Stars)
"My son was the first spaceman in our village and I was very proud. What should I say, I'm his mother."
I would have been happy with anything Yuri would have done. He was always a good boy.
I inherited from my father my feelings of wonder about the world. From him I was impressed with the feeling - anything is possible.
Gaga liked this picture of Lenochka best. Serious, determined, resolute. She was such a happy girl, always joking, but this is the one Gagarin chose to place on our refrigerator saying to anyone who happened to visit "You see. By hook or by crook she will get the job done."
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