When Gagarin went up into space we listened to the broadcast on his radio. It had been given him by one of his friends who had subsequently been liquidated in the purges. Before Gagarin went up, he requested our family listen to the broadcast on that radio. That was the subtle way he spoke. (Valentina Gagarin, Road to the Stars)
When Lenochka was a child, Gagarin would take her to the art and science museums and buy her postcards. There were no space museums yet. I remember one time him buying her a postcard of Ehrenburg's tribute to the Architect Tatlin and telling her that it was a blueprint about space and how a man could go to the moon. I had to laugh but he didn't like that one bit. His mind worked like that, one track, even postcards, space or the moon.
(Valentina Gagarin)
"When Gagarin went up into space, Lenochka sat down at the kitchen table and tried to read from the Japanese cinema book Gagarin liked so much. He had told her that he would be keeping his eye on her even from outer space.
(Valentina, Road To the Stars)
At night, Gagarin liked best to sit in his chair and have a cup of coffee with rye bread from KUB bakery. They made the best rye in Moscow and Gagarin could alwaays tell if I'd bought from someplace else. He would spoil Lenochka with both butter and honey on the bread and read to her from a book my father had given me on early Japanese cinema. I'm not sure how much either of them understood but they both enjoyed themselves immensely.
(Valentina Gagarin)
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