1. Yuri Gagarin - the first cosmonaut

4. Career in the Soviet space program In 1960 20 pilots including Gagarin were chosen for the Soviet space program. Subsequently he was chosen for an elite training group. All the pilots were tested for both psychological and physical power. At the end of the test program Gherman Titov and Yuri Gagarin were selected because their results were the best. Moreover, physical characteristics of these cosmonauts were the most appropriate. They both were not tall. Gagarin’s height was 1.57 metres. Gagarin’s character was described as attentive and persistent. He also had a good memory, vivid imagination, fast response and other mental abilities. An Air Force doctor considered that Gagarin understood life better than others. It should be noted that Yuri liked sports. He played ice hockey and was a basketball fan. It is known that when the twenty pilots chose anonymously one of them for the first flight, all but three voted for Yuri Gagarin.

5. Space flight On 12 April 1961 the first human travelled into space. Gagarin was aboard the Vostok 1 and he orbited the Earth. This great event made Yuri Gagarin famous and he received a lot of honours and medals. Gagarin became the Hero of the Soviet Union.

6. Soviet cosmonauts Pavel Popovich, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova.

7. Yuri Gagarin on vacation with friends

9. Death On 27 March 1968 Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15 crash. The incident was near Kirzhach. The Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow and the town of Gzhatsk were named after Yuri Gagarin.

10. These coins tell about the history of space exploration.