The widow of the first cosmonaut of the planet Valentina Gagarin, children and grandchildren consider a happy woman. She managed to meet the only man she needed. It was next to this faithful and patient woman that Yuri Gagarin went from being a cadet at an aviation school to an astronaut, about whom the whole world had once learned.
Officer's girlfriend
Valentina Ivanovna Gagarina, nee Goryacheva, met her future husband back in 1955 in Orenburg, where she lived with her parents. At this time, Valais was 20 years old. Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, a native of the village of Klushino, Saratov Region, was only a year older.
She was a student of a medical school, he is a cadet of the Chkalovsky Aviation. The young people saw each other in the evening dancing at the club. According to Gagarin's memoirs, he immediately liked the shy brown-eyed girl in a blue simple dress, and he invited her to a waltz.
On October 27, 1957, the new Gagarin family was registered. In the same year, the couple had to part for a while: Valentina worked as a telegraph operator and continued to study as a medical assistant, and Yuri, who graduated from the aviation school, went to continue his further service in the distant Murmansk region, in the military village of Luostari.
Gagarin was offered other options, but he chose the Arctic: he always sought to overcome difficulties. Valentina met his decision stoically. Having received the diploma of a medical assistant, Gagarin, as a real friend of the officer, immediately went to the North to her husband.
According to the memoirs of her contemporaries, she was an amazingly calm, picky wife. She did not strive for publicity and entertainment, she cooked well and in the evenings she expected Yuri to go home, always with a friendly smile.
Test of glory
In 1957, the first daughter of Valentina and Yuri, Lena, was born. And on April 12, 1961 Gagarin became known all over the world. The flight of the first cosmonaut of the Earth on the Vostok-1 spacecraft took place, after which Senior Lieutenant Gagarin immediately received the rank of Major on a special request from Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev.
The test fell on the family with fame: photographers everywhere waited for Valentina and her family, celebrities began to visit the house, the Gagarins were written to the media, they were shown on TV …
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Yuri Alekseevich at that time became perhaps the most popular person on the planet. In a short time as part of foreign visits, he visited 30 countries, and everywhere he was enthusiastically greeted. On some trips, for example, to Japan and India, he was accompanied by his faithful wife Valentina, always calm, with a friendly smile.
Most likely, for a modest, simple woman, not used to and not striving for publicity, such a husband’s fame has become a serious test. Moreover, on her hands were two small daughters. The second, Galina, was born a month before the flight of the famous father. Nevertheless, Valentina Ivanovna continued to adequately fulfill her role as the officer’s girlfriend, always supported him and did not expose the family’s life to the public.
Yuri Alekseevich was constantly busy, little time was left for his wife and daughters, but the family spent rare hours of rest together. Personal time for two became less and less. Valentina never sat idly by: raised her daughters, kept a house, worked as a nurse, laboratory biochemist at the Mission Control Center.
