Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
At first, his activity met hostile attitude. Not all children rose up to do the morning exercises, but gradually Yuri Gagarin overcame their unwillingness and they became submissive. Individual and team competitions were held, as well competitions with the neighboring teams.
As a result, Y. Gagarin was promoted to a social office – branch chief of the society “Labour Reserves,” created at the technical college.
On June 29 of 1955, Y. A. Gagarin defended his diploma at the technical college.
During his years in college, Yuri took interest in many things. He actively participated in different hobby groups.
While in his second term, Gagarin attended a club of declamation and rhetoric, which was organized in his college by the philological faculty of the Saratov Teachers Institute. It is necessary to mention that he liked to recite poems since early childhood. His fellow-villager, milkmaid Zoya Aleksandrovna Belova remembers, “Sometimes, Yura would perform – declaim poetry… he would press his arms against his sides tightly and speak slowly, with pauses, so that everybody got anxious – had he forgotten the words? – No, he remembered, he would say everything accurately. But he did it slowly.”
He even participated in a brass band, especially at the beginning of his school. In the fall of 1951, Y. Gagarin came to the House of Culture of Labour Reserves. There he signed in to the band. The bandmaster was Mikhail Ivanovich Blokhin. Gagarin played the trumpet. He attended the band club until his third year, when he went to the aero club.
In his second year, for example, he studied in a physics club. Mainly, it was the students from his group, who attended it. This club was organized by Nikolay Ivanovich Moskvin, Saratov industrial college’s elder, the graduate of Warsaw University of 1904, active participant of the campaign to liquidate illiterateness in the Volga River Basin in the 1930-ies, renowned teacher of RSFSR. N. I. Moskvin not only got Gagarin interested in studying physics, but also awakened in him the hunger to know new things.
A note has been preserved, which was written by the physics teacher, Nikolay Ivanovich Moskvin.
“To the Technical College principal, comrade Koval A. M.
Student of group L-21, Gagarin during the study years 1951/52 – 1952/1953 was the chairman of the physics club, in these three years he shared three lectures and with good knowledge organized the classes proper of the club – placed the epidiascope, installed electrical wires to the projecting lamp, taught the club’s members to properly use the projecting lamp and the epidiascope.
For the accomplished work, I ask to commend him on behalf of the college’s direction, concerning which to make an entry in his personal file.
15.06.53. Moskvin N.”
Among these lectures, two were mostly remembered – one was about the works of the Russian scientist P. I. Lebedev, another one – about the works of K. E. Tsiolkovsky.
At the same time, Gagarin was studying at the literature and drama club under Nina Vasiliyevna Ruzanova. Here Gagarin also exhibited his active interest: organized attending theaters, actively participated in disputes, when there was a discussion concerning the books they had read.
He was an active sportsman. He was the basketball teams’ captain, although he was the shortest player on the team. He became the secretary of the college’s council of DSO “Labour Reserves.” Among others, he was singled out by the physical activities leader in the technical college, Gennady Grigorievich Sokolov.
Among Y. A. hobbies, especially stands out his interest in piloting, which later became the main calling of his life. His fellow student, V. Porohonya mentioned three attempts he made on his way to aviation.
The first attempt was made during his studies in the Saratov industrial college. At first, Yura became the student of the pilots department in the Atkar Study Center of the Volunteers Society for Cooperation with the Army, Air Force and Navy (DOSAAF, which functioned all the way until the collapse of the USSR), which was opened in the building of the Saratov Industrial College at the end of 1952. But the classes there stopped in January of 1953. This is how his first attempt ended.
The second unsuccessful attempt was made after his second year in the technical college. Then Yuri tried to enter the Krasnokutsk college of Civil Aviation Fleet, which was one hundred kilometers away from Saratov. But only those boys, who had the complete secondary education, were accepted, and at that time Yura did not have it.
Only the third attempt became successful: on October 26 of 1954, by the order #82 of the Saratov Aeroclub, Y. A. Gagarin was enrolled as a student of the pilot’s department to the Saratov Aeroclub of DOSAAF. This event determined the course of his whole life in the future.
At first, they got into theoretical subjects: studied the material composition of parachutes, rules of its folding, then they jumped with parachutes, passed tests in theoretical subjects. Eventually, Gagarin was commended for his high marks in theoretical preparation.
The following ordinance was issued at the Aeroclub, this is what it looked like (in excerpts, of course):
Ordinance
To the Saratov regional aeroclub of DOSAAF d-d May 23, 1955, #33. Content: Concerning the permission for pilot-students of the first year of training to make training flights on airplane Yak-18.
The mentioned below pilot students of the initial year of training, who passed the medical flight and mandate commission, who presented personal files and passed the tests in theoretical disciplines with the grades not lower than “good,” who passed the on-ground preparation in the exercises of the first order of KULP-1951 and made parachute jumps, are permitted to make practice flights on airplane Yak-18 and are transferred for their flying training under the responsibility of the flying instructors crew of the aeroclub.
Then in these lists we see Gagarin’s name, he is allocated in the second crew under the Hero of the Soviet Union, Sergey Ivanovich Safonov, to the group of pilot-instructor Dmitry Pavlovich Martiyanov.
But Gagarin did not go to the airdrome camp at this time. He turned with his request to the aeroclub’s director, Hero of Soviet Union, Grigory Kirillovich Denisenko, to allow him a monthly break to pass the exams and defend his diploma in college. The permission was granted and Gagarin was occupied by the preparation and defense of his diploma at the technical college.
Having defended his diploma with excellent grades, Y. A. Gagarin received the specialty of technology technician of foundry industry, master of professional training.
“Report on executing the diploma task by a student of the fourth year of the Saratov Industrial Technical College of the Chief Administration of Labour Reserves at the Ministers Council of USSR, Gagarin Y. A.
In the process of executing his project, the student skillfully used the materials of technical literature and the experience of Soviet foundry floor shops and leading plants.
The student individually solved a number of technical tasks, as well as the questions of control, planning and organization of the industrial process. The submitted project testifies of the student’s good preparation and of his ability to solve technical and methodical situations individually and thoughtfully.