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Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin

Evaluation of the project:

Explanatory note – 5.

Graphics section – 5.

Overall grade – 5.”

The following characteristic is attached:

“Comrade Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich entered the foundry department of the industrial college in the fall of 1951.

During his time in college, comrade Gagarin was an exceptionally good student, his marks were excellent.

He is a good sportsman. His social work was that of a secretary of DSO “Labour Reserves.”

He took active participation in the social life of the college and his group. He shared lectures at a number of the college literature conferences, was an active participant of physics-technical club.

All requests and commissions of the administration, of his class tutor were carried out by comrade Gagarin unquestionably; he was honestly and diligently doing the work entrusted to him.

Gagarin had his pre-degree training in the trade school of Leningrad. The characteristic, issued by the training overseers, testifies of comrade Gagarin’s good theoretical preparation and his serious attitude to the work.

For his exemplary conduct and academic performance in college comrade Gagarin received an honorary certificate, he also has several honorary certificates from DSO “Labour Reserves.”

Principal of the Saratov Industrial College, S. Rodionov.

Class tutor, A. Akulova.”

In an excerpt from the academic performance of the student of the fourth year of foundry department, group L-41, Gagarin Y. A., it is recorded that he had “excellent” grades in 32 subjects and only one grade was “4” – in psychology. The conclusion is as follows, “Confer the qualification of technology technician of foundry industry, master of vocational training and issue the honours degree.”

As the Saratov industrial college graduate, who received an honours degree he became one of the candidates among 5% of those who had finished their studies, to be granted the privilege of being accepted to the institute without entrance examinations. He had even already made his choice of the institute – it was the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. But the demand for masters of vocational training in foundry industry was so great that every excelling student – and there were six of them in his group – who wished to be full-time institute students, were all denied such a privilege. All of them received assignments as masters to industrial colleges: Medvedev A. I., Rusakov P. P. – to Altai; Steshin Y. V. – to Sverdlovsk; Prohonya V. S. – to Stalino (now Donetsk), and Y. Gagarin – to Tomsk.

Gagarin, though, did not go to Tomsk, and stayed to continue his training at the aeroclub.

That summer, at the end of July, Gagarin Y. A. made his first flight on an airplane. During that first individual flight he carried out his tasks quite well. Unbeknown to himself, he even became the hero of a news report that came out in the newspaper “The Youths’ Dawn.” On one of the pages of the festive issue devoted to the Day of the Air Fleet, which came out on August the 3rd of 1955, not only there was the article about his flights on that day – and he made three flights that day: first, with his instructor, then, with the master of the flying unit and, eventually, there was his individual flight. In the same newspaper issue there was a photograph, taken before the flight by the journalist Yevgeny Sokolov. The most unfortunate thing was that the journalist signed his penname under the article, because he had several publications in the newspaper on that day. So, Gagarin did not find out about the newspaper with his photograph until some time later, and he was able to get the issue only in a few days.

It is worthwhile to quote the article here in full.

“A Day at the Aerodrome

Five o’clock in the morning. We are at the aerodrome of the Saratov aeroclub.

- Comrade-sportsmen, line up! – Yefremov and Andronov, aeroclub’s instructors, give the order to their flights.

The parachutists froze in a straight line.

- Sportsman Igor Gordelovsky, today you are performing a jump according to exercise #3 with a pause of 10 seconds and landing in a circle with the radius of 150 meters.

Gordelovsky is a student of the technical college of physical culture, sportsman-paratrooper of the first rank. Today he is making his 91st jump.

But Igor is preparing for it as thoroughly as for his first jump, which he made several years ago. He is folding parachutes with the rest of the team, attaching the spare parachute, adjusting the belts.

Before the flight, the instructors personally check the readiness for the jumps. Everything is all right.

- Board the planes! – the order rings in the air.

The field has emptied. The planes engines are roaring, the machines are gathering speed, and lo! – they are in the air.

Another 13-15 minutes pass by, and in the blue sky here and there white clouds appear with some darks spots underneath. Slightly swinging, the parachutists slowly descend down to the ground.

Eventually they land. All young men have joyful, radiant faces. All are excited, full of impressions. But there is no time now for conversing. Quickly rushing to the cars, they go to the aeroclub: they need to fold parachutes and then be in time for the analysis of the class they have just had.

Silence falls over the aerodrome.

Like some huge birds, Yak-18s are standing in line. They are waiting for their pilot-sportsmen.

Two o’clock in the afternoon. There is a car approaching. Out of its trunk tanned and husky young men jump out. Familiar command is sounded again:

- Comrade-sportsmen, line up!

Preparation for the flights begins.

The program is diverse today.

Some will be practicing the piloting, others – the landing, some will fly to the designated zone where they will have to perform different piloting stunts.

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