OREANDA-NEWS. April 12, 2011. Half a century ago, a Russian carpenter's son named Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, carving an indelible mark in human history and scoring the greatest Soviet Cold War success.

The 27-year-old's 108-minute flight on April 12, 1961 is still remembered in Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union as its greatest national achievement. His death in a plane crash seven years later only added to his mythical status.

Gagarin's safe return to earth in central Russia -- where he was famously given bread and milk by an astonished grandmother -- ensured he would live the rest of his life as a legend in Russia and abroad.

Hundreds of thousands flooded the streets of Moscow when news broke of his triumph, which confirmed the Soviet Union's undisputed supremacy in the space race, a lead it would keep for eight years until Americans walked on the moon.

The other-worldly allure of Gagarin is exemplified by the 40-metre-high (130-feet) titanium monument that still bears down on Moscow, his arms outstretched like a bionic superman and apparently preparing to shoot upwards into the sky.

Gagarin was confirmed as pilot just four days before launch, a choice which propelled him to stardom and the reserve Gherman Titov, who would later become the second Soviet cosmonaut in space, to relative obscurity.

His name also overshadows the mastermind of the mission, Sergei Korolev, who designed the equipment that took Gagarin to space yet whose role in the space programme was kept from the public as a state secret until his death in 1966.

When Gagarin was killed, a driving licence, 40 rubles and a photograph of Korolev were found in his pocket.

Few lives in modern history have been the subject of so much mythologising as that of Gagarin, with every aspect of his mission and subsequent life pored over in detail.
He took off at 9:07 am Moscow time from the Baikonur cosmodrome whose location in the south of Kazakhstan was tightly-kept secret.

He ejected and parachuted down to earth in the Saratov region of central Russia. The first people to make contact with the newly returned cosmonaut were peasant Anna Takhtarova and her four-year-old granddaughter Margarita.

"I looked round and saw this orange monster with a huge head coming towards us," Margarita recalled in an interview with tabloid daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
"Grandma helped Yuri Gagarin take off his helmet -- she pressed some kind of button. And when we saw a smiling face in front of us we understood that it was a human being in front of us."