Remembering the first man in space

April 12, 2008

On April 12 1961, Yuri Gagarin took off from Baikonur cosmodrome towards where no human had been before: the outer space. On board the spacecraft Vostok 1, he became the first person to see with his own eyes that the Earth is indeed round and mostly covered with water. During a short but intense 108 minutes flight, Gagarin orbited once around the Earth at 18,000 miles an hour. Eventually, he ejected from the capsule and landed by parachute on an agricultural area of Saratov region.

Although we will go deeper into Gagarin and first manned space flight stories in future posts, I would like to share with you some selected commemorative videos.

Yuri Gagarin during the training phase

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The twentieth century Joan of Arc

April 4, 2008

During the First World War, women were mobilized on an unprecedented scale. Some of them, mainly Russian, wouldn’t be satisfied working in the rear and would eventually enroll in the army. Maria Bochkareva stood out among all of them. She was born to a poor peasant family and fought in the frontline from the very beginning of the war. She was wounded in several occasions, formed the so-called ‘women’s battalions of death’, got the highest honors and became a worldwide famous charismatic leader. She was executed by the Bolsheviks when she was just 30 years old.

Maria Leontievna Bochkareva