The road to the sky

This year, Yuri Gagarin would be 70. The name of the anniversary exhibition seems beaten. But then it definitely reflects the state of affairs. In fact, who does not recognize this glorious, open face with a shining smile? And what do we, in essence, know about this man? Almost nothing. The tale of a simple guy, a meteor soared into the very sky, then still shifted with glory and a smile and died in the same way as, according to the laws of the high drama, he should have died - flashing from heaven.

The exhibition was prepared by the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD) in cooperation with a number of museums and archives. For RGANTD, this seems to be the first major exhibition project; The debut is worthy. Despite the fact that the task of showing something new about the first cosmic flights is complicated by the fact of the existence of both the Cosmonautics Museum and the excellent hall dedicated to the cosmos, in the polytechnic - the Moscow public saw spacesuits, ships, tubes for food, and so on. This exhibition achieves the freshness of the presentation of the topic due to the fact that it is built around Gagarin.

The works of the Tsiolkovsky and Meshchersky, the times of the Aelita and the Hyperboloid engineer Garin Public lectures on the possibility of flying into space, the emergence of Soviet rocket science, the construction of the Baikonur cosmodrome (S.P. Korolev is surprised at the pace of the work of military builders), and the launch of the satellite. Secret government decrees of particular importance. Creating the ship "Vostok". Silver radiance of layouts. Technical drawings of the spacecraft - exquisite beauty, in harmony and impeccability of each stroke will bypass at least a Japanese engraving - what to be surprised here. A catapulting chair waiting for a pilot.

In parallel - the simple traces of the hero’s youth. An ordinary post -war boy. A schoolboy, a student of a craft school, a member of the flying club. What will you show here? Several photos, non -packed documents about performance. The flight school, a military pilot, was selected in a detachment of astronauts. Training, medical examinations, a belt with sensors, parachutes, a centrifuge, a barocamer, photos with comrades.

The exhibition is designed very tactfully (artist A.F. Sargsyan). The case when the success of the design is in its unobtrusiveness, in the presentation of the topic and things, but not himself. School stands, covered in dark blue plush (the most appropriate color here) close unnecessary window openings, round the corners and form the space of the halls, focusing on the exhibits. The exhibits are striking (we will still leave aside the main topic) with our ordinary, such memorable Soviet wretchedness. Personal things: uniform; T-shirt-tennisk, knitwear of the 60s in a white blue strip; A leather wallet - of all the things exposed, it seems that this is exactly what they really used - shabby, dented, simple; Too some kind of dandy manicure set - no, you think that a normal man did not carry this toy in his pocket; An absurd half -meter souvenir fountain pen of coarse plastic - a product of a domestic factory. In the photographs of the astronauts in such memorable training costumes, their wives, modestly dressed, as befits the right Soviet women. The first astronaut meets with representatives of the party’s district committee: the table is set by newspapers, on it vodka, apples and an ashtray. Table plastic souvenirs in the spirit of the Kremlin ink, but in them is the Earth from the start of the start and landing of the Gagarin ship.

The section on his flight is seriously worried. What was the long day of April 12, 1961. As in the ancient myths about the god of the Sun, who held the shooting of a chariot, so that the hero managed to commit the destined. In the photographs step by step: vestments in a spacesuit, climb to the rocket, Gagarin's hands raised in a farewell gesture, now he is in the cab. His surprisingly poetic words about how he saw the Earth from the Cosmos - the first man’s view in the world on the planet from space - we have already forgotten what this actually means. The landed device, a search helicopter, a funny freshly condo column with a sign “Do not touch!”, Then they will build a memorial in honor of Gagarin's landing. Immediately, on the spot, executed acts about three space records. A striking photograph of Gagarin's wife, listening to the message about the flight of "East": do not describe what is on her face. The astronaut’s report to the government, government greeting, a crazy rally on Red Square, letters and telegrams from around the world. TASS messages about hostile sorties (secret, of course): white emigrants interpret about the non -playing origin of the hero, and one offspring of the princes of the Gagarins already recognized him allegedly his nephew. World tour, photos with various celebrities, gifts (Japanese dolls, Indian figurines).

Photo: Gagarin and Castro on Havana Square. Both young, beautiful, lively, puffing with energy. The meeting of two people who embodied the two main myths of the 20th century: about space and the revolution, two great illusions.

In a certain American film, Jack Nicholson plays the retirement of the astronaut. He lives in a cottage with a pool, serves as a local celebrity, at times acts with memories, and he drinks more and more. What, in fact, remains a person whose feat is already behind?

Yuri Gagarin was born a Soviet man. Therefore, space was more accessible to him than a cottage with a pool. In the photo, he, already famous, visits his parents in their house. The subject of a special Soviet pride was that he was a simple person, and his mother lives for a plank fence. And he is a vacation in the Crimea and envious rumors with a whisper. He died early, and he is difficult to imagine 70-year-olds. What would have been waiting for him, how would he live for years if they were released by fate? He would have served, in titles, he worked. The party leadership would have laid them. The exhibition shows his work after the flight. He participated in the preparation of the following crews, since 1963 he became deputy head of the Cosmonauts training center, actively trained as a pilot, studied at the Zhukovsky Academy (in the window of his textbooks and a notebook with mathematical tasks). He led the "public work" laid down by the Soviet hero: he traveled around the country, met with workers, deputies. Live more, probably, would have served your own in party forums and in all kinds of world protection committees. The authors of the exhibition partially delicately circumvented his private life in silence, actually him as a person; Partly, you can’t get anywhere from the legend obscuring a person. Let him mess with the children in the pictures, pumps up his daughter a bicycle tire, goes with friends to hunt or digs in the hood of his car - not to distinguish where the genuine life is, where the Soviet gloss. But between the lines (photographs, documents) I would like to read that Yuri Gagarin was not very comfortable as a walking exhibit. He wanted to fly. In 1967 he became the understudy of V.M. Komarov, flying on Soyuz-1. The ship crashed, Komarov died, Gagarin was now ordered to space. He hardly achieved permission to sit down again for the helm of the plane. On March 27, 1968, he crashed during a training flight on the MiG-15 fighter along with the instructor V.S. Seregin.

The death of Gagarin by the authors of the exhibition is shown chastely. No photographs with a melted metal, funeral, no melodrama. Devices from that very moment, the oxygen mask of Gagarin, a pilot helmet. Did the sky, inaccessible to living in front of him?