Gagarin's wife. Valentina Ivanovna Gagarina: biography and photos

Each of us knows the name of Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. Having made the first flight into space in the world history, he became the most famous and recognizable person on the planet. Millions of beauties dreamed of him, but in his thoughts there was always a single woman - his faithful wife Valentine. Who is she, Gagarin's wife?

The true companion of the first cosmonaut

About the second half of Yuri Alekseevich is not very well known. She, unlike the wives of other famous people, has never exposed her life to the public and to this day diligently avoids communication with journalists. Valentina Ivanovna Gagarina has always been very modest. While her starry husband conquered the universe, she provided him with a reliable family rear, raising two small daughters. But for a long time to enjoy the family happiness Valentina was not destined. When Yuri died, she was only 32 years old. Being a beauty, Valentina Ivanovna never married again. Focusing on work and family, she remained faithful to her only and dearly beloved husband forever.

Acquaintance with her husband

Gagarina Valentina Ivanovna (in the girlhood - Goryacheva) was born on December 15, 1935 in Orenburg. Father Vali Ivan Stepanovich was a chef and from childhood he taught his daughter to cook deliciously. In addition to culinary skills, the girl had a talent for sewing and knitting. After graduating from high school, Valya Goryacheva began to work on the telegraph. Like many girls, she ran to her dances in her spare time. It was there that Valentina and the cadet of the Orenburg Flight School Yura Gagarin met.

Valya Goryacheva conquered the guy with her beauty. Dark-haired, brown-eyed, with a figurative figure, she always attracted the views of representatives of the opposite sex. But beauty did not stop her from being shy and shy. As the legendary astronaut wrote in his memoirs, in Valentine he liked everything: both character and short height, and dark eyes, and a slightly freckled nose. But Yuri did not initially make a special impression on the girl. Gagarin's wife remembered that he seemed big-headed and lop-eared to her. And the protruding hedgehog of short-cropped hair was clearly not in his favor.

Roman, wedding and the birth of the eldest daughter

After the waltz, Yuri Alexeyevich invited Valentina to go skiing next weekend, and the young people began to meet. But they did not hurry with the wedding. Valentina entered the Orenburg medical school, where she received a specialty as a medical assistant. Gagarin continued his studies. They married 4 years after they met. The wedding ceremony took place in Orenburg on October 27, 1957. After the wedding Gagarin Yuri went to serve in the city of Zapolyarny Murmansk region, soon his wife moved to him. It was there that on April 17, 1959 Valentina gave birth to her husband Helen.

Moving to the Star City and the birth of the second daughter

Soon after the birth of the baby, Yuri Gagarin filed a report on his enrollment in a group of astronauts. The competition was huge: together with him, statements were written by about 3 thousand pilots. The future pioneer of the universe successfully passed all the tests and was enlisted in the detachment of Soviet cosmonauts. In the spring of 1960, he was transferred to the Star City, northeast of Moscow. Yuri Gagarin's wife moved after him. She got a job as a laboratory biochemist in the medical department of the Flight Control Center. A year later, on March 7, 1961, a young daughter Galina was born to a young couple. The girl was born 2 days before the 27th birthday of her father and a month before his first flight into space.

The day that changed life

While cosmonaut Gagarin concentrated all his efforts in training, in order to make a successful entry into Earth's orbit, his wife was engaged in small daughters. She was a homebody, did not like noisy companies and provided Yuri Alekseevich with the family comfort that all men dream of. Gagarin's preparation for the flight was held in an atmosphere of the utmost secrecy, and Valentina was not privy to the matter. The day of April 12, 1961 for her began in the usual way. The fact that her husband was the first cosmonaut of the planet, she learned not from himself, but from a neighbor. To see Yuri Alekseevich after the flight Valentine happened only a few days later, when finally he was released home. Until then, she, like many Muscovites, was looking at her husband in Red Square, where he himself shook hands with the USSR Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev. A huge crowd of people met Yuri with banners and threw flowers. From that day on, cosmonaut Gagarin became a nation-wide hero and the property of the whole country.

Yuri Alekseevich was not sure of the successful outcome of his flight. Many years after his death, his wife accidentally stumbled upon a note addressed to her, which he wrote 2 days before going into outer space. In it, he asked Valentine not to mourn if something happened to him, and to raise decent daughters from his daughters. Personal life Gagarin Yuri Alekseevich advised his wife in case of his death to arrange at his discretion. But in 1961 the note was not destined to fall into the hands of Valentina Ivanovna, because the flight and landing of the first cosmonaut of the Earth were successful. Gagarin hid the paper and forgot about it. The young family was to undergo a serious test of fame. And they did it well.

Life as a cosmonaut's wife

After April 1961, the fate of Valentina Ivanovna completely changed. Gagarin's wife, being a modest and unpublicized person, for a long time could not get used to the close attention of the public to whom her husband, she and the children were subjected. Journalists and photographers chased a young married couple not only in their hometown, but also during a holiday at sea. They often interviewed, showed on TV. Modest people visited the humble apartment of Gagarin: politicians, actors, cosmonauts. Valentina Ivanovna was always a hospitable hostess.

Yuri Alekseevich crashed a lot of work. In addition to employment, he was often invited abroad. There was very little time left to communicate with his family, so he tried to use every opportunity to be with Valentina, Lenochka and Galochka. His younger daughter he called Chizhik, and the older one - Professor. Arriving home, he always brought home gifts. With his wife, Yuri liked to skate.

The wife was philosophical about Gagarin's work. She was engaged in raising daughters and continued to work in the Mission Control Center. A free time the young woman spent for knitting warm clothes to her husband and daughters. Trying to match the status of the wife of the first cosmonaut, Valentina Ivanovna Gagarina accompanied him on many foreign trips and on high receptions. But publicity has not spoiled her: she still remained that humble girl, whom Yury once fell in love with at first sight.

The death of Gagarin

The family idyll collapsed at one point. March 27, 1968 Yuri Alekseevich and his instructor Vladimir Seryogin made a scheduled training flight on the fighter. Suddenly, the plane crashed into the ground and both pilots were killed. Gagarin's wife had a hard time surviving his death. She had little daughters in her arms, which she now had to take to the people herself. Yuri Alekseevich left his family not such a big inheritance. For his "stellar" life he managed to gain only 2 apartments (in Moscow and Star City) and the old "Volga" of the 21st model. Housing in the capital he received shortly before his death.

The further life of Valentina Ivanovna

The widow of Gagarin after her husband's death in Moscow decided not to move. She remained to live in the Star City, fearing that in the capital her daughters would not be given a passage. Married Valentina Ivanovna did not come out any more. She withdrew into herself and stopped contacting journalists and people interested in her husband's biography. For half a century, after the death of Yuri Alekseevich, the name of his widow sounded in the media is not so often. In 1981, Valentina Ivanovna published a book "108 minutes and all life", dedicated to the memory of her husband. In addition, she has several times published memories of her husband. Now Yuri Gagarin's wife has long retired. She continues to live in the same apartment in the Star City, where she once moved with her husband, does not refuse to meet the first people of the state, but still does not give interviews to journalists. Valentina Ivanovna is trying to support the Museum of Yu. A. Gagarin in every possible way, and has transferred a lot of his personal belongings.

Children and grandchildren of the astronaut

Gagarin's daughters have long grown. As he dreamed, they became worthy and respected people in society. This merit belongs wholly to Valentina Ivanovna, because the woman had to raise and teach them independently. Elena graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, she received the qualification of an art critic. He holds the post of general director of the Moscow Kremlin Museum. Galina studied at the Institute of National Economy in Moscow, today heads the Department of Economics in it. She defended her doctoral dissertation, became a professor. Daughters gave Valentina Ivanovna two grandchildren: Catherine and Yura. Wife and children of Gagarin live very amicably. They have a wonderful family tradition - to gather every year on the birthday of Yuri Alekseevich for a modest feast in an apartment in the Star City and indulge in memories of his great husband, father and grandfather.