Starman_ The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin - Jamie Doran [114]
Belotserkovsky offers his own interpretation. ‘I don’t think Gagarin feared for his life. It was a different kind of fear – the fear we all shared in those days, our fear of society, and of the world in which we lived. Letters – dreadful letters – were pouring into Gagarin’s office. All the distresses and problems in society impinged on him. He carried an immense load on his shoulders . . . One could sense his anxiety and tension. He was an emotional person, and he felt upset when he couldn’t help . . . He didn’t fit into the lifestyle of the Party élite and the higher levels in the Brezhnev system. He was alien to them, so they rejected him. There were attempts to tame him, to buy him off, but he wouldn’t succumb. He was too honest, too self-willed and independent.’
Belotserkovsky, Leonov, Titov and others were welcome at the family house, but other less familiar visitors inadvertently added to the family’s emotional turmoil. From the moment of Gagarin’s space flight in 1961 to his death in 1968, his father Alexei and younger brother Boris were approached almost every day by people wanting them to pass on their requests to the First Cosmonaut; or by people simply seeking the thrill of meeting any available members of this famous family. After Gagarin’s death, the strangers still came; and over time both Alexei and Boris became inadvertent alcoholics, because they could not politely refuse the many drinks offered to them. This pressure to entertain visitors and accept their well-meant gifts of vodka and brandy had fatal repercussions: in 1976 Boris hanged himself, almost as if he were allowing Albert to complete his sadistic wartime work, while Alexei’s weak health rapidly deteriorated.
Gagarin’s wife Valentina successfully raised their two fine daughters, who now enjoy rewarding lives. Valentina still lives within the perimeter of Star City, in a very modest house, and almost never speaks to journalists. Many space veterans regard her humble accommodation as a national disgrace, but she prefers not to draw attention to herself. Golovanov points out, ‘She changed very little, despite the lavish attention paid to her by Nikita Khrushchev, who awarded her the Order of Lenin after Gagarin’s space flight. Never in her life did she wear it, or any of the awards and medals given to her . . . She was an honest person inside, and so was Gagarin. Despite his fame, he never forgot that he was at the top of a huge pyramid of engineers and constructors who prepared him for his flight.’
This apt metaphor of a pyramid helps illustrate that Gagarin’s life was full of contradictions. He was an ambitious and competitive individual, acutely aware that the central achievement of his life was based on the efforts of many others who were not even permitted to reveal their names, let alone share in his public glory. He was a peasant boy at ease with complex engineering equations; a programmed technician who could think for himself; a loyal member of a conformist society who rebelled against the system. He was impetuous, occasionally thoughtless, yet highly disciplined in his work and responsible towards others, often at great risk to himself. He knew little of politics, while displaying a remarkable knack for diplomacy, both at home and abroad. He was an adulterer who never really betrayed his wife and family. As all these conflicting elements of his life intermingle, the story that emerges is one of an essentially decent and brave man giving his best in extraordinary circumstances. He was a hero, in the best and most honest sense of the word.
AFTERWORD
On the morning of April 12th, 1981, engineers, technicians and politicians held their breath as a great new adventure unfolded before their eyes.