Yuri Gagarin

                                           My hero.

Hi! Let me introduce myself. I'm Alexandra. I am thirteen. I live in Russia and I'm proud of my country. Our country is rich in many things but the most precious in our country is its people. Russia is famous for writers and singers, warriors and scientists. I think all people know about Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy, people admire the greatest singer Feodor Shalyapin  and ballet dancers Anna Pavlova and Galina Ulanova.

Most of all I am proud of the fact that the first cosmonaut was from Russia. He is my hero. I want to tell about Yuri Gagarin, a person who was the first to see our Earth as beautiful as it is.

I think that people are often afraid of new things especially if they are dangerous. To leave the Earth realizing that you can never see it again shows that you are very brave. Yuri was very brave.

He was born in Klushino in Smolenskaya region in 1934. It was not far from town of Gzhatsk that has been renamed now into  Gagarin for everybody to know who lived here.

When he was young he got interested in planets and wanted to fly there. That's why he joined the "Airoclub" and then he entered  military Orenburg Pilot School. In 1960 he became a member of the Space program among other 19 pilots.               

You see, nothing extraordinary, he was a cheerful bright fellow. I think that the main thing was that he loved his motherland and that's why he was not afraid to be the first and to fly into cosmos. We know that during the flight he whistled the tune "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows", the patriotic song that was known to everybody that time. And now we love him, we are proud of him and a lot of boys and girls want to be alike. He is my hero and I believe that I think the same way. I also want to be helpful for my country and bring glory to it.