Cosmonaut Day was celebrated in Pridnestrovie

Pridnestrovie celebrated last weekend not only the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Tiraspol, Slobodzeya, Grigoriopol and Dubossary, but also the 64th anniversary of the first manned flight into space.

Activists of the youth wing of the Obnovlenie (Renewal) party distributed booklets with information about the feat of the Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in the capital. The party members led by the leader of the Obnovlenie party, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Galina Antyufeeva, laid flowers at the monument to the first man in space, as is traditional. The monument to Gagarin was opened in Tiraspol in 1977. The boulevard where it is installed was named in honor of Yuri Alekseevich on the day of the legendary flight on the 12th of April, 1961. The decision to rename it was made by the Tiraspol City Council of Workers' Deputies. Previously, the boulevard near PSU named after Taras Shevchenko was called Sportivny Lane. Tiraspol deputies quickly completed the document on renaming while Gagarin was still in space. The Obnovlenie party does a lot to ensure that the youth of Pridnestrovie knows history and strives to make discoveries that will help people live better, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament added. The head of iraspol state administration Ilona Tyuryaeva wished young Pridnestrovians to enjoy life, strive for knowledge, protect the Earth, dream and dare, as Gagarin did, the press service of the Obnovlenie party reports.

Let us recall that the current mayor of the capital, when she was a deputy of the Supreme Council, took an active part in another memorable event on Gagarin Boulevard. Ilona Tyuryaeva was the initiator of the installation of an 11-meter banner with an image of the space pioneer on the facade of house No. 71 on Sverdlova Street for the 60th anniversary of man's flight into space. She participated in the implementation of party educational projects dedicated to Gagarin and cosmonautics in general, the connection of the space industry with the cities of Pridnestrovie. By the way, the connection of Pridnestrovie with the historical space era of the 20th century is quite high although Yuri Alekseevich has never been to Tiraspol. For example, the republic can be proud of the fact that students of the Tiraspol vocational school were the first to receive a signal from space on the territory of the USSR. Local students did not immediately understand that they heard Gagarin's call signs in their radio room. This became clear later. Contacting any point on the globe is not a problem in the era of the Internet. At that time, communication with foreign radio amateurs was a great achievement. What can we say about communication with space! On April 12, 1961, students were listening to the air as usual. They received signals soon that they could not identify. At the height of the Cold War, the unknown signal was assessed as the work of a subversive radio station. The head of the radio club reported this to the appropriate authorities. This is what later made it possible to prove that the amateur radio station of the vocational school of the small town of Tiraspol was the first in the Soviet Union to record the signal of the Vostok-1 spacecraft.

The students asked Yuri Gagarin to name their school after the first cosmonaut. Yuri Alekseevich responded warmly to the children and agreed to their request. The name of Gagarin was given to the vocational school in Tiraspol on May 8, 1961. Today it is the Technical College named after Gagarin.

Pridnestrovian enterprises were also associated with space. The Tiraspol Metallolithography plant began producing tubes for space food in the 1970s. They turned out to be better and more convenient than the Estonian ones used before.

Moldavizolit produced the thinnest electrical insulating materials for printed circuit boards, which are the basis of many electrical devices and mechanisms. Other factories produced pencils for astronauts, equipment parts, and spacecraft skins.

The Bouquet of Moldova created the Senetate balm in 1976. The plant was offered to create a concentrated drink that would act as a strong natural energy drink, antioxidant, and powerful radioprotector, said Oleg Bayev, deputy of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and CEO of the KVINT plant. The balm was then renamed into Kosmichesky and was produced for a long time only for Star City.

A fighter aviation regiment was based at the Tiraspol airfield, where 8 young men served, who later became astronauts. The future conquerors of space lived in the Krasnye Barracks microdistrict.

Pridnestrovie is still connected with space today. Our astronomers are part of the Pulkovo Cooperation of Optical Observers, which has more than 30 observatories around the world.

The photo by the press service of the Obnovlenie Republican Party