Funeral Of Yuri Gagarin And Vladimir Seryogin

A national mourning was declared, the first time in Soviet history for a person who was not a sitting country leader. Funeral wreaths were sent by all Soviet republics and some foreign countries. In the funeral procession at the Kremlin Wall, the urns were carried by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and senior Communist Party members – Alexei Kosygin and Nikolai Podgorny.

Plaques of Gagarin (left) and Seryogin on the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow

Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, died in a training flight at the age of 34 with his instructor Vladimir Seryogin on 27 March. Both received the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union in their lifetimes.

Gagarin and Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI training aircraft crashed on 27 March 1968 in Vladimir Oblast, Russian SFSR. By the morning of 28 March, the remains of both pilots and their personal belongings were found, on the same day the remains were identified. The official investigation into the crash stated that the aircraft entered a spin after dodging a weather balloon. According to Arseny Mironov, a member of the flight subcommittee that investigated the crash, neither pilot had ejected and their bodies became fragmented. On 28 March at 21:15 the remains of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated. The following day, all Soviet newspapers came out with mourning headlines, large portraits of Gagarin and condolences from statesmen.

To organize the funeral the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and the Council of Ministers set up a government commission consisting of Andrei Kirilenko (chairman), Dmitry Polyansky, Dmitry Ustinov, Viktor Grishin, Ivan Yakubovsky, Alexei Yepishev, Konstantin Vershinin, Mstislav Keldysh, Andriyan Nikolayev and Mikhail Smirtyukov. On the morning of 29 March, the public access to the funerary urns of Gagarin and Seryogin was opened at the Central House of the Soviet Army (CHSA). On that day, over 40,000 people visited the CHSA. Due to the large number of people who wanted to bid farewell to Gagarin (many joined the queue at night), on the evening of 29 March the ceremony in the CHSA was extended until the morning of the next day. On 30 March, at 12:00 public access to the CHSA was closed and only relatives and friends of Gagarin and Seryogin remained there.

Funeral procession

On 30 March at 13:10, under a funeral march, the funerary urns of Gagarin and Seryogin were moved from the CHSA towards the House of Unions. The funeral procession moved along tens of thousands of people behind the cordon. Near the House of the Unions, the urns were placed on a gun carriage towed by an armored personnel carrier, and the procession went to Red Square. In front of the armored personnel carrier, the military carried the awards of the deceased and a guard of honor marched next to the gun carriage, followed by relatives of the deceased, military leaders, statesmen and astronauts.

The funeral procession was secretly photographed by Gennady Fedorov, who, as a member of the internal and escort guards of the Soviet Ministry of Public Order (later the Ministry of Internal Affairs), participated in the funeral preparations on Red Square. According to Fedorov, one man behind the cordon shouted during the funeral:

– How did they let the first cosmonaut die?!

The KGB officers ran up to him and one of them asked on the run:

– Where do you work?

A verbal exchange then followed between the man and the KGB:

– I'm a baker.
– If you get suspended from your job, would you strive to return?
– Yes!
– So would he. He was a pilot, he needed to fly. It was the engine, the system that failed.
– So find those who were responsible and why it failed!

After that the man was taken away and there were no more yellings.

Burial

The funerary procession stopped near the Lenin Mausoleum, where a military band was standing. Near the Mausoleum, the funerary urns were put on special pedestals and the burial ceremony began. At 14:30, the chairman of the government funeral commission, Andrei Kirilenko, placed the urns in the niches of the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. A moment of silence was declared throughout the Soviet Union, after which a gun salute was fired and the niches were sealed. The anthem of the Soviet Union was played, then the military marched past the Mausoleum.

 

The funeral was covered in The New York Times and some other foreign publications.

In 1968, Maltese writer and linguist Joseph Aquilina published the English-language poem "On the Funeral of Maj. Yuri Gagarin and Col. Vladimir Seryogin".

In 2020, after the death of Gagarin's widow Valentina, the historian of Russian cosmonautics Alexander Glushko suggested reburying the Gagarin couple "at one of the country’s cemeteries" with the construction of a "splendid monument", and "removing" the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Gagarin's friend Valentin Petrov spoke out against the reburial: "The ashes should not be touched. Let it be the way he lays with Seryogin in the Kremlin Wall". The issue of reburial of prominent figures at the Kremlin Wall has been raised before.