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It's said that this was the moment Yuri Gagarin first decided to become a pilot.
据说就是这一时刻尤里·加加林第一次决定成为一名飞行员。
Finally, in 1945, Germany was defeated and peace declared in Europe.
最后，1945年，德国战败，欧洲宣布和平。
In the aftermath of the Nazi occupation, Gagarin's dad decided to move the entire household to the town of Gzhatsk.
在纳粹占领之后，加加林的父亲决定全家搬到斯克镇。
It was, literally. Mr. Gagarin sawed up the family's wooden shack, transported it bit by bit to Gzhatsk, and rebuilt it by hand for them to live in.
真的……加加林的父亲将家里的木屋大卸八块，一点点地运到了斯克镇，然后再次手工重建用来居住。
It would be from this humble, reconstructed shack on the fringes of this anonymous town that Yuri Gagarin would truly begin his journey to the stars.
尤里·加加林的星际之旅就是从这座无名小镇边缘的一座简陋的、新建的小屋开始的。
Compared to the deprivation of Klushino, Gzhatsk was practically a paradise.
和贫困的克卢申诺村相比，斯克镇简直就是天堂。
There was work for Gagarin's parents. A sizeable school where Yuri could make friends and meet girls.
加加林的父母在那里有工作，就在一所相当大的学校里，尤里可以在那里交朋友，结识女孩。
There was also an aviation club the teenager joined, where he learned all about aircraft despite being too young to fly.
他还参加了一个航空俱乐部，尽管因为年龄太小他不能飞行，但他在那里学会了所有关于飞机的知识。
Not that he yet seemed pilot material.
此时的他还不是做飞行员的料。
When Gagarin left school at 16, it wasn't to enroll in the Air Forces.
加加林16岁离开学校时并不是去参加空军，
It was to train to be a foundryman, a decent enough job in the USSR, but not one that usually lead to a YouTube channel in the far future doing videos on you.
而是学习成为一名铸造工，铸造工在苏联是一份十分体面的工作了，但这种工作可不会让你在遥远的未来出现在YouTube的视频里。
Gagarin, too, must've sensed this was a dead end.
加加林肯定也意识到了这个工作是条死胡同。
After a single year, in 1951, he transferred away from his studies, away from his family, all the way down the the brand-new technical school in Saratov.
只过了一年，1951年，他就不再学习成为铸造工，而是离开了家人，来到了萨拉托夫的一所崭新的技术学校。
Supposedly, he was there to study tractors.
据说，他是去学习开拖拉机的。
But were you to ask the teenage Gagarin anything about them, he'd have probably just given you one of his trademark shy smiles.
但如果你问十几岁的加加林关于拖拉机的知识，他可能只会给你一个标志性的羞答答的微笑。
That's because Gagarin was really in Saratov for one reason. The school's shiny new flight club.
加加林在萨拉托夫只有一个原因，那家学校新开了一个飞行俱乐部。
Unlike the aviation club in Gzhatsk, the bigger one down in Saratov really did allow its students to fly planes.
萨拉托夫的大型航空俱乐部和斯克镇的航空俱乐部不同，那里允许学生驾驶飞机。
For the first time in his life, Yuri Gagarin took to the skies onboard a Yak-18.
这是尤里·加加林有生以来第一次乘坐Yak-18飞上天空。
Looking back later, he would say: "That flight filled me with pride and gave meaning to my whole life."
后来回想起来时他说：“那次飞行让我充满了骄傲，让我的一生都有了意义。”
When Gagarin finally graduated, no-one harbored any illusions that he was gonna be a tractor repairman.
等到加加林毕业时，没有人会觉得他会成为一名拖拉机修理工。
In 1955, aged 21, Gagarin enrolled in the Pilots School in Orenberg.
1955年，21岁的加加林在奥伦伯格的飞行员学校就读。
The mid-50s were a time of great change in the USSR. Two years before, Stalin had died.
50年代中期是正是苏联发生巨变的那段时期，就在两年前斯大林去世了。
In just one more year, Nikita Khrushchev would make his Secret Speech, beginning a thaw that would see long-lost freedoms regained.
又过了一年，尼基塔·赫鲁晓夫发表了他的秘密演讲，开始了一场解冻，人们得以重获了长期失去的自由。
Maybe it was the mood in the entire nation, but Gagarin seems to have blossomed in Orenberg.
也许这就是当时整个苏联的状态，而加加林则在奥伦堡“开花”了。
It was while at pilot school that he met Valentina Goryacheva, and so turned her head that she fell for him without ever really knowing why.
就是在飞行员学校里，加加林遇见了瓦伦蒂娜·戈里切娃，瓦伦蒂娜·戈里切娃迷上了加加林却不知道为什么。
It was there, too, that Gagarin took his first solo flight in a MiG-15 jet, an experience that made even his virgin flight in the Yak-18 appear trivial.
也是在那里，加加林第一次单独驾驶了米格-15飞机，那段经历让他在雅克-18上的首飞显得不足一提。
By 1957, Gagarin was lucky in love, and cruising through his studies.
到了1957年，加加林坠入了爱河，并顺利完成了自己的研究。
He was recognized as a brilliant pilot, despite his short stature meaning he had to sit atop a cushion to see out the cockpit.
尽管他身材矮小，不得不坐在一个垫子上才能看到驾驶舱，但他已经被公认为一名出色的飞行员。
And this was perfect timing. Because 1957 was when mankind finally began looking upward.
这是一个完美的时机，因为1957年正是人类终于开始向上看的时候。
On August 21, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile was launched in the USSR.
8月21日，世界上第一枚洲际弹道导弹在苏联发射。
Designed by the ultra-secretive rocket genius Sergei Korolev, the R-7 "Semyorka" was a breakthrough in weapons technology that left the USA eating Soviet dust.
R-7“Semyorka”是由超级神秘的火箭天才谢尔盖·科罗列夫设计的，是武器技术上的一项突破，让美国吃了苏联一肚子灰。
But while Moscow loved the R-7 for its offensive capabilities, Korolev wanted to use it to expand mankind's horizons.
但是，尽管莫斯科政府喜欢R-7的进攻能力，但科罗列夫只想用它来扩展人类的视野。
That October, another Korolev rocket blasted off from the Baikonur launchpad in what is now Kazakhstan.
同年10月，另一枚科罗列夫火箭从拜科努尔，也就睡现在的哈萨克斯坦，发射台发射升空。
But rather than carrying a warhead, it was carrying a small metal orb the size of a beachball.
但它携带的不是弹头，而是一个小金属球，只有一个沙滩球那么大。
That day, Sputnik 1 became the first manmade satellite in orbit.
那一天，斯普特尼克1号成为了第一颗进入轨道的人造卫星。
It was a moment that changed everything, marking the dawn of the Space Age.
那是一个改变了一切的时刻，标志着太空时代的到来。
But Korolev wasn't done yet. He had another goal, one so secret, so preposterous, that only a handful of people knew about it.
不过科罗列夫还没有结束，他还有另一个目标，一个如此秘密，如此荒谬，只有少数人知道的目标。
Korolev wanted to send a man into space. It was this impossible dream that would soon transform Yuri Gagarin's life.
科罗列夫想把人类送上太空。这个不可能实现的梦想很快改变了尤里·加加林的生活。
Two years after Sputnik's launch, in October of 1959, groups of mysterious recruiters began fanning out across the USSR, looking for pilots.
1959年10月，在Sputnik发射两年后，一群神秘的招聘人员开始在苏联各地散开寻找飞行员。
By now, Yuri Gagarin was a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces, based in chilly Murmansk in the Arctic Circle.
当时的尤里·加加林是苏联空军的一名中尉，基地在寒冷的北极圈摩尔曼斯克。
