The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian: Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика,Translit.: Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika), commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, the Russian Federation, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union.

The Soviet regime, governed by the Bolsheviks, first came to power on 7 November [O.S. 25 October] 1917—immediately after the Russian Provisional Government, which governed the Russian Republic, was overthrown in the October Revolution. Initially, the state did not have an official name and wouldn't be recognized by neighboring countries for five months.

On 25 January 1918—at the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets—the unrecognized state was renamed the Soviet Russian Republic. On 3 March 1918 the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, giving away much of the land of the former Russian Empire to Germany, in exchange for peace in World War I. On 10 July 1918 the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, reducing the size of the country even more.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин,Russian pronunciation: [ˈjurʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡɐˈɡarʲɪn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.

Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and honours, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when a MiG 15 training jet he was piloting crashed.

Yuri Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia), on 9 March 1934. The adjacent town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honour. His parents, Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina, worked on a collective farm. While manual labourers are described in official reports as "peasants", his mother was reportedly a voracious reader, and his father a skilled carpenter. Yuri was the third of four children, and his elder sister helped raise him while his parents worked. Like millions of people in the Soviet Union, the Gagarin family suffered during Nazi occupation in World War II. After a German officer took over their house, the family constructed a small mud hut where they spent a year and nine months until the end of the occupation. His two older siblings were deported to Nazi Germany for slave labour in 1943, and did not return until after the war. In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk.