Close (Sort of) Encounter of the Cosmonaut Kind

In the autumn of 1994 (just weeks after returning from my amazing study trip to Moscow), I began teaching a Russian language class at Tucson High Magnet School. With only eight students, the class was small, but the enthusiasm in the room was radiant. 

I was living my teaching dream. Since this was an elective class, everyone was there by choice, and it showed. I was introducing a new language, spelling it out in a new alphabet, and providing the cultural context that gave it life. The kids were eating it up.

One student, a senior named Leticia, seemed especially enthralled. She borrowed (for most of the year, I think), a book of poetry by the contemporary poet Bella Akhmadulina. Leticia felt a special closeness to the writing. But early in the semester, she discovered a personal Russian connection she hadn’t known was there.

In a Friday class, I had given a brief lesson about the Soviet side of the 1960s space race, including the fact that the first man successfully launched into orbit and returned safely was a Russian, Yuri Gagarin, in April of 1961. The following Monday, Leticia came to class with a story that blew her away (and us, too). She had told her mother about the class, and what she’d learned about the Soviet space program, and Yuri Gagarin.

Her mother’s response: “I met him.” And she told Leticia this brief story:

After the triumph of his space adventure, Gagarin had been sent on a hero’s tour to various friendly countries, as a walking, smiling example of the USSR’s scientific prowess. One of his stops was Havana, Cuba. Coincidentally, Leticia’s mother at the time was a little Cuban girl who had won a national art contest, the prize for which included a trip to the capital and a big dinner, where her prize would be presented by Castro himself. This little girl sat at the same table as the Cuban leader, and was also joined by the young Russian man in uniform.

She told Leticia that she remembered him as “handsome, with bright blue eyes.”

Leticia still showed some shock even as she related all this to the class. Not only had she never known that her mother had once dined with Yuri Gagarin (and Fidel Castro), she’d had no idea that her mother originally came from Cuba!