Bulgaria marks the International Day of Human Space Flight

April 12 this year marks 60 years since the first human space flight, carried out by Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.

On the same date in 1961, Gagarin's flight took off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. Gagarin spent 108 minutes in space as his Vostok spacecraft completed one loop around the Earth.

The first Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov today talked about the most interesting moments from his flight with the Soyuz spacecraft. On April 10, 1979, the spacecraft “Soyuz 33” took off at 8.34 pm Moscow time with Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov and the commander of the flight Nikolai Rukavishnikov on board. He made 31 complete orbits around the Earth.

This flight placed Bulgaria as the 6th space country in the world.

Neil Armstrong, the man who first set foot on the moon said, “Gagarin called us all to space.” It is a great happiness, first, to see the Earth from 300-400 km away, it is very beautiful, it is covered with blue-green seas and oceans ", the first Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov told BNT morning show.

BNT: You took a handful of soil from Pliska, Shipka peak and Buzludzha on board. Did you take something else to protect you personally?

"Apart from these symbols from Bulgaria, we carried with us a copy of the" Slavo-Bulgarian History " by Saint Paisius of Hilendar and the Bulgarian flag," said the first Bulgarian cosmonaut.

Georgi Ivanov noted that Bulgaria has become the third space country in the world to produce “space food” after the then USSR and the USA.

"There were a lot of Bulgarian products - Bulgarian cheese, yellow cheese, Bulgarian fruits, prunes, for example, apples, apricots, which were very tasty."