3 Roubles First Manned Spaceflight

Issued on the fiftieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's April 12, 1961 flight aboard Vostok 1, this coin belongs to a broader Russian commemorative program marking the Cosmonautics Jubilee Year. The Soviet government had kept Gagarin's training and the launch itself secret until the mission was confirmed successful — the TASS announcement came only after he was already in orbit.

Gagarin died in a MiG-15 training crash in 1968, never returning to space after Vostok 1.