Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut
Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut – Pravda.Ru
As 40 years have passed since Gagarin’s flight, new sensational details of this event were disclosed: Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin’s famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday.
update: My friend Mac, who follows stuff about the Russian space program closely, doubts the authenticity of this story. She says that these claims have been floating around for years, but there’s no new evidence presented here.