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... An intolerably bright sun was shining in through the portholes. Not for long, however, because the “Vostok-2” soon entered the Earth’s shadow and was wrapped in dark night. The big cold stars shone like diamonds on the black velvet of the skies. As I looked at them I remembered Lermontov's line:
“...And star with star converses.”
After an hour’s flight through the dark night the “Vostok-2” came out of the Earth’s shadow. This happened quickly. The second dawn that day began for me when I saw a bright band of orange on the horizon. Above it rose all the colors of the rainbow, and I had the impression of looking at the sky through a prism. The next moment the sun’s rays burst through the portholes into the cabin. Dark night was followed by another brilliant day. I looked at the Earth with interest. I saw large rivers and mountains and was able to distinguish ploughed fields from unreaped fields by their color. I could see the clouds clearly. I could distinguish them from snow by the blue shadow which they cast on the Earth...
...All the continents of the globe when you see them from space, differ from one another not only in shape but in color. The basic color. of Africa is yellow with dark-green spots of jungle. Its surface resembles the spotted skin of the leopard. I immediately recognized the Sahara —a great ocean of golden-brown sand without any sign of life.
The yellow Sahara ended, and I saw the bright colors of the Mediterranean, the most beautiful of all the seas I saw during the first two orbits.
In a few more minutes I was once again over my own country. It is different from all other countries of the world. Nowhere can you see such huge fields and forests, so many great rivers...
...Twice I saw the Moon. It was waning. Its sharp sickle looked the same as from the Earth. I had the impression that the spaceship was standing still and the Moon was floating fast past the porthole.
The Moon reminded me of Gogol’s “Christmas Eve” and I pictured a Ukrainian village all in snow and boys and girls singing in the street. Shining in the darkness, the Moon looked so close that I felt I need only open the porthole to reach it with my hand and put in a sack, as Gogol wrote. But everything has its day. What was a fairy-tale in Gogol’s time is becoming reality. One of us cosmonauts will be the first to fly round the Moon, to visit its craters and even to bring back with him to Earth a sack of moonstones...
...Before the spaceship came out of the Earth’s shadow it was interesting to watch the evening shadows moving over the Earth’s surface. One part of the Earth was bright with sunlight, the other was in complete darkness. Between these two parts there was a quickly moving strip of grey shadow. Above it hung pink clouds.
Everything was unusual, colorful and impressive. Space awaits its artists, poets and, of course, its scientists.
... As I flew round the globe, I saw for myself that there is more water than land on the surface of our planet. The long lines of the waves of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans pursuing one another to their distant shores were a wonderful sight.
The spaceship went on making orbit after orbit. But the orbits were not just endless repetition of the same thing. They were all different and each had something new and individual about it...