What is a cosmonaut?

The term refers to a Soviet cosmonaut spaceman, even in today's Russia, the CIS countries, in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the new Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany is still spoken by cosmonauts. The term was coined during the race to space in the 1950s, and with Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space known worldwide. The image of the cosmonaut in the Soviet Union played a significance that went beyond the technical or political achievement in the West. This is illustrated among others in the Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow.