English: It really surprised me that when here in Smolensk we went and saw this statue, not that he is not important but this is also the area where Yuri Gagarin was born. He was a Soviet cosmonaut and first human to fly in space and saw nothing related to him. Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, 1804-1857, was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition inside his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music.