Gagarin’s Pioneers

Vitaly Mansky embarks on a journey to track down his old school friends and fellow Young Pioneers with whom, as a child growing up in Lvov, Ukraine, he pledged allegiance to the Soviet motherland and the principles of communism.

Many would later flee the Soviet Union with their parents to begin new lives in Israel. Others, like the Mansky family, changed their names, wiped away the traces of their Jewish family history and stayed.

Mansky travels to Israel, USA, Canada and Ukraine in search of those he once knew so well, to explore their shared past and to discuss dreams and disappointments, discrimination and dominance, homeland and happiness.