Vostok

American  

[vos-tok, vo-stok, vuh-stawk] / ˈvɒs tɒk, vɒˈstɒk, vʌˈstɔk /

noun

1. one of a series of Soviet spacecraft, carrying one cosmonaut, used to make the world's first manned spaceflights.

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Vostok British  

/ ˈvɒstɒk /

noun

1. any of six manned Soviet spacecraft made to orbit the earth. Vostok 1, launched in April 1961, carried Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space; Vostok 6 carried Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space

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Etymology

Origin of Vostok

First recorded in 1961, Vostok is from the Russian word Vostók literally, east

Example Sentences

His firm Baring Vostok financed tech companies such as Yandex, Russia’s answer to Google.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 26, 2025

Blue Origin says the last all-female spaceflight was over 60 years ago when Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a solo mission aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6.

From BBC • Apr. 14, 2025

Lake Vostok is roughly 34 million years old, but Bell is among the researchers who have suggested water circulated through the microbe-filled lake roughly every 50,000 years.

From Salon • Apr. 5, 2025

Serduchenko was one of the lucky ones — Vostok drove him to his granddaughter’s apartment when he arrived in Dnipro.

From Washington Post • Mar. 18, 2023

But before that could happen, the Soviets launched Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.

From "Women in Space" by Karen Bush Gibson