[nephihaha]

The Soviets picked up on this early on. They got the first woman into space long before the USA did. First black man and east Asian too. They took quite a few people from eastern bloc countries including Cuba and East Germany (which is mentioned in the film "Goodbye Lenin".)

[avmich]

First remotely-Turkish descent person in space was Andriyan Nikolaev, the third Soviet cosmonaut (and the husband of Valentina Tereshkova).