Oh my God. Thank you, Firaxis, I am almost crying my warm heart out. This guys deserve a medal for "Absolute Zero Cranberry Project". I really respect that. And did they provide a Russian hugest gaming site with the material exclusively? That is extremely nice but cruel for the rest of the world.
The translation you asked above follows:
Original.
Меня когда-то сравнивали с Юрием Гагариным, пионером космонавтики. С изрядной долей смущения, но я вынужден признать правомочность этого сравнения. И не только потому, что я такой же простой парень из рабочей семьи, грезивший о звездах, о пыльных тропинках далеких планет. Что тогда, что сейчас мы стоим на пороге значительных перемен. Тогда мы впервые шагнули за пределы Земли. Теперь мы уходим навсегда.
В этот печальный и торжественный миг начала первого года новой эры я хочу поздравить всех вас с Новым, 2210-м, годом!
Поехали!
The translation.
I have been sometimes compared to Yuri Gagarin, the space flight pioneer. With a great load of embarrassment I must confirm the validity of this comparison. And I do it not only because I am the same plain guy from a family of workers, who dreamed about stars since childhood, dreamed about the dusty trails of far-away planets (1). Both in that past and now we are still standing at the edge of huge changes. In that past we were the first to make a step past the Earth boundaries. Now we are leaving forever.
In this sad and triumphant moment, in the beginning of the first year of the new era I would like to congratulate you all with the new, 2210, year!
Let's go! (2)
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(1) A line from the song 14 minutes until Launch see more
http://www.peoples.ru/art/literatur...obronravov/chetyrnadcat_minut_do_starta.shtml
(2) An obvious reference to Gagarin's famous words Let's go! (Poyehali!) said through the comm to the flight control center at the liftoff moment. Used in post-Soviet society in the same way as NASA's Liftoff, we have a liftoff, both in serious allegories and in jokes about space.