I didn't know until recently the landing method they used for this flight. Gagarin was incredibly brave.

First, the Vostok reentered and opened a parachute to slow down. Then it blew the hatch and fired him out of the capsule in his ejection seat, which fired its own parachute. Then somewhat lower, Gagarin had to jump out of the ejection seat with his own parachute and land. That is a lot of things that all have to work to land safely.