STATUE OF YURI GAGARIN unveiled outside the British Council’s London headquarters in the Mall today, Thursday 14 July

Image:Elena Gagarina, daughter of Yuri Gagarin and General Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums and HRH Prince Michael of Kent following the unveiling of the statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space
To mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight. The statue was unveiled by HRH Prince Michael of Kent and by the cosmonaut’s daughter, Elena Gagarina, now Director of the Kremlin Museums in Moscow, exactly fifty years to the day that Gagarin met the Queen as part of his visit to the UK in 1961. A gift from the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) to the British Council, the statue shows Gagarin standing on a globe in his space suit, and it will be installed in the Mall for a period of 12 months.

Yuri Gagarin was 27 when he journeyed into space on board Vostok 1. His space capsule travelled at a speed of 27,400 kilometres per hour, and orbited the earth in 108 minutes. On landing, he became the most famous man on earth. This statue, showing Gagarin standing on a globe in his space suit, focuses on the human aspect of the extraordinary scientific achievements of the Russian space programme.

The statue was commissioned in 1984 by the small town of Lyubertsy, just outside Moscow, where Gagarin trained as a foundry worker from the ages of 15-16. Made by Anatoly Novikov, one of the chief sculptors of the Stalingrad Memorial (now the Volgograd Memorial), it was commissioned to commemorate what would have been Gagarin’s 50th birthday (he died in a plane crash aged 34) and is today a site of pilgrimage for cosmonauts before they travel into space. The version in London is an exhibition copy of the original.

The site on the Mall has been chosen to reflect the nature of Gagarin’s achievement. It stands facing the statue of Captain Cook on the opposite side of the Mall; and close to the statue of Navigation seated in the wall of Admiralty Arch. The pedestal of Captain Cook is inscribed with the words ‘circumnavigator of the globe’.

The statue is the culmination of a year of planning by Roscosmos and the British Council and is just one example of the British Council’s work to strengthen the relationship with Russia through education, English and the arts. Others who attended the unveiling ceremony included Vladimir Popovkin, Federal Minister for Space and Head of Russian Federal Space Agency; Sergei Krikalev, the cosmonaut-Director of Star City; Natalia Koroleva, daughter of Sergei Korolev, the ‘Chief Designer’ of the Soviet space programme and Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut.

In addition to the statue, the British Council is showing an exhibition, entitled Gagarin in Britain in its London headquarters on the life of Gagarin and the early Soviet space programme. It is also publishing a catalogue to mark the occasion.