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Gagarin statue and exhibition unveiled in London

14. 07. 11

A statue to celebrate Yuru Gagarin - the first man to circle the Earth in a spacecraft - has been unveiled in London. The statue has been placed just off The Mall, next to Admiralty Arch, where it will remain for one year.

The 3.5m high (12ft) zinc-alloy figure is a gift from the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, to the British Council. The British Council headquarters are just metres from the Arch, where they are hosting an exhibition on Yuri Gagarin's life and the early Soviet space programme.

The figure is a copy of one sited in the town of Lubertsy, just outside Moscow, where Gagarin trained as a foundry worker in his mid-teens. The original was made in 1984 to celebrate what would have been the cosmonaut's 50th birthday.

This article first appeared on the BBC News website


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