World celebrates 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight

Itar Tass: World celebrates 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight

OTTAWA, April 11 (Itar-Tass) -- The MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver has held a gala meeting devoted to an outstanding role played by first world cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in the history of space exploration. A representative of the MacMillan Space Center, Tracy Cromwell, in an interview with Itar-Tass praised a great role played by Gagarin’s space mission. The gala event was organized to pay tribute to Yuri Gagarin and his contribution to the history of manned space flights, Cromwell said.

On the eve of the 50th jubilee of the first manned space flight special events devoted to the historic anniversary were held in Canada, including at the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, a conference of writers of science fiction in Toronto, museums in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, the Astronomical Observatory in Alberta and the University of Western Ontario.

ROME - Special events timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flight are beginning at the Sapienza University of Rome on Monday. The main gala events attended by Russian and Italian cosmonauts will be held at the University of Insubria in Varese (Milan) on April 12, where a scientific conference devoted to the present, past and future of manned space flights will be held. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev, who had been to space four times including a space mission to the Mir orbital station and the International Space Station, will take part in the conference. A documentary film devoted to Yuri Gagarin will be demonstrated for the first time at Milan Planetarium.

The Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology organized a meeting with Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev, who took part in two international space expeditions to the Mir orbital station and the International Space Station, and US astronaut Walter Cunningham who was the Lunar module pilot in the 1968 Apollo mission. Italian astronaut Maurizio Cheli who took part in the Columbia shuttle expedition in 1975 is to join his Russian and US colleagues.

TBILISI - An exhibition "The Way to the Stars" devoted to the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight was held at the Russian Drama Theatre in Tbilisi on Sunday. On display were paintings created by talented children who took part in the Georgian national competition of children’s drawings organized by the “Russian Club” international cultural organization.

More than 250 young artists from Georgia aged from 4 to 17 took part in the competition at which 600 drawings were displayed. The winners - the nine-year-old Luka Gotua from Tbilisi and the 16-year-old Georgy Kopadze from Rustavi, were awarded a free sightseeing tour to Russia which includes historical cities on Russia's "Golden Ring" tourist itinerary.