Statue of Yuri Gagarin, Greenwich facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Yuri Gagarin |
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| Artist | After Anatoly Novikov |
| Year | 2011 |
| Type | Zinc statue |
| Location | Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London, United Kingdom |
The Statue of Yuri Gagarin in Greenwich, London, is a zinc statue depicting the cosmonaut wearing a spacesuit and standing on top of a globe. The figure was originally unveiled on 14 July 2011 at a temporary location in the Mall, close to Admiralty Arch and facing the statue of Captain James Cook. It was later moved to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, at a site overlooking the Prime Meridian line, and was unveiled at the new location on 7 March 2013. There had been an unsuccessful proposal to move it to Manchester.
The 3.5-metre (11 ft) high statue is a replica of an original by Anatoly Novikov in Lyubertsy, where Gagarin was trained as a foundry worker. The statue was a gift to the British Council from the Russian space agency Roscosmos as a part of several cultural events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight. The original location of the statue was chosen to be where Gagarin first met the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
