Celebrating mans first space travel

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The April 12, 1961, report in the Huntsville Times, Alabama, shouts; ‘Man Enters Space’ - and in smaller type, ‘Soviet Officer Orbits Globe in 5-Ton Ship.’ The paper has another AP report on how really close the USSR-US space race really was back then."The Redstone Rocket stands on a launch pad here. The Soviets beat its firing date by at least two weeks,’’ adds the report from Cape Canaveral, US.Front pages of newspapers from around the globe - faded with age, but still fascinating in content - announcing Yuri Gagarin’s great space trek; photographs and posters and letters written by Gagarin, are on display at the Russian Cultural Centre here as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the first human space flight.The exhibition, titled ‘Poetry of Cosmos’, is jointly organised by the Moscow State Esenin Museum, Russian Cultural Centre and the Russkiy Mir Foundation. On April 12, 1961, Gagarin flew into history in the space module Vostok I by becoming both the first man in space and the first human to orbit the earth. Front pages of ‘Time’, ‘Pravda’, ‘Izvestia’ and German and French papers celebrating the endeavour are among the exhibits.Other interesting items include a sepia-tinted page covered with neat Russian Cyrillic. Written by Gagarin, it is titled ‘Avtobiographeeya’ (Autobiography).The photographs and posters at the exhibition take the visitor through the triumph and glory of man’s first hesitant footsteps in space.In November 1961, Gagarin and wife Valentina were given a rousing reception in New Delhi.Photographs of the couple with the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon and their trips to places like ‘Lucknau’ are part of the exhibition.The exhibition also hopes to popularise the poetry of Russian poet Sergei Esenin, who inspired Gagarin.‘Poetry of Cosmos’ is on from 10 am to 5 pm at the Russian Cultural Centre till Saturday.