№ 2084. April 12, 2016 - 55 years of the first manned flight into space

2016 marks the 55th anniversary of the first human flight into space, a remarkable date for the Russian cosmonautics.

On 12 April 1961, the Soviet space pilot Yuri Alexeevich Gagarin became the first man in the world to perform a flight into space. Gagarin made one orbit around the Earth for 1 hour 48 minutes in the Vostok orbital spaceship and safely returned home.

Yuri Gagarin was awarded a title of the Hero of the Soviet Union and 12 April started being celebrated as the World Aviation and Astronautics Day.

The name of the Earth’s first cosmonaut is given to a city of Gagarin (former Gzhatsk), a crater on the far side of the Moon, asteroid 1772, FAI Gold Medal (awarded since 1968) and a square in Moscow. There are streets, avenues, squares, boulevards, parks, clubs and schools named after Gagarin in many Russian cities.

The 2009 postage stamp “the 75th Birth Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin” has an overprint of the new face of 31 RUB, and the stamp sheet margins feature the following text: “12 April 2016 — the 55th anniversary of the first human flight into space”.