RUSSIA celebrated Cosmonauts’ Day today, with events taking place across the country to mark the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space on April 12 1961. 

His flight in the Vostok 1 spacecraft lasted 108 minutes and earned him the Hero of the Soviet Union award, that nation’s highest honour.

“Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!” he famously said.