Gagarin, 1st man in space, a towering figure in Russia

MOSCOW: Sixty years after he became the first person in space, there are few figures more universally admired in Russia today than Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

His smiling face adorns murals across the country. He stands, arms at his sides as if zooming into space, on a pedestal 42.5 meters above the traffic flowing on Moscow’s Leninsky Avenue. He is even a favorite subject for tattoos.