KALUGA, October 31. /TASS/. The authorities of the Spanish city of Barcelona plan to install a monument to the first man in space Yuri Gagarin in front of the Christopher Columbus statue, Deputy Governor of Russia’s Kaluga Region Vladimir Potyomkin said on Monday.
The city of Kaluga is considered to be the cradle of Russia’s space exploration as the famous Russian rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory Konstantin Tsiolkovsky lived and worked there. Kaluga was the first city that Gagarin visited after his space flight. The monument to Gagarin in Kaluga stands in front of the Tsiolkovsky State Space Museum.
Spain voiced its initiative at the Fifth Eurasian Forum held a few days ago in the Italian city of Verona. A monument to Gagarin was inaugurated in Verona during the forum.
Monuments dedicated to Gagarin have been erected in various cities throughout the world thanks to efforts by the ‘Dialogue of Cultures - One World’ charity foundation, which provides all the cities with Gagarin’s busts for free. Earlier monuments to Gagarin were installed in France, Germany, Bulgaria, the US, China, India, Argentina, Uzbekistan, Cyprus and other countries of the world.
Deputy Governor of the Kaluga Region, Alexei Nikitenko, handed down instructions to invite the mayor of Verona, Flavio Tosi, as well as mayors of others cities where Gagarin monuments have already been installed, to the opening ceremony of the second part of the space museum that is under construction in Kaluga.
The monument to the Italian-Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus who discovered America in 1492, is located at the end of the La Rambla Boulevard in the Barcelona port area.