Downtown London to erect monument to first man in space

LONDON, February 25 (Itar-Tass) -- To commemorate the first manned
flight into space which took place fifty years ago London will erect a
monument to Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who blasted off on April 12,
1961.
"The monument will be erected in downtown London," a representative of
the British Council told Tass on Thursday adding all details are kept in
secret and will be disclosed only in mid-March when London will officially
announce plans to commemorate the first man in space.
Earlier Britain's Minister of State for Universities and Science David
Willetts said the monument to Yuri Gagarin will be erected in downtown
London in July. Willets made the statement after signing an agreement with
the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos in Moscow on holding the
Russian-British Year of Space in 2011.
He said the statue will be built in front of a monument to British
explorer and navigator James Cook.
Gagarin visited the United Kingdom in July 1961.
The first man in space was killed in a plane crash during a routine
flight in a MiG fighter in 1968.