First person in space: 60 years later, legend of Yuri Gagarin lives on in Russia

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 metres (140 feet) above the traffic flowing on Moscow’s Leninsky Avenue. He is even a favourite subject of tattoos.

The Soviet Union may be gone and Russia’s glory days in space long behind it, but Gagarin’s legend lives on, a symbol of Russian success and - for a Kremlin keen to inspire patriotic fervour - an important source of national pride.

“He is a figure who inspires an absolute consensus that unifies the country,” says Gagarin’s biographer Lev Danilkin.

“This is a very rare case in which the vast majority of the population is unanimous.”