Yuri Gagarin statue unveiled in London

Elena Gagarina was joined by Prince Michael of Kent as she inaugurated the statue of pioneering Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin outside the British Council's headquarters.

Ms Gagarina, who is the general director of Moscow's Kremlin Museums, said she was "very proud" to unveil the statue exactly 50 years to the day after Gagarin met the Queen as part of a visit to the UK in 1961.

She said: "I think that if my father knew about this he would be very proud too.

"He was greatly impressed with the reception of people of the United Kingdom he had in those days 50 years ago.

"As he knew from newspapers and literature they are very closed but he felt when he came to Great Britain that everybody liked him very much and they expressed their joy so that he was astonished."

Mr Gagarin was 27 when he blasted into space on board the Vostok 1 space capsule in the first manned space flight.

He orbited the earth for 108 minutes in April 1961 and upon landing became famous on both sides of the Iron Curtain separating the communist east from the capitalist west.

The statue made by Russian sculptor Anatoly Novikov is a gift from the Russian Space Agency and will stand in The Mall opposite a statue of explorer Captain James Cook for a year. Telegraph