Russia remembers Gagarin mission

Wreaths are being laid across Russia

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russians have marked the 40th anniversary of the first manned space flight by laying wreaths in memory of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

President Vladimir Putin has also visited the national cosmonaut training complex during Cosmonauts Day, which is celebrated every year to mark Gagarin's pioneering, 108 minute flight on April 12, 1961.

But the celebrations are taking place amid protests at the nation's diminishing resources for space exploration. Space engineers called a rally outside the government headquarters to voice their concerns.

Russia took the lead in the U.S - Soviet space race with Gagarin's takeoff, a position which has been destabilised in recent years as the Russian Space programme has become strapped for funds.

Putin visited Star City, where cosmonauts are trained, on Thursday and will lay flowers at the monument to Gagarin. He was expected to meet with Russian space veterans.

"We have the right to take pride in the fact that this huge, scientific-technical breakthrough was achieved in our country," Putin said in a statement.

Many ceremonies are taking place across Russia, including space officials laying a wreath and bunches of red carnations at Gagarin's grave in the wall of the Moscow Kremlin.

Gagarin is remembered fondly in Russia

Interfax news agency quoted a Russian space researcher as saying on Thursday that three Soviet pilots died in secret test launches before Gagarin made his maiden space flight.

But a senior Russian space official denounced the remarks as nonsense.

Interfax quoted Mikhail Rudenko, who worked as an engineer in one the main Soviet space centres, as saying three suborbital flights had been carried out from Kapustin Yar cosmodrome in southern Russia in 1957, 1958 and 1959.

He said all three flights -- in which rockets followed a parabolic trajectory that briefly entered outer space at the highest point -- ended in failure.

"Foolishness, just plain foolishness. I don't even think this deserves comment," Sergei Gorbunov, spokesman for Russia's space and aviation agency Rosaviakosmos, said when asked to comment on the Interfax report.

"It is just an old legend associated with Gagarin's flight."

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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