New memorial signs in honour of space conquerors set up at Gagarin airport

On Space Day April 12, a ceremony of installing memorial signs to Hero of the Russian Federation space pilot Aleksandr Skvortsov, and space research pilot of the Roscosmos cosmonaut team Ivan Wagner was held in the city of Saratov on the Cosmonauts Alley of Gagarin International Airport (managed by Airports of Regions MC).

The setup of memorial signs continues the tradition started on 12 April 2019, when the world’s first female astronaut, USSR Hero Valentina Tereshkova, laid the Cosmonauts Alley in the near-airport square where a memorial sign with her signature was later installed. On Russian Air Fleet Day in 2019, two more memorial signs were installed at the Cosmonauts Alley with signatures of space pilot and Hero of Russia Yuri Shargin as well as space pilot and Hero of Russia Sergei Prokopyev. In August of the same year, a memorial sign with the name and signature of Yuri Gagarin was installed on the Cosmonauts Alley. The ceremony was attended by Elena Gagarina, daughter of the planet’s first astronaut and Director General of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.

Cosmonauts Alley is part of an outer space exposition created in the territory of Gagarin International Airport. It complements the theme park in front of the passenger terminal where the “Space Capsule” installation symbolizing the spot of the first astronaut's landing is located – an 18-meter “shimmering stele” with the airport name written in Russian and English. The stele is covered with thin polished metal plates set in motion by air currents, thus turning the façade into a kinetic sculpture.