Управление ООН по вопросам космического пространства

Your Excellency Madam Mazlan Othman,

Distinguished Madam Director General Gagarina

Excellences, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to participate today in this solemn ceremony of screening of a movie– “Gagarin. The First Human in Space”.

The flight of Yury Gagarin on April 12, 1961, became an epoch-making event for my country and the whole world. For the first time in history a human managed to overcome gravitation. 108 minutes of the flight meant a triumph of science and engineering as much as its outstanding contribution to the development of the human civilization.

Yuri Gagarin became not only a national hero but also the emblem of the world’s urge to progress. When Gagarin came back from space he was greeted by millions of people who spontaneously crowded the streets of the whole my country. He grew into a worldwide celebrity and visited many countries, his famous smile covered pages of the most popular newspapers and magazines of the world. 

When now we are thinking of Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin, we bear in mind the future perspectives of our space industry. Russia will remain one of the big space powers in the twenty-first century. The space sector of the Russian industry contributes significantly to our country’s innovative development and find a broad range of applications in medicine, telecommunications, transport, as well as strengthening our country’s security and making Russia more competitive globally. Developing the space sector therefore remains one of the big state priorities. We will continue to constantly increase attention we devote to this sector.

Russiaput the emphasis on manned projects for a long time. They account about 50 percent of the space programme’s budget over various years. As you know, Russia is one of the founders and leading participants of the International Space Station Project (IIS-Project), the Station that became the center of many important discoveries.

We are convinced that the broad international cooperation in space affairs will help to achieve new successes in the technical, scientific and legal aspects of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. That is why we all support efforts by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. And this large scale and very practical day by day international work in outer space meets the greatest dreams of Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin.

My sincere gratitude to the Director General of the Federal State Enterprise “The Moscow Kremlin Museums” Elena Yuryevna Gagarina for bringing the movie here in Vienna. I welcome the producer of the movie Mr. Oleg Kapanets. And also I would like to thank Madam Mazlan Othman for the brilliant organization of the current event.

I wishyou all good luck and pleasant seeing of the movie.

A glass of wine will be served afterwards.