Plumes of smoke mushroom around the rocket as it shakes itself free, slowly at first and then shuddering speeds away from the earth. "That day the era of humanity in space started", Kubasov, a fellow astronaut, says of Gagarin's feat. The men and women of the USSR space programme look back on it fondly, it was the pinnacle of their efforts, a glorious symbol of the USSR's might and prowess. The man who helped design Sputnik describes the three most important moments in space travel, the first satellite, the first man in space, the first man on the moon; two of the three were Russian victories. But in Russia, while this may be the year we remember Gagarin, his and the Soviet Union's achievements in space have long been buried by forgetfulness. "Nowadays you stop someone in the street, they wouldn't know who Gagarin is", says his niece. Yet even if the world has moved on and space travel is off the agenda, they are still proud of what they achieved in what now appears to have been the astronaut's golden age, "The importance of space exploration has not declined, but now nobody cares."

A film by Cafi Mohamud and Luca Cusani