INTERNATIONAL GAGARIN READINGS LAUNCHED IN GAGARIN TOWN








GAGARIN, MARCH 9, 2001 /FROM RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT VLADIMIR KOROLYOV/ -- On Friday international public and research readings devoted to the 67th birth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin. The readings are being held in Gagarin, the birth place of the world's first astronaut.


	


	The opening ceremony involved Soviet and Russian pilot-astronauts, staffers of Rosaviakosmos, veterans of the Baikonur space port, colleagues of the prominent spacecraft designer Sergei Korolyov, scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences, of the International Astronautics Academy and of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.


	


	Participating in the readings are representatives of the Russian and Ukrainian Cosmonautics Federations, foreign guests, daughter Natalya Sergeyevna of Sergei Korolyov and daughter Galina Yuryevna of Yuri Gagarin, and his brother Valentin Alekseyevich.


	


	Long-standing chairman of the organisation committee of the readings Alexei Leonov, pilot-astronaut of the USSR, two-time Hero of the Soviet Union, said that the readings would last three days and include the following courses: "Profession of an Astronaut", "Cosmonautics and Society", "Cosmonautics and Youth", "History of Piloted Cosmonautics and Space and Missile Materiel", "Museum of Cosmonautics: Experience, Problems, Prospects."