And for millions of Russians, as they contemplate the sharp decline in their country's standing and the recent loss of their "embassy in space", the space platform Mir, it is a source of pride, a reminder of a time when they could still cock a snook at the United States.

Gagarin's historic flight on April 12, 1961, a single orbit of the earth lasting just under two hours, made the carpenter's son, raised on a collective farm, a household name from Spitzbergen to Tierra del Fuego, from the Andes to the Gobi desert.

The feat was acclaimed by British astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell as "the greatest scientific achievement in human history".

US President John Kennedy conceded the "impressive" nature of the event while American space experts fought back their bile, their team of astronauts caught on the hop as they trained for their own bid for glory.

In the Soviet Union, joy was unconfined. Rumours had circulated for days beforehand that a major propaganda coup was pending, and when TASS announced, an hour after blast-off, that they had a man in space, tools were downed around the country.

Red Square was packed with delirious Muscovites, and the daily Pravda, a byword for dour party orthodoxy, produced a special edition with an eight-column headline celebrating "the greatest event in the history of the world". It was not the first time the Soviet Union had pipped America in the space race, and it was not to be the last.

On October 4, 1957 Soviet scientists had placed the first satellite in orbit, adding the word "sputnik" to the world's lexicon.

A month later a dog, Laika, was launched into orbit, becoming the world's first space martyr, and two years later a Soviet satellite circumnavigated the moon, returning pictures of its far side. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

Gagarin meanwhile became an icon. Posters of his smiling, country-boy's face, peering over the rim of his space-suit, adorned bedroom walls around the globe.

The story of his life, from his boyhood to the moment he clambered into the space capsule atop the rocket that would blast him into history, shouting "Poyekhali!" (let's go), joined the Communist party catechism. He had been the successful candidate from among 3,000 applicants for an unspecified "special mission," whittled down to a shortlist of 20.

Six men were finally chosen as fit for space flight, and at the last it was Gagarin who got the nod.

Even so, Gagarin could still have missed his date with destiny. Another of the designated six, Valentin Bondarenko, died just three weeks before the historic flight when a decompression chamber caught fire during a training exercise.

Gagarin went on to become an ambassador for his country and an advertisement for the benefits of the Communist way of life, meeting kings and queens, presidents and ordinary people.

His sudden death while on a test flight near Moscow on March 27, 1968 plunged the Soviet Union into mourning and gave rise to innumerable rumours, ranging from a KGB plot, on the grounds that he might have begun to doubt Communism, to a kidnapping by extraterrestrials.

If Russians feel Gagarin's loss all the more keenly now, it is because he symbolises a period of hope, when the Soviet Union was emerging from the horrors of war and Stalinist dictatorship and appeared to be able to compete on equal terms with the United States.

Amid rising standards of living, an easing of totalitarian constraints and real achievements in science and culture, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's famous boast to western diplomats -- "We will bury you!" -- did not appear wholly fantastic.

Dying young (he was only 34), Gagarin was spared any stain on his memory, that of a true hero of the Soviet Union.

He enjoys another, less celebrated distinction, that of being the first philosopher of space travel.

Speeding over the earth's surface at 18,000 miles an hour he was able to observe, from his altitude of 180 miles (300 kilometres), that the world was indeed round, and mostly water, and magnificent.

It was also, he noted from space, without borders or nationality.

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