Yuri Gagarin Festival
12 April 2009

National Planetarium

By Yulia Shestakova

Russian and Malaysian Children Exchange Culture on Yuri Gagarin Festival

Children from a Russian school and four other Malaysian schools in Kuala Lumpur celebrated the Yuri Gagarin Festival at the National Planetarium recently.  The event was dedicated to the 75^th Anniversary of the birth of the world’s first man in space, Yuri Gagarin (born on 9 March 1934).

Gagarin became a legend while alive. He became world-famous after the USSR’s successful launch of world’s first-ever manned spacecraft. He did not have the vestige of a superiority complex despite his fame and he will always be remembered as a simple, friendly man. His sincere smile symbolizes the beginning of the space exploration era for almost 50 years, since his historical flight on 12 April 1965.

At the festival, both Russian and Malaysian students exchanged culture through dance and traditional costumes. Both cultures share similarities, which are the friendliness and humility in their dance performances.

It was an interesting event because the Russian students learnt and performed Malay dance and the Malaysian students learnt about the legendary Yuri Gagarin as well as traditional Russian dance.