Russia’s request to Chavan: Name Lalbaug flyover after Yuri Gagarin

Over two weeks after the world celebrated the golden jubilee of Yuri Gagarin’s first space flight,Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has received a request from Alexey A Novikov,the Russian consul general in Mumbai,asking for the new Lalbaug flyover to be named after the cosmonaut. “We have recently learned that a huge flyover on the Dadar TT-Byculla route is to be inaugurated by June 30 this year. It is designed to be primarily used by the former mill-workers. May we suggest naming it after the first man in space,Yuri Gagarin,who exemplified the views and ideals of the working class of the Soviet Union,” says the letter dated May 24,a copy of which is with The Indian Express.

A new era was ushered in space history on April 12,1961,when Gagarin became the first human being to journey into space as his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the earth. Gagarin visited Mumbai in October 1961,when he had addressed a rally at Shivaji Park and later attended a dinner in his honour. “We believe that naming the flyover after Yuri Gagarin,who ushered in a new space era,will be symbolic during the golden jubilee of his first space flight that the world celebrated on April 12,2011. Further,it was Mumbai that Gagarin chose to visit after his space flight,which makes the city the right place to commemorate him. All the more so,as India is presently one of the greatest space nations in the world and enjoys a long and mutually beneficially record of joint space programmes with Russia,” reads the letter.

Sources said Novikov also met BMC commissioner Subodh Kumar on May 25 to discuss the flyover matter. Officials said no decision on the naming had been taken yet. The consul general has also requested for a meeting with Chavan to discuss the matter. The letter goes on to say that several Russian cities have “venues” commemorating Mahatma Gandhi,Jawaharlal Nehru,Rajiv Gandhi,Rabindranath Tagore and other “great pearls of India”. “Russia and India enjoy a time-tested friendship that has extended far beyond a governmental level to a regional,grassroots level… Russian regional and local authorities name streets in honour of prominent Indian statesman and erect monuments to immortalise them…Similarly,we believe that there’s quite a large number of outstanding men in Russia,who,we feel,deserve to be commemorated,” says the letter.