A STATUE of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, will be loaned to London for a year.

It celebrates the 50th anniversary of the beginning of manned spaceflights and will be on The Mall, opposite Captain Cook’s statue.

Yuri, who died in a plane crash aged 34, was just 27 when his Vostok 1 circled the Earth. The Russian Space Agency said: “Gagarin belongs not only to Russia but to all nations.”