Auction Name: 2025 December 11 - 12 Space Exploration Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 50022

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6326*50022

General Nikolai Kamanin: Photo Album Presented to Him by the People of Orenburg, Signed by Yuri Gagarin dated June 1961, from Kamanin's Personal Collection. Nikolai Kamanin traveled with Yuri Gagarin to Orenburg, Russia, in June 1961 for a major public event following Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight. Contemporary Soviet sources and entries from Kamanin's diaries describe how, after Gagarin's successful world-orbit mission in April 1961, he and Kamanin embarked on multiple domestic and international appearances between May and September that year, including a ceremonial visit to Orenburg, the city where Gagarin had trained as a pilot at the First Chkalov Air Force Pilot School. The Orenburg visit occurred in June 1961 and featured a celebratory presentation honoring both Gagarin's achievement and the Air Force's role in the early space program, with Kamanin accompanying him in his official capacity as head of cosmonaut training and his de facto public mentor during the early post-flight months.

Offered here is the photo album given to Kamanin as a souvenir of that visit. It is 12" x 8" x 1.5" and bound in green leatherette with a color postcard of Gagarin on the cover. Inside the front cover is pasted an 8.25" x 6.25" gold ink printed label in Russian: "To Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin/ from the people of Orenburg/ June 1961". It is signed in black ink: "Yuri Gagarin/ 15 June 1961". Inside are thirty-eight high quality 7" x 5" glossy B&W photos mounted to heavyweight pages, spanning the entire visit. A completely unique item. Binding loose, light wear to front cover, fine. From an important collection of Soviet-era Space history

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