Vova Letit v Kosmos [Vova Travels into Space]. by Chistyakov, Antonin - 1961

Kalinin, Kalininskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1961.
Limited to 100 000 copies.
First and only edition.
Rare provincial edition.

The book was signed for printing on 4 March 1961 - one month and one week before Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space. The main character of this children's story, Vova (nickname from Vladimir), plans to land the handmade spaceship (from barrel and tricycle) with his sister, friends and dog Pchelka on the Moon. Actually, there are two dogs, Pchelka and Mushka were launched into space aboard Korabl-Sputnik 3 (Sputnik 6) in December 1960. They perished during reentry. As long as the names of the first Soviet cosmonaut team members were kept secret, the spreading rumours named Vladimir Ilyushin as a possible first man in space. There is another coincidence with the name of the book's hero. In 1964 the cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov piloted the first spaceflight to carry more than one crew member. Komarov was the first human to die in a space flight when the spacecraft crashed during its return to Earth on April 24, 1967.

We couldn't trace any copy of this edition in USA or European libraries via OCLC.