OREANDA-NEWS. December 9, 2008. Roscosmos regrets about sale of the Russian space historical documents to take place in the Sotheby`s auction, New-York.

"Roscosmos is sorrowful about the sale of the Russian space rarities in the Sotheby`s. We hope that Russian businessmen will buy and bring the historical documents back to Russia, and, may be, present them to the Space Museum which is to open at the Russian Exhibition Center”, told Alexander Vorobiev, Roscosmos Press Secretary.

According to him, the Agency does not have funding to purchase the rarities.

Mr. Vorobiev noted that the documents of Yury Gagarin and Vasily Mishin, rocket designer and colleague of Sergey Korolev, appeared overseas from private and family collections, at the time when the Federal Space Agency had not been established yet. That`s why, the Agency could not affect the situation. In addition, Roscosmos authority does not cover export of the documents from Russia. This is a function of the legal agencies, notes Roscosmos Press Secretary.

"The measures are undertaken to keep the documents signed by Sergey Korolev and other Chief Designers in Russia. These documents are to be handed over to the Ministry of Culture, to be precise, to the Federal Archive Agency, which runs state inventory for these unique documents", states Mr. Vorobiev.

Some Russian mass media informed earlier that the Sotheby`s auction was going to sell Russian space historical rarities on Dec. 11, including the report about Gagarin`s mission in the Vostok spaceship, copy of the text of Gagarin`s report to the State Board, and diaries and memoirs of V. Mishin.