Belka and Strelka graffiti Postcard

Graffiti Festival "First on Mars". Tomsk. Russia. The festival was dedicated to the Day of Cosmonautics. (Cosmonautics Day (Russian: Den Kosmonavtiki) is a holiday celebrated in Russia and some other former USSR countries on April 12. Later on, since April 7, 2011 the April 12 was declared as the International Day of Human Space Flight in dedication of the first manned space flight made on April 12, 1961 by the 27-year-old Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin circled the Earth for 1 hour and 48 minutes aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft). Belka (literally, "Squirrel" or, alternately, "Whitey") and Strelka ("Arrow") - space dogs, spent a day in space aboard Korabl-Sputnik-2 (Sputnik 5) on 19 August 1960 before safely returning to Earth. They were accompanied by a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and several plants and fungi. All passengers survived. They were the first Earth-born creatures to go into orbit and return alive.