The statue is the most visible part of an exhibition put on by the British Council, a cultural-exchange outfit, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight. The exhibition is modest, filling a room in the Council’s offices with artefacts, pictures and documents from the Soviet space programme.

The Vail Valley Foundation staff had received a call that the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, in the midst of its first U.S. tour, had to cancel its shows scheduled for Texas. Would Vail be willing to host the world-renowned ballet company's first U.S. performance instead?

With a potentially contentious Russian presidential election looming in 2012, we at RealClearWorld thought it would be useful to examine just where Russia's leadership is most prized, and respected. Using Gallup data, we set out to find the Top 5 Most Pro-Russian Countries.