“From the first moment I saw a piece of space dog ephemera I was hooked,” says the photographer and avid collector Martin Parr in the foreword to a new book featuring his canine-themed Soviet memorabilia. In the 1950s, before man was sent into space, the USSR dispatched dogs up there (first a stray called Laika – meaning “barker” – then Belka and Strelka), which kickstarted a huge industry in collectibles featuring canine cosmonauts, from painted plates and clocks to Russian dolls and cigarette cases. Parr has spent 20 years scouring the internet and Moscow flea markets to source his beloved space dogs. “A useful way to understand the impact that they had on Russian society,” he says, “is to draw a parallel with the Beatles or Mickey Mouse, those western icons that generated huge quantities of memorabilia.”
Space Dogs by Martin Parr and Richard Hollingham is out on 10 June (Laurence King, £12.99)
