Moscow is a mystery for every foreigner. We traveled Moscow for a few days and explored the great unknown among the world cities.
Proud and stubborn to this day, indomitable even if all the other large western states continue to criticize. Russia is different, as is its capital Moscow. You must have seen that. Read part 1 of the story here, part 2 is here, the 3 part here, part 4 here.
The little boy on his skateboard races past the enormous granite base of the Moscow Cosmos Monument, a 109-meter-high obelisk made of titanium that rises into the wide and clear blue Russian sky like a curved arrow. The area around the famous "Museum of the cosmonautics" it is equally large and expansive, an area that seems to imitate the infinite expanses of space for the visitor down on earth.
A thoroughly intentional effect, because as the name of the monument suggests, which is "For the Conquerors of Space," Russia still sees itself as the greatest space-faring nation of the earth. And the Museum of Cosmonauts, which opened in 1959 and was completely redesigned in 2009, is correspondingly large and splendid, unsurpassed and exciting.
Transformed for the future
The dusty museum from the Soviet era has been transformed into a modern exhibition with many space apparatuses and flight simulators. From the R-7, at the time the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, to the first satellite Sputnik, the "Mir" (Peace) space station and the "Buran" space shuttle, named oifter a stron asian wind, everything Russia contributed to the conquest of space can be seen here.
"We were the first in space" is written on a giant balloon in front of the new museum. Russia is using it to commemorate the fact that the Soviet Union was the first nation to launch an artificial Earth satellite - Sputnik - into space in 1957. It was followed by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, who was the first person to orbit the Earth in a spacecraft.
It is impressive how tiny all the flying machines were, how stone-age the switches and buttons look today, and how crazy people must have been who ventured into the infinity of space in these tin cans.
Flight-control centre for everyone
According to own informations of the institution, there are about 3,500 attractions in the Moscow museum. Among them is a walk-through replica of the Soviet Mir space station, which sank in the Pacific in 2001, a movie theater that runs explanatory films, and a mini-flight control center for live connections to the International Space Station (ISS).
As an interactive museum, the large low-rise building aims to let every visitor experience a rocket launch, landings and other phases of a space flight. But of course, it takes imagination to do this because you cannot been Jeff Bezos and have a real flight.
But it works. At this place you come nearer to the sky than everywhere else. You cabn see and touch the real instruments, the seats of an space craft, the jackets and the overalls.
Comeback of russian space
The total remodeling of the old-fashioned exhibition from Soviet times took three years to Russia's Palace of Proud, running parallel to a comeback of the Russian space industry, which has become almost as important again under Vladimir Putin as it was in communist times. Russia wants to stay ahead in space, and the Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite System) satellite navigation system has shown that it can. In the prestige project, a competitor to the American GPS system, Russia has overtaken the EU.
If it is to continue to succeed, it needs new talent. And to attract them, it needs the same kind of enthusiasm like the soviets have had. The facility next to the memorial to the "conquerors of space" with its many space machines, video walls and flight simulators is intended to generate this enthusiasm. The goal is to show the "magnificence of space," as it is officially called.
Today four times larger than originally, the house offers 8,500 square meters of exhibition space, through which one can wander for hours to see rockets and rocket models, space shuttles, ejection seats, Soyuz capsules, space suits, tools and photographs.
Heroes with furs
In addition, there are reports on the first animal space pioneers - the dogs Laika, Strelka and Belka - and their human successors, who came from countries that no one would believe today: Muhammed Achmed Faris was Syrian, Abdul Ahad Momand Afghan origin.
What this guys felt when their rocket took off is made clear by a flight simulator in which space fans can get a feel for weightlessness. As in the case of the other major space nation, which operates similar museums in Houston, for example, the tour ends directly outside through a large souvenir store, which sells toy rockets, Soyuz T-shirts, space suits for carnivals and model kits. For a smaller amout ob rubels you can get as well as real cosmonaut food.
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