Postcard #1: A stroll in Baikonur city

Dear all,
Today is Sunday: this means for us the only free day of the week we have. So Let's keep it easy: I just send you a postcard. There will be a dedicated message on Baikonur city that will be posted later on.

So, to celebrate our "one day week end", it was decided to have a diner on Saturday evening in a Kazakh restaurant in a Yourte (the usual tent used by the nomads in the steppe). Excellent lamb and pork Шашлы́к or "Shashliks" (brochettes in French), nice atmosphere and eventually nobody got sick :-)

Credits: Philippe

This morning, Sunday, temperature was -15C with a light wind and few drops of snow, but the sky cleared up progressively in the day so we had a beautiful light to enjoy the Baikonur foot tour.

First we went down to the Syr Darya River, on the south edge of the town. The river still flows a bit despite the large frozen areas. This is due to the presence of hot-springs along the river at this place which pour into the river and melt the ice. We walked on the ice few hundred meters along the bank.


There is anyway a safe ice ring a bit further where skaters were obviously enjoying themselves.


Coming back to the City center we could not escape to pass through the habitation blocks so typical from the Soviet era where most of the population lives. They are in mean condition due to the evident lack of maintenance. The new constructions don't look better than the old ones ...


We went then to The Evrasia mall (the term is may be slightly exaggerated compared to regular US ones) and the Open Market. Both are lively places on Sunday where people are shopping clothes, hats, food, cosmetics, spices ... like in the West, but the brands and the fashion are quiet different.

We passed the Baikonur Railway station where stands an old steam locomotive decommissioned in 2005 (Diesel ones are used nowadays). This machine was used to pull the rockets within the cosmodrome. This is obviously one of the strong symbols of the golden age of the Space era with rockets, sputnik, heroes, etc which are on display everywhere in the city.


Finally we passed by the Cosmonaut Hotel. This hotel is used by cosmonauts before space missions. In the park around the hotel, there is the famous "Allei Kosmonotov" the Cosmonaut's path, where a tree is planted each time a cosmonaut flies a mission. We (Kirill and Bill) could not resist to make a picture front of the Gagarin tree, a veteran tree which is 48 years old now!


En passant, at the end of the Cosmonaut's path there is a superb view on the steppe and the Syr Darya river.


Last word on the people we have met today in the city. It is a mixed population from Russian and Kazakh origin. All the contacts and discussion we had were very friendly. They were may be surprised to see guys taking pictures in a city where tourism is almost not existing. As people don't speak English any (non academic) Russian knowledge is particularly useful.

To be followed...

From Russia with love!

Kirill Blogovitch

PS: Scene of children playing on the icy streets of Baikonur today