Baikonur city has also its own Space museum

Let's have a short look at the Historical Museum of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The place of this museum in the city is interesting for 2 reasons:
-first from there started on May 5th 1955 the new constructions to develop the city that would become Leninsk,

-Second, this large building called the city art palace is the cultural "heart" of the city with a museum, a library, a full scale theater where concerts, dancing performances , as well as many juvenile cultural activities take place.

This museum on the 1st floor and the Gagarine's museum visited last week on the cosmodrome are roughly covering the same topics i.e 50 years of soviet space history.

Here under are few snapshots mostly at random making this museum a "must" to visit in the City.

The 2 rockets on display below, the Gagarin's launcher Vostok on the left and the Soyuz rocket on the right, explain why Russia remains still today a "super" space power. Despite a significant upgrade, the Sozuz launcher is the continuation of the Vostok one and will be in 2 or 3 years time from now, when the US space shuttle will be in the museum, the only access to the International Space Station. This means that by just improving the robust technology from the Gagarin time, Russia is still in the race, while the USA are coming back after the Shuttle experience to more conventional launchers for manned space missions.

On the background, portraits of the key Russian scientists and engineers of this space saga from Tsiolkovkyi till Korolev and after...In between few debris of failed launches.

A beautiful model of the Soyuz on its dedicated launch pad.
Soyuz is fitted here with a manned spacecraft. The top of the rocket is equipped with a device that will enable the capsule to separate from the launcher in case of failure.

A model of the Gagarin's spaceship: the Vostok 3KA spacecraft.

Another strong asset of the Russian Rocket line: The proton carrying rocket, a competitor of the Ariane V Rocket for commercial launches.
2 proton launches took place during the CryoSat-2 launch campaign that were visible early morning (still dark) from the Sputnik hotel.

Buran made a single automatic flight on November 15th 1988. Here on display behind the model is the a real piece of the parachute that helped to brake the shuttle after landing.

An artist impression of the Sputnik flying around the Earth

in the room dedicated to manned space flight
...the famous 1969 movie from Vladymar Motyl: The white sun of the desert . The tradition wants that this movie is seen by Cosmonauts the day before their flights. The exact reason for viewing this particular film remains unclear.

And a picture of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky of the father of the rocket design and modern astronautics in his cabinet with its acoustic horn.