A young city for the youth

Baikonur has celebrated in 2005 its 50th anniversary. Despite this young age, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties where many people were oblige to leave due to job cuts, the young city still counted 70.000 inhabitants in 2006.

The transition to a fully controlled Kazakh city has already started. This will probably last as a minimum 2 generations, i.e. the time remaining to the end of the Russian leasing of the Cosmodrome enclave in 2050. Due to this particular feature, it is difficult to apply to Baikonur Russian demographic figures as long as the city is a complex mixture of Kazakh and Russian populations and cultures.

Anyway, 2008 demographic figures from both sides are worrying:

• Total Fertility Rates are respectively for Russia and Kazakhstan: 1,49 children born by woman and 1,88 (1,53 for the European Union)
• Life expectation at birth for men: 61,8 years in Russia and 62,58 years for Kazakhstan (against 77,5 years for the European Union)
  

Drastic measures have been taken by Russian authorities to reverse these negative trends:

Year 2008 was declared "year of the family" (Год семьи)
Advertisement on a Baikonur door shop

and 2009 "year of the Youth" ( Год Молодежи)
Large board on the "Prospekt Koroleva" (Korolev Avenue)

Both programs were supported by the Baikonur city and widely advertised within the town.
One funny poster carries over the national slogan with a slight local flavor:
Baikonur is my city! says this baby looking in the telescope.
Note on the left side of the poster, the typical steppe short red tulips; we may also have the chance the see them blooming (?)

The poster below, on the same topic, is quiet interesting. The slogan "Baikonur: my native city" is written in both languages: Kazakh and Russian (last line) reflecting the Kazakh/Russian ruling of the transition period. The portrait of the young Kazakh boy underlines the pride to be born in Baikonur, and also suggests on the long term, the Kazakh fate of this area.
Both posters posted on the Gagarin Avenue

Beyond these statistics, when one wanders throughout the city, Baikonur gives the impression of a dynamic city where the youth is omnipresent.
Full discotheques at the week end, teenagers playing soccer downtown or young children playing on the numerous play grounds everywhere in the city.

...
This long introduction about the youth, makes a perfect transition to talk about "our baby", CryoSat-2. It is going extremely well (this is confirmed by the measurements made during our daily visits). It enjoys much the baby sitting phase provided it will not last too long!
I let you to guess what is the best play ground game it would enjoy in the city,

and its favorite candy bar :-)