Cosmonautica?

On our recent trip to Russia there was one place that interested me probably more than any other: The Museum of Cosmonautics. I'm sort of at techie at heart.  My wife, Claudette, can attest to this having visited many aircraft, railroad, automobile and naval museums with me.   What better to summarize Russian technology than a museum dedicated to space exploration? It was a "must see" for me in Moscow. The museum is located at 111 Prospekt Mira, VDNKh, and it was easy to find once you learned how to read the Russian metro maps. Like most subway maps the lines are numbered, named, and color coded. Moscow subways are world renowned for their uniqueness. Nearly seven million people a day ride the Moscow subway.  There are two ring lines with a male voice announcing on the clockwise train while the opposite is announced by a female voice.  875 direct current volts move the trains along the tracks at what seems to be extremely fast rate. Published rate of speed is only 25.9 miles per hour. I tend to believe that is an exercise in creative writing. The subway was opened in 1935 and has highly decorative Art Deco waiting platforms with arched ceilings decorated to celebrate the Russian worker. At the end of one of the platforms was a huge hammer and sickle. We queried our guide about it, but she said that was from the old Russia. Russian guides tend not to talk much of the communist ruled Russia or the days of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The columns are connected by archways, many of which have decorative statues. The statues are painted black, but there is a statue of a dog whose nose is shiny bare metal. Thousands of Russians each day rub his nose for good luck.  Claudette and I did too. You can never have too much good luck.

We had to change trains twice to get to our destination.  If you turned left when you exited the train, you were at the museum, but you may not know it.  A man pointed toward a giant monument when I finally got him to understand what we were looking for. This was the Monument to the Conquerors of Space.  It was very impressive.  There is a titanium rocket atop its trail three hundred fifty feet in the air. The base was over fifty feet long and had steps all around. We could see no entrance. I sat on a bench while claudette reconnoitered. While  I sat a few Hare Krishnas came by chanting and beating a drum. The were followed by what appeared to be Russian college students. I guess some things are the same all over. When Claudette returned we decided we would go back to the street and venture further away from the train station.  Sure enough, in less than a block we found the entrance to the museum. We had not turned left when exiting the train.

The Museum of Cosmonautics is sub-terranean beneath the Conquerors of Space monument.We paid an  entrance fee  of 200 rubles, or $2.95.  They wanted an extra 200 for the right to take pictures, and even more if you wanted to shoot video. I thought this was ridiculous.  Instead, I did drawings. Fortunately, I had my Moleskine sketchbook with me. Don't get me wrong, I love to draw, but it An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, all spacemen, whether astronauts or cosmonauts, must perform a specific act to insure a safe flight. When the vehicle which transports them to the spacecraft stops midway, they must get off the bus and urinate on the back tires to ensure good luck. This fact may or may not be listed on a caption in the museum.  My Russian is very poor.  

slows you down when visiting a large museum.   The museum is fascinating and had recently undergone a renovation. It traces Russian space exploration from its humble beginnings to the present day.  I remember when the Russians launched the first artificial satellite. It was called Sputnik.  It was only about the size of a volleyball with some antennae sticking out. People would go outside and look into the night sky and claim they saw it. In cartoons it always made a "beep-beep" sound. The U.S. was caught dreaming about space while the Russians were going there. As a result, American education systems placed renewed emphasis on science and mathematics. Soon the Americans caught up with the Russians and probably surpassed them in space exploration. Yuri Gagarin was the first man to orbit the earth, and his space capsule is on display.  Once he had entered the earth's atmosphere and was at a fairly low altitude he ejected from his capsule and parachuted to earth. The Russians, unlike Americans, always recovered their cosmonauts and their craft on land rather than sea. Gagarin, now deceased, started a pre-launch tradition the is still observed today. According to Chris Hadfield's book,

There are many space capsules and models of spacecraft to be seen. A model of a space shuttle very similar to ours as well as robotic moon rovers which were placed on the moon in 1971 were on display.  The moon rover was actual size.  All displays are extremely well executed. One diorama shows cosmonauts having landed in mountainous terrain during winter. It is a full size rendering of the event. Very realistic. There were two stuffed dogs representing the dogs that flew into space atop huge solid fueled rockets early in the space race. They looked like Jack Russell terriers. It was very interesting to walk through a mock-up of a section of the Mir space station.  It was a reminder of the space station at the Museum of Space and Aeronautics in Washington, D.C. My biggest criticism of the museum is the lack of English captions on displays. Unfortunately, I could not use the translator in my phone because it involves using the camera and I stupidly did not pay the extra 200 rubles for camera use. Also, there were very few direction signs in the multilevel facility.

Did I like it? You better believe it! Would I like to visit the Museum of Cosmonautics again?^ Absolutely!