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Where It All Began
Baikonur (AFP) April 7, 2000 - In the space city of Baikonur, all places linked to the exploits of Yuri Gagarin are carefully preserved, 39 years after he became the first man in space aboard the spaceship Vostok. In a wooden pavilion on the banks of the Syr-Daria river, nothing has changed since April 10, 1961, when the first cosmonauts, Gagarin and his stand-in, German Titov, met there with officials in charge of the flight, for the last time before the launch. "We hesitated until the last minute over who to choose to make the flight," said Yuri Kubarev, of the Russian Space Agency. In a little blue, one-storeyed house where he spent his last night before the flight on April 12, visitors can see modest furniture, a portrait of Lenin, an old radio set and Gagarin's uniform, in a glass cabinet. The first Soviet cosmonauts traditionally spent their last night there before being rocketed into space. In 1967, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov broke with the tradition by staying in a hotel. He was the first Russian spaceman to have been killed in a landing module when he returned to earth. Close to Gagarin's house, a museum of the Baikonur cosmodrome was founded, housing a portrait of him painted on salt cristals from the Aral sea, next to a plan of his house in the village of Klushino, in the western region of Smolensk, where he grew up. A brick from the high school where Gagarin learned the art of steel-making is on display, along with a piece of the seat in which he returned to earth in 1961, and many photos -- Gagarin in his space helmet, Gagarin shaking hands with the late president Leonid Brezhnev and with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The museum was virtually abandoned after "perestroika," when Sovier power crumbled, said museum guide Valentina Bulgakova. "Now things are better, we are sorting out," she said. Russian cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Lakery, who set out Tuesday on a mission to the space station Mir, visited the museum on the eve of their departure, writing a tribute in the visitors' book. Today, Cosmonauts' Way, descending towards the Syr-Daria, the only source of water in the dried-out steppe surrounding Baikonur, is shaded by trees planted by the Soviet cosmonauts, one of them Gagarin His tragic death on March 27, 1968, in a plane crash whose cause has never been elucidated, shook the entire country. Speculation about the cause of death ranges from assassination to kidnapping by extra-terrestrials. Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. CommunityEmail This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Space
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Calcutta, India (SPX) Dec 28, 2005The successful launch Thursday of India's heaviest satellite from spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana may have boosted the country's space research efforts to yet another level, but it has also lifted the spirits of at least three Direct-To-Home televisions broadcasters, one of which has been waiting for years to launch its services in India. |
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