Baikonur - city and cosmodrome

The special correspondent of the TRV-hunger Yevgeny Ryzhkov visited the next space manned launch: he visited the cradle of Russian cosmonautics, which launched the first satellite of the Earth and Yuri Gagarin. What does the legend city live? What can a space tourist see in Baikonur?

City

In the city of Baikonur (in Kazakh Bai-Royr- “rich valley”), mainly people who are engaged in the operation and maintenance of the cosmodrome of the same name are living. Baikonur was officially “born” on June 2, 1955, when the village of Zarya was formed. On January 29, 1958, the village was renamed Leninsky, on June 21, 1966, it became the city of Leninsk, and on December 20, 1995 - Baikonur. The population, consisting of Kazakhs and Russians, is about 70 thousand people.

It is very simple to find Baikonur on the map: you need to find Yekaterinburg in the Urals and a little to the right of the Siberian Tyumen. About the longitude of these cities, but significantly south, is Baikonur. The difference in time with Moscow is three hours. The car code of the city of Baikonur is 94: “Territories located outside the Russian Federation and serviced by the Office of the regime objects of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia”. It is also an Antarctic code.

How to get to Baikonur? It is possible a direct flight - it, as a rule, happens at least once a week - from Moscow to the Extreme airfield, which is outside the territory of the city. By the way, within the city, close to the airfield, a new microdistrict is being built. There is a long way: Sheremetyevo-Alma-Ata (or Astana); Then, again by plane, to Kyzylorda and three to four hours by bus to the destination. There is another option (for Muscovites) to drive 1000 km to Samara and from there 1000 km to Baikonur. The road, as experienced drivers say, is quite pleasant.

However, the former military test landfill with a residential town “without an invitation” will not work. Now this is, in which a strict bandwidth operates. At the entrance to the city, you are met by a person who, showing the protection of the checkpoint permission to visit Baikonur, leads you inside the territory fenced with a low fence (free movement is free in the city). There is another way: some taxi drivers have their own pass to the city - hooking into such a taxi, you can get into the city.

The infrastructure has remained since Soviet times-there is a persistent sensation of the 1990s. Baikonur is not particularly developing - there are no new beautiful buildings and large -scale projects to ennoble the city. On the streets in different parts of Baikonur - empty houses with boarded up boards and bricks laid with bricks and balconies (and not only on the ground floor). This was done so that the buildings left by residents in the 1990s do not turn into garbage dumps and retained building strength.

But there are a lot of hotels in the city. The most famous are “Central”, “Alcor”, “Sputnik”, “Cosmonaut” and “Baikonur”. In addition, there is a couple of rebellious in the hotel style of student dormitories. In the most cool hotel - “satellite” - there is even a pool. NASA employees live in the "satellite".

Central Square is the largest in the city. In winter, they put a Christmas tree here and organize festivities. The Central Hotel, then the former headquarters of the Cosmodrome (now the branch of FSUE Tsanki), as well as the former garrison house of officers (burned out in the mid-1990s, now on the ground floor, the area and cafe) take the area in a vice on three sides.

In the central universal market, local residents sell products, clothes and various trinkets. In winter, you can buy warm socks from camel wool and at any time of the year - “Tan” (sour -milk drink, similar to the “Ayran” recipe).

The city has a huge number of monuments - the Kazakh poet Abai, the founder of the Soviet liquid missile construction, Valentin Petrovich Glushko, who died in a disaster on Baikonur Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, academician Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov, and, of course, Yuri Gagarin, Sergey Korolev and many other outstanding figures of the fatherly cosmonautics. On Gagarin Avenue, a tall stele “Science” rises, and next to the Baikonur hotel, on Korolev Avenue, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the space era, the large monument “Soyuz” missile is erected.

In front of the building of the city house of culture, a stone with an engraved inscription was installed: “Here on May 5, 1955, military builders in Part 12253 laid the first building of the mountains. Leninsk ". There is also a monument to Major General G. M. Shubnikov, the head of the construction of the Cosmodrome. On the third floor of the recreation center is the Baikonur Cosmodrome History Museum is a very interesting place. Structurally, the museum includes four halls: ethnographic, exhibition and two directly related to the astronautics-the Baikonur military and labor glory hall and the history of the development of rocket and space technology and the development of space space.

The most famous of the many city institutions is a cafe with a well -aimed name "Star Sky". There are other cafes, such as “Rus'”, and pizzeria. In the Arsenal entertainment complex, you can find a restaurant, supermarket and even billiards with bowling. In the Star Sky (and Arsenal) it is possible to pay with a bank card, however, the terminal often detects a malfunction and the waiter offers to pay in cash in the old fashioned way. Wi-Fi is not in every cafe (and not every hotel!), But you can find three or four places with the Internet. There is only one cell operator - Beeline.

On the street and everywhere people speak Kazakh and Russian. All inscriptions are in Russian, sometimes duplicated in Kazakh. (I recall the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan Kazan.) A taxi within the city costs inexpensively - 60 rubles. (And before, as they say, it was at all 40).

There are two cinemas in the city. The first, “Saturn”, although open, is suspended in it, and the space is used for concerts. There is another cinema, next to the market, regularly receiving visitors.

On the outskirts of the city there is a large city park of culture, where a real estate wheel is lonely.

A so -called recreation area with two pools (for children and adults) and a cool shower was built by the Syr Darya River. Here you can have a bite and rest on the sunbeds. It is forbidden to swim in the river itself. Near the recreation area there is a working Orion basin and the Statement Stadium, in which, in addition to the football field, you can go to the gym and sign up for sports sections.

In addition, a mosque flaunts right at the exit from the city, and in the city itself there is an Orthodox temple of George the Victorious.

Cosmodrome

When manned launches occur, the city and cosmodrome are attacked by numerous tourists from all over the planet. It is worth saying that recently Russia has been actively developing space tourism, and “gentlemen” tourists began to come constantly, even in the inter -lane period.

If compared with the city, then "liberties" are now unacceptable - all movements on the cosmodrome only accompanied by the responsible person. And the checkpoint is many times more - at the entrance to the territory of the cosmodrome, as well as in front of different starting platforms or objects. On the cosmodrome, for example, the territory of the RSC Energia and the FSUE "Tsenka".

Tourists are allowed to observe the removal of rockets in three places: when the Soyuz leaves the installation and test building, at the “crossing” (a place where about 600 meters from the starting table, the railway road along which the rocket is driven is crossed by the road) and on the starting table, the site No. 1 (“Gagarinsky start”) -t, where the rocket is installed for position and is installed for position and is installed for position Raise the carrier in a vertical position.

On June 6, 2018, when the MSC crew started to the ISS, the Gagarinsky Start was used, however, according to the people operating the cosmodrome, after a couple of launches, this site will be mothballed and the astronauts will be launched at the orbital station from a different site-the 31st and 31st designed for manned trips).

Tourists are also shown a museum at the cosmodrome. This is a two -story building, in front of which there is a monument to Gagarin, a lot of exhibits collected from different manned launches. It contains a rich bench base and in an abundance of Iron, a lot of information about the cosmodrome and industry enterprises. Near the museum are two small houses. They are notable for the fact that in one of them in 1956-1965 the chief designer lived and worked

Sergey Pavlovich Korolev, and in another spent the night (from April 11 to 12, 1961) before the world's first flight into space Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. And to the left of the museum - the test model of the Buran spacecraft with a satellite inside the structure. It is even possible to climb the short stairs to the cockpit and sit on the chairs yourself, pull the control handle and admire the design of this most important place on the ship.

In addition, tourists on buses are brought to the consecration of a rocket (at the Gagarinsky start) and to a press conference of crews at the Cosmonaut Hotel (in the city). And on the start of the start, tourists again gather at the “astronaut”: the crew for the song “Earthlings” leaves the hotel and goes to the cosmodrome, where the final procedures are held before the start.

The cosmodrome, although it is replete with artificial epoch-making structures, the admission to which is usually closed for tourists, is in the middle of the vast expanses of the white steppe, fixed by red-yellow-orange sand, as well as low bushes. Far from the roads along which there is a movement along the cosmodrome, inconspicuous buildings, as a rule, of gray color are separately. Every now and then, green motor vehicles with the inscription "KC Yuzhny", transporting shift personnel and cargoes on the cosmodrome, scurrying back and forth back and forth.

In summer, the city and cosmodrome are more beautiful than in the winter - nature blooms in all its glory, and a clear blue sky appears above your head. The temperature is 30 degrees. On the sidelines you will notice either horses, then goats or cows, then grazing peacefully camels. Even the eagles calmly sit on the power lines, and there are really a lot of small gophers.

Russia rents from Kazakhstan both the city and the cosmodrome until 2050. The total area of ​​the territory of the leased land is 6717 square meters. km. This includes nine types of starting complexes (five operating ones) consisting of 15 launchers (five of them are valid: two under the Soyuz missiles, two under the Proton missiles and one “start” for Zenit) for launching launch vehicles, four launch plants for testing intercontinental ballistic missiles, an oxygen-athletic plant, two airfields and technical buildings.

At the same time, the facilities of the cosmodrome are gradually transferred to the disposal of Kazakhstan. So, now the procedure for transmitting infrastructure for launches of Zenit missiles to the Kazakh side is ending, which plans to modernize it for a new Soyuz-5 missile developed by Russia. In addition, in the near future, some of the military personnel working in the “CC Yuzhny” will be transferred to civil positions to cut budget expenditures.

By the way, the registration of Russians working at the cosmodrome, as a rule, in Moscow, the Moscow region or, for example, in Volgograd or Samara. Having worked out the due number of years, the employee receives an apartment and usually leaves the cosmodrome. Previously, the military on Baikonur received seniority-for a year in two and 40 percent increase to salary. Now this is not. The locals themselves admit that they do not remain in the city for life - they will work a certain number of years and who will go to Russia and who to other cities of the republic. They say that even the neighboring city of Kyzylorda "10 times better than Baikonur."

After 2050, Russia theoretically can extend the Baikonur lease agreement or completely leave Kazakhstan and concentrate at the Vostochny cosmodrome. However, the Amur Region is the future of our country and, let's hope, the expansion of space cooperation with the Asian countries, and Baikonur is the history of the friendship of Russia and the country of the Great Steppe, it is the history of the conquest of the cosmos, which should be guarded and reliably transmitted to descendants. Therefore, we will remember Baikonur and be proud of it at all times.

Evgeny Ryzhkov