Museum of Cosmonautics

The Museum of Cosmonautics is housed in the basement of the monument "To the Conquerors of Space," a one-of-a-kind structure in Moscow. Architects MO Barshch, AN Kolchin, and sculptor AP Faydysh Krandiyevsky built it to commemorate the launch of the first artificial satellite on November 4, 1964.

SP Queen, the chief designer of space rocket systems, had the idea of establishing a museum. The museum opened on April 10, 1981, the 20th anniversary of the Yuri Gagarin space flight. The museum meticulously preserved samples of space technology, personal belongings of figures from the space industry, archival documents, film and photographs, numismatics, philately, and philopatry hallmarks, and works of fine and decorative arts. Russia and the United States used to compete in space exploration. While that is no longer the case, the museum's incredible collection of over 85,000 items is still breathtaking.

The space capsule used by Yuri Gagarin, the first human to travel into space; a USSR flag with moon fragments; a Soviet spacesuit; and a rocket propulsion unit from the 1960s are among the main exhibits. A unique two-story hall displays sections of the interior of the Mir space station, as well as models of the first sputniks and a miniature spaceship replica. There are English-language tours available, and a Cinema Hall showing subtitled short films about the history of space exploration programs and the first manned space flight is also available. The museum is housed within the base of the Conquerors of Space monument, built nearly 20 years before the museum opened.

Google rating: 4.8/5
Address: Prospekt Mira, 111, Moscow, Russia, 129223
Phone: +7 499 750-23-00
Website: http://www.kosmo-museum.ru/