Monday is the day that most museums are closed in Russia, making it one of those tricky days to deal with when it comes to trip planning. However, in my travel guide (Moon’s Moscow and St. Petersburg, 2009, which was instrumental to planning trips to both cities both in 2011 and 2012) it mentioned there was this Cosmonauts Memorial Museum open daily, and since we all love science and the cosmos, we figured why not. Besides, it’s right next door to the All Russian Exhibition Center, which was our other major sight for the day.
In typical grand Soviet style, there is a triumphal walkway from the subway station (VDNKh station) leading towards the monument. The various Russian/Soviet accomplishments in space are listed in the stars leading up towards the monument itself, such as the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik, or having the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.
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| Statue of Sergei Korolev, the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the height of the US/USSR space race, including the rocket that launched Sputnik and the design of the Vostok that took Gagarin into space. | Statue of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky gazes towards the heavens. He lived from 1857-1935 and did a lot of theoretical work laying the grounds for the next generation of rocket scientists like Wernher von Braun or Sergei Korolev to take mankind into space. |
The Cosmonaut Museum itself is located underneath the monument, with the entrance on the north. Unfortunately, the museum is indeed closed on Mondays so we were unable to see the inside. Undeterred, we continued through the memorial park toward the All Russian Exhibition Center!
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