Journey Through Russia's Space Museum

After our brief stop at VDNKh Complex, we walked a short distance to our next destination - Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, also known as the Space Museum. 

Before the tour.

Group photo after the tour.

Standing before the imposing complex, I could not help but recall the vivid memory of my primary school days back in 1961, when excited shouts were heard among some of the students. News had just broken that the first human had been sent into space - Yuri Gagarin, a name forever etched in history.

Yuri Gagarin - First man sent into space.

09.03.19234 - 27.03.1968

Yet Gagarin’s flight was more than a personal triumph; it was a milestone in a much larger struggle. Long before his launch, two global superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - had locked themselves in a fierce and dramatic rivalry. This so-called Space Race, unfolding in the midst of the Cold War, was not merely about rockets and satellites. It was a contest of ideologies, scientific progress, and national prestige, a technological duel that symbolized the clash between East and West. Spanning roughly from 1955 to 1972, it pushed both nations to the very limits of human ingenuity and laid the foundations for modern space exploration.

As we entered the museum, we were greeted with a vivid journey through more than seventy-five years of space exploration, tracing its remarkable progress since the 1950s.

Before Gagarin was sent into space, the Soviet Union first sent two dogs into space together on 22 July 1951 aboard a suborbital flight using an R-1 rocket. The dogs were Dezik and Tsygan, and both survived the flight, making them the first living beings to return safely from space. According to our guide, the dogs had originally been strays before being captured and trained for this mission. Their remains have since been preserved and are now on display at the museum.

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A closer look inside some of the space capsules revealed the incredibly confined quarters in which cosmonauts had to live and operate - an experience that felt almost like a form of “solitary confinement” in orbit. The narrow space, minimal movement, and stark functionality underscored the immense physical and psychological endurance required of these pioneers.

On display is an actual Soyuz descent module that was used by cosmonauts. The burned and scorched exterior is typical of re-entry vehicles: the ablative heat shield gets charred as it passes through the atmosphere. These capsules usually land in the snowy steppes of Kazakhstan, which is why museums often present them in a winter forest setting like this.

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Advances made in the space suits of cosmonauts over the years.

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As we climbed the steps to the next level, our guide paused before a series of paintings displayed along the wall. To our surprise, she revealed that these were the works of Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov - the first man ever to walk in space.

On 18 March 1965, during the Voskhod 2 mission, Leonov etched his name into history by stepping out of his spacecraft into the vast, silent expanse beyond. For twelve tense minutes he floated high above Earth, tethered only by a lifeline. What was meant to be a glorious milestone nearly turned into catastrophe: in the vacuum of space, his suit ballooned and stiffened, preventing him from squeezing back through the narrow airlock. With oxygen running low, Leonov made a desperate but calculated move - he manually bled air from his suit, risking decompression sickness, until it softened just enough for him to force his way inside.

Even then, the danger was not over. Upon re-entry, Leonov and his crewmate crash-landed in the remote Siberian taiga, where they endured two freezing nights before finally being rescued.

Yet Leonov was more than a courageous pioneer. He was also an artist at heart, often bringing colored pencils on his missions to capture the Earth as seen from orbit - creating the first artworks ever made in space. In later years, he continued to paint, immortalizing both the wonder and the peril of space exploration on canvas - some of them on display in the Museum.

Alexei Leonov

30.05.1034 - 11.10.2019

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We were allowed to touch three meteorites on display. Two of these iron or stony-iron meteorites are Dronino (a purely iron meteorite) and Bragin (a stony-iron one).

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Throughout the tour, one can sense that the Russians take great pride in their pioneering role in the history of space exploration. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space aboard Vostok 1. Just four years later, in 1965, Alexei Leonov achieved another unprecedented milestone when he stepped out of his spacecraft during Voskhod 2, becoming the first person to conduct a spacewalk. These groundbreaking achievements not only demonstrated the Soviet Union’s technological prowess but also secured a lasting legacy of courage and innovation. 

The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow showcases these historic moments, with original capsules, space suits, and personal memorabilia that bring to life the extraordinary feats of Gagarin, Leonov, and their fellow cosmonauts.