The Russians have a lot at stake, and the power of Moscow pride

should never be underestimated.

Bob Schaffer

Joe Baker

Glenravel Local History Project

Joe Baker and Joe Doherty on Red Square

Glenravel Local History ProjectMcSweeney Centre29 Henry PlaceBelfast BT15 2AY

028 9031 0859028 9058 5967

028 9035 1326

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INTRODUCTION

Many, many years ago, while doing geography in secondary school, I picked up a book called Portraits ofMoscow. As you can see from the title it was about Moscow and contained lots of colour photographs. I

have no idea why I picked this book as I never had any interest in Moscow or Russia or even any interest ingeography. While flicking through this book I came across the picture above and that was me changed forever.This picture of this massive statue totally amazed me and from that point onwards I had always dreamed that oneday I would go to Moscow and see this wonderful sight. That dream came true in May 2005 when I arrived inMoscow for the first time and, like an excited schoolboy again, I was eager to see this monument as this was theporpose of my visit in the first place. So out came all the maps and we worked out exactly where it was and offwe headed. When we got to the general area there was no sign of the said statue and we looked, and looked andeven went up one of those massive fair ground wheels to get a better view but still no sign. Gutted we headedback to the hotel and it was then that we found out that the statue had been dismantled and taken away for acompete restoration which would take a few years. I was heart broken!

However all was not lost. While there I got to see many things including the massive Victory Day Parade whichI was able to watch from my hotel window which overlooked the Kremlin, St Basil's and Red Square. How manypeople can say they've looked out their hotel window and seen a nuclear missile launcher going past while Sukhoifighter jets flew past! I instantly fell in love with the place and the people and in the following pages I'll show youwhy.

Incidentally I eventually saw the statue, fully restored, in May 2010!

MOSCOW FROM BELFASTGetting to Moscow is quite simple enough as all you need to do is book a flight. It's the paper work that's the problem!

As you would expect there are no direct flights from Belfast toMoscow but it is still quite easy to get to. The best way is to

fly to London Heathrow and from there to Moscow. At the time ofwriting the best airline to use for this is BMI as it's all listed as asingle journey. There are also flights from Dublin Airport. All canbe booked online or through a travel agent and hotel bookings canbe done in the same way. My recommendation would be to bookinto any of the Izmailovo Hotels which were all built for theMoscow Olympics such as Izmailovo Vega, Izmailovo Delta,Izmailovo Beta etc. These are directly next to the IzmailovoMarket which is a must see for all visitors to Moscow and theIzmailovo Metro which is on the Blue Line which brings youdirectly to the centre of the city in about 15 minutes.

Before you do any of this you will need your Visa to visit theRussian Federation and this is where the fun begins. My recom-mendation is to use one of the visa services and save yourself a lotof grief. It's a bit extra but in my opinion well worth it. The one Iuse is www.russiavisa24.co.uk and on their site there is a videoshowing how to apply for your visa. They also apply for what isknown as an invite which you need to apply for a visa but theyshould be able to sort all that out for you. You will need a validpassport and if you are using an Irish passport you need three bankstatements to prove that you are resident in the UK. You will needto send your completed visa Application (facing page), two pass-port style photographs and payment.Your passport will be returned to you and inside will be stuck yourRussian Visa. (that’s mine below)

You can also go through the Russian Embassy in Dublin orLimerick but take my word for it - nightmare.com!

Once you get there you will be presented with a entry card at pass-port control. Under no circumstances lose this as you will find itextremely difficult to get out again. Passing through customs youwill be out on the airport reception area and all the dodgy taxis ofthe day. If you want to take a taxi the dodgy ones are no differentthan the regular ones but secure a price before you get in with(again at the time of writing) the average price being 3000 roubles.You can travel by train which will leave you at the Metro whichyou will then need to use to get to your hotel. If there are a few ofyou the taxi is the same price but I must warn you to fasten yourseat belt and hold on tight as the roads are totally insane - but greatfun!

When you arrive at the hotel (hopefully in one piece) your pass-port and entry card will be taken from you for a security check. Itwill be returned to you the following day but I usually askreception to hold it until I leave as there are no safes in the rooms.Moscow is a 24 hour city so there are lots of bars, shops, super-markets etc., open constantly so do not panic over your'provisions.'

Once you get settled learn how to use the Metro system (see page22). It is really quite simple and if you've used the London Under-ground before then it'll be wee buns! I'll be your guide so grab thisbook and off you go.

GORKY PARKAlthough not as famous as New York's Central Park it is certainly a lot safer! Gorky Park is world famous and well worth avisit. Naturally summertime is best but another great date to go is May 9th when the park come alive with several concerts andhundreds of different activities for children.

To get to Gorky Park get the Metro to Oktyabrskya Station(Orange Line). This will leave you at the junction of Krymskiy Valand Leninsky Prospect where you'll come across this impressivemonument to Lenin (facing page).The main entrance to Gorky Park is on Krymskiy Val (below).

The Central Park of Rest and Culture Named After M. Gorky,to give it its full name, is one of the most famous places in

Moscow (thanks presumably to Martin Cruz Smith's grizzly taleof a psychopathic professor, and the Hollywood film it inspired -shot mostly in Stockholm). Laid out in 1928, this was the first parkof its kind, and the prototype for hundreds of others across theSoviet Union.The park stretches along the banks of the Moscow River, and isdivided into two parts. The first is primarily of interest to childrenor those trying to entertain them, as it contains a range of funfairrides and rollercoasters - some safer looking than others, althoughthey are being upgraded all the time. You can also hire boats orhorses, go bungee jumping, and there's a sports club with tenniscourts. In winter the whole area becomes a vast skating rink withskate hire, disco lights and music to match. In summer the "beach"area is hugely popular with sun-worshippers, and becomes an openair club in the evenings.The other, older, half of the park is considerably more restrained,consisting of formal gardens and woodland that combine the formerGolitsynskiy and Neskuchniy Gardens, names that crop up regu-larly in Russian literary classics. There are a number of fine old

buildings dating from the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, in-cluding two summerhouses by the great Moscow architect MikhailKazakov (who designed the Senate Building in the Kremlin), andthe first City Hospital. Nearby is the enormous Green Theater, anoutdoor amphitheater that hosts various gigs and concerts in thesummer months. Also in the park is a life size copy of the Buran,the Soviet space shuttle (above).Gorky Park's attractions are generally more appealing for localsthan for tourists but it's the place to come if you want to find outhow the majority of Muscovites spend their free time. Across theroad from the main entrance, in front of the House of Artists, isSculpture Park where hundreds of monuments are on display in-cluding many Soviet ones. Once you reach this park go through itand head for the Peter The Great Monument (believe me you can’tmiss it - see next page) and that will bring you out towards theCathedral of Christ the Saviour and the Kremlin.

The absolutely massivemonument to Peter theGreat. When you leaveGorky Park go straight

across the road andthrough the Sculpture

Park. Head in thegeneral direction of thismonument to lead you tothe Cathedral of Christ

the Saviour and theKremlin

Made world famous by this film it was not even made in GorkyPark - it was shot in Sweden!

One of the crests at the main entrance of Gorky Park

Two of the sculptures inSculpture Park which is

directly facing GorkyPark (above)

Belfast group outsideGorky Park, May 2011

CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST THE SAVIOUR

One of the most imposing and controversial buildings in Russia, the resurrected Cathedral of Christ the Saviour has had a

short but turbulent history. It was originally commissioned afterthe defeat of Napoleon, but work did not begin on its constructionuntil 1839. Designed by the great St. Petersburg architect KonstantinTon, who was also responsible for the Grand Kremlin Palace andthe Kremlin Armoury and whose church designs pioneered theByzantine-revival style, the cathedral was erected, for maximumeffect, on the embankment only a few minutes' walk from the Krem-lin. Sadly, this entailed the destruction of the medieval AlekseevskiyConvent, a course of events which lends an intriguing irony to thecathedral's own fate.The enormous - and extremely expensive - cathedral was eventu-ally consecrated in 1883, and its vast copper domes dominated theMoscow skyline. However, the cathedral had taken almost as muchtime to build and to decorate as it would remain standing in itsoriginal incarnation. For fairly obvious reasons, it was singled outby the Soviet government for destruction and, in 1931, blown topieces to make way for a proposed Palace of Soviets, one of themost influential pieces of architecture never to be built. The designapproved by Stalin would have stood over 400 meters high, with avast statue of Lenin at its peak, and, although it was never built, theblueprint was nonetheless the forefather of the Seven Sisters, themagnificent Stalinist skyscrapers that lower over central Moscow.Only the foundations had been laid when the Second World Warbrought an abrupt end to such an ambitious project, and Stalin'ssuccessor, Nikita Khruschev, had no stomach for such grandiose

The original cathedral was blown up to make way for Stalin’s House of Soviets which never happened. The present cathedralwas rebuilt after the fall of the Soviet Union and is one of the most impressive cathedrals in the world

displays of hubris. The project was abandoned, and the site turnedover to become an open-air swimming pool, the largest in the world,which was kept at a temperature of 27°C all year round. The resultwas a thick covering of fog that shrouded a number of gruesomedeaths (and murders) among the swimmers.The symbolic significance of the site was reaffirmed after the fallof the Soviet Union, when ambitious Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkovjoined forces with the Orthodox Church to resurrect the cathedralin a $360-million reconstruction project. Completed in 2000, thenew cathedral is loosely based on Ton's original designs, but con-structed with modern building materials and fitted out with all mod-cons including air conditioning, telecommunications facilities, el-evators and underground parking. Visitors can only see the cathe-dral as part of an organized tour, one of the highlights of which isthe panoramic view from the 40-meter-high observation platform.

To enter the cathedral you need to go to the back. Entrance is freebut women need to cover their heads. If you do not have a scarfthere is a small gift shop near the entrance which sells them cheaplyenough. You can risk going in without one but sometimes you getapproached by someone you have just offended and sometimesyou do not. Once you go round the cathedral you will be let out atthe front. From here go down to the river embankment and walk toyour left. This will bring you towards the Kremlin and Red Square.

Margaret Valentie, Anne Baker and Lucinda Carbine at the Cathedral.In the background one of the Stalin Skyscrapers can be seen

RED SQUARERed Square is the very heart of Moscow and, as its name suggests, is one of the most beautiful in the world. To any visitor it isextremely easy to get to by foot and by the nearby main metro stop at Revolution Square.

The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel andcurrently the official residence of the President of Russia, from

a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod. As major streetsof Moscow radiate from here in all directions, being promoted tomajor highways outside the city, Red Square is often consideredthe central square of Moscow and all of Russia.The rich history of Red Square is reflected in many artworks, in-cluding paintings by Vasily Surikov, Konstantin Yuon and others.The square was meant to serve as Moscow's main marketplace. Itwas also used for various public ceremonies and proclamations,and occasionally as the site of coronation for Russia's Tsars. Thesquare has been gradually built up since that point and has beenused for official ceremonies by all Russian governments since itwas established.The name Red Square derives neither from the colour of the bricksaround it (which, in fact, were whitewashed at certain points inhistory) nor from the link between the colour red and communism.Rather, the name came about because the Russian word (krasnaya)can mean either "red" or "beautiful" (the latter being rather archaic;of. prekrasnaya). This word, with the meaning "beautiful", wasoriginally applied to Saint Basil's Cathedral and was subsequentlytransferred to the nearby square. It is believed that the square ac-quired its current name (replacing the older Pozhar, or "burnt-outplace") in the 17th century. Several ancient Russian towns, such asSuzdal, Yelets, and Pereslavl-Zalessky, have their main squarenamed Krasnaya ploshchad.

The east side of the Kremlin triangle, lying adjacent to Red Squareand situated between the rivers Moskva and the now-undergroundNeglinnaya River was deemed the most vulnerable side of theKremlin to attack, since it was neither protected by the rivers, norany other natural barriers, as the other sides were. Therefore, theKremlin wall was built to its highest height on this side, and fur-thermore, the Italian architects involved in the building of these

fortifications convinced Ivan the Great to clear the area outside ofthe walls in order to create a field for fire shooting. The relevantdecrees were issued in 1493 and 1495. They called for the demoli-tion of all the buildings within 110 sazhens (234 metres) of thewall.In 1508–1516, the Italian architect Aloisio the New arranged forthe construction of a moat in front of the eastern wall, which wouldconnect the Moskva and Neglinnaya and be filled in with waterfrom Neglinnaya. This moat, known as the Alevizov moat and hav-ing a length of 541 meters, width of 36 meters, and a depth of 9.5–13 m was lined with limestone and, in 1533, fenced on both sideswith low, 4-meter thick cogged brick walls. Three square gatesexisted on this side of the wall, which in the 17th century, wereknown as: Konstantino-Eleninsky, Spassky, Nikolsky (owing theirnames to the icons of Constantine and Helen, the Savior and St.Nicholas which hung over them). The last two are directly oppo-site the Red Square, while the Konstantino-Elenensky gate waslocated behind Saint Basil's Cathedral. In the early 19th century,the Arch of Konstantino-Elenensky gate was paved with bricks,but the Spassky Gate was the main front gate of the Kremlin andused for royal entrances. From this gate, wooden and (followingthe 17th century improvements) stone bridges stretched across themoat. Books were sold on this bridge and stone platforms werebuilt nearby for guns – "raskats". The Tsar Cannon was located onthe platform of the Lobnoye mesto.The square was called Veliky Torg (Great market) or simply Torg(Market), then Troitskaya by the name of the small Troitskaya (Trin-ity) Church, burnt down in the great fire during the Tatar invasionin 1571. After that, the square held the name Pozhar, which means"burnt". It was not until 1661–62, when it was first mentioned byits contemporary Krasnaya – "Red" name.The Red Square was the landing stage and trade center for Mos-cow. Ivan the Great decreed that trade should only be conductedfrom person to person, but in time, these rules were relaxed and

Looking towards the Russian History Museum with theKremlin and Lenin’s Mausoleum to the left

permanent market buildings began appearing on the square. Aftera fire in 1547, Ivan the Terrible reorganized the lines of woodenshops on the eastern side into market lines. The streets Ilyinka andVarvarka were divided into the Upper lines (now GUM depart-ment store), Middle lines and Bottom lines, although Bottom Lineswere already in Zaryadye).After a few years, the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin, com-monly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral, was built on the moat.This was the first building which gave the square its present-daycharacteristic silhouette (Pyramidal roofs had not yet been built onthe Kremlin towers). In 1595, the wooden market lines were re-placed with stone. By that time, a brick platform for the proclama-tion of the tsar's edicts, known as Lobnoye Mesto had also beenconstructed.

The Red Square was considered a sacred place. Various festiveprocessions were held there, and during Palm Sunday the famous"procession on a donkey" was arranged, in which the patriarch,sitting on a donkey, accompanied by the tsar and the people wentout of Saint Basil's Cathedral into the Kremlin.During the expulsion of Poles from Moscow in 1612, Prince DmitryPozharsky entered the Kremlin through the square. In memory ofthis event, he built the Kazan Cathedral – in honour of the KazanIcon of the Mother of God, followed his army in a campaign.

At the same time (1624–1625) Spasskaya tower received contem-porary tent roofs. This was done on the proposal and the draught ofEnglishman Christopher Galloway, who was summoned to designthe new tower's clock (clock watch it there with the 1585) andsuggested the arrangement of the tent roof over the clock. In themid-century on the top of the tower was set up a gilded double-

headed eagle. After this, the square became known as Krasevaya –«beautiful».In the late 17'th century the square was cleared of all wooden struc-tures (1679–1680). Then all Kremlin towers received tent roofs,except Nikolskaya. One tent was even erected on the wall abovethe Red Square (the so-called Tsarskaya Tower, intended so thatthe tsar could watch from this spot the various ceremonies in thesquare). Tent roofs were also constructed at Voskrerensky (Ibe-rian) gates, arranged in the wall of Kitai-gorod. These were thefortified gates at Voskresensky Bridge over the River Neglinnaya.In 1697 and 1699, gates were built on both sides of Voskresenskyonto large stone buildings: the Mint and Zemsky prikaz (depart-ment in charge of urban and police matters). Zemsky prikaz, then,was known as the Main Pharmacy (on-site new Historical Mu-seum). In the building of Zemsky prikaz in 1755 was organised byfirst Russian University. At the same time in the Alevizov moat,where there was no water, a state Pharmacy's garden (where thegrowing of medicinal plants) was arranged.In 1702, the first public theater in Russia was built near the Nikolskygate; It stood until 1737, when it was destroyed in a fire.

In the 1730s, a new mint building, called the Gubernskoye pravlenie(Provincial Board), was built in front of the old oneDuring her reign, Catherine the Great decided to make improve-ments to the square. In 1786, the upper floor of the market lineswas made of stone. This line was built on the opposite side of thesquare—at moat between the Spasskaya and Nikolskaya towers.Then architect Matvey Kazakov built (in the old forms) the newLobnoye mesto of hewn stone, slightly west of the place where itwas before.

In 1804, at the request of merchants, the square was paved in stone.In 1806 Nikolskaya Tower was reconstructed in the Gothic style,and received a tent roof. The new phase of improvement of thesquare began after the Napoleonic invasion and fire in 1812. Themoat was filled in 1813 and in its place, rows of trees were planted.The market Line along the moat, dilapidated after the fire, hadbeen demolished, and on the eastern side, Joseph Bové constructednew building of lines in Empire style. In 1818 the Monument toMinin and Pozharsky, was erected, symbolising the rise in patri-otic consciousness during the war.In 1874, the historic building of Zemsky prikaz was demolished.In its place was built the Imperial Historical Museum in pseudo-Russian style. After Bové's lines were demolished, new large build-ings were erected between 1888–1893 in the pseudo-Russian style:upper lines (Gum department store) and middle lines. The upperlines was intended for retail sale and were in fact the first depart-ment store in Moscow; middle lines intended for the wholesaletrade. At the same time (in 1892) the square was illuminated byelectric lanterns. In 1909, a tram appeared on the square for thefirst time.

During the Soviet era, Red Square maintained its significance, be-coming a focal point for the new state. Besides being the officialaddress of the Soviet government, it was renowned as a showcasefor military parades. Kazan Cathedral and Iverskaya Chapel withthe Resurrection Gates were demolished to make room for heavymilitary vehicles driving through the square (both were later re-built after the fall of the Soviet Union). There were plans to demol-ish Moscow's most recognized building, Saint Basil's Cathedral,as well. The legend is that Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin's associateand director of the Moscow reconstruction plan, prepared a specialmodel of Red Square, in which the cathedral could be removed,and brought it to Stalin to show how the cathedral was an obstaclefor parades and traffic. But when he jerked the cathedral out of thesquare, Stalin objected with his rather famous quote: "Lazar! Put itback!".

2011 Victory Day Parade on Red Square

Two of the most significant military parades on Red Square werethe one in 1941, when the city was besieged by Germans and troopswere leaving Red Square straight to the front lines, and the VictoryParade in 1945, when the banners of defeated Nazi armies werethrown at the foot of Lenin's Mausoleum. The Soviet Union heldmany parades in Red Square for May Day, Victory Day, and theOctober Revolution which consisted of propaganda, flags, a labordemonstration, and a troops march and show-off of tanks and mis-siles. On Victory Day in 1945, 1965, 1985, and 1990 there weremilitary marches and parades as well.On May 28, 1987, a West German pilot named Mathias Rust landeda light aircraft on St Basil's descent next to Red Square.In 1990, the Kremlin and Red Square were among the very firstsites in the USSR added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.Red Square has also served as a venue for high-profile concerts.Linkin Park, The Prodigy, t.A.T.u., Shakira, Scorpions, PaulMcCartney, Roger Waters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and other ce-lebrities performed there. For the New Year 2006, 2007 and 2008celebrations, a skating rink was set up on Red Square. PaulMcCartney's performance there was a historic moment for many,as The Beatles were banned in the Soviet Union, preventing anylive performances there of any of The Beatles; the Soviet Unionalso banned the sales of Beatles records. While McCartney's per-formance was historic, he was not the first Beatle to perform inRussia. Former Beatle Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band per-formed at Moscow's Russia Hall in August 1998.In January 2008, Russia announced that they would resume parad-ing military vehicles through Red Square, although recent restora-tion of Iverski Gate complicated this, by closing one of existingpassages along Historical Museum for the heavy vehicles.In May 2008, Russia held its annual Victory day parade, markingthe 63rd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in the SecondWorld War. For the first time since the collapse of the USSR in

1991, Russian military vehicles paraded through the square. OnDecember 4, 2008, The KHL announced they would be holdingtheir first ever all-star game outdoors on January 10 at the RedSquare.On May 9, 2010 to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the ca-pitulation of Germany in 1945, The armed forces of France, Po-land, the United Kingdom and the United States marched in theMoscow Victory Day parade for the first time in history.

The buildings surrounding the Square are all significant in somerespect. Lenin's Mausoleum, for example, contains the embalmedbody of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.Nearby to the south is the elaborate brightly-domed Saint Basil'sCathedral and the palaces and cathedrals of the Kremlin.On the eastern side of the square is the GUM department store, andnext to it the restored Kazan Cathedral. The northern side is occu-pied by the State Historical Museum, whose outlines echo those ofKremlin towers. The Iberian Gate and Chapel have been rebuilt tothe northwest.

The only sculptured monument on the square is a bronze statue ofKuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, who helped to clear Mos-cow from the Polish invaders in 1612, during the Times of Trouble.Nearby is the so-called Lobnoye Mesto, a circular platform wherepublic ceremonies used to take place. Both the Minin andPozharskiy statue and the Lobnoye Mesto were once located morecentrally in Red Square but were moved to their current locationsto facilitate the large military parades of the Soviet era. The squareitself is around 330 meters (1100 ft) long and 70 meters (230 ft)wide.The Kremlin and Red square were together recognized as aUNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990, due to their inextricablelinks to Russian history since the 13th century.

A nuclear missile launcher makes its way to the 2011 Victory Day Parade on Red Square

THE KREMLINThere is no doubt that The Kremlin is the most visited building in the whole of Russia for tourists. Not only is it one of thebest known structures throughout the world but also one of the most fascinating.

The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River (to the south), Saint Basil's

Cathedral and Red Square (to the east) and the Alexander Garden(to the west). It is the best known of kremlins (Russian citadels)and includes four palaces, four cathedrals and the enclosing Krem-lin Wall with Kremlin towers. The complex serves as the officialresidence of the President of the Russian Federation.The name The Kremlin is often used as a metonym to refer to thegovernment of the Soviet Union (1922–1991) and its highest mem-bers (such as general secretaries, premiers, presidents, ministers,and commissars), in the same way that the metonym Élysée Palacerefers to the President of the French Republic, the White Houserefers to the Executive Office of the President of the United Statesand Number 10 Downing Street or Whitehall refers to the Officesof Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the British Govern-ment. It is still used in reference to the government of the RussianFederation and even the Russian President's official website isKremlin.Ru. "Kremlinology" refers to the study of Soviet and Rus-sian policies.

The site has been continuously inhabited since the 2nd centuryBC, and originates from a Vyatich fortified structure (or "grad") onBorovitsky Hill where the Neglinnaya River flowed into the MoskvaRiver. The Slavs occupied the south-western portion of the hill asearly as the 11th century, as evidenced by a metropolitan seal fromthe 1090s, which was unearthed by Soviet archaeologists in thearea.

Up to the 14th century, the site was known as the 'grad of Mos-cow'. The word "kremlin" was first recorded in 1331 and its ety-mology is disputed (see Max Vasmer online (Russian)). The gradwas greatly extended by Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy in 1156, destroyedby the Mongols in 1237 and rebuilt in oak in 1339.

John Climacus (1329), the monastery church of the Saviour's Trans-figuration (1330), and the Archangel Cathedral (1333)—all builtof limestone and decorated with elaborate carving, each crownedby a single dome. Of these churches, the reconstructed SaviourCathedral alone survived into the 20th century, only to be pulleddown at the urging of Stalin in 1933.Dmitri Donskoi replaced the oaken walls with a strong citadel ofwhite limestone in 1366–1368 on the basic foundations of the cur-rent walls; this fortification withstood a siege by Khan Tokhtamysh.Dmitri's son Vasily I resumed construction of churches and clois-ters in the Kremlin. The newly built Annunciation Cathedral waspainted by Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev, and Prokhor in1405. The Chudov Monastery was founded by Dmitri's tutor, Met-ropolitan Alexis; while his widow, Eudoxia, established the As-cension Convent in 1397.

Grand Prince Ivan III organised the reconstruction of the Kremlin,inviting a number of skilled architects from Renaissance Italy, likePetrus Antonius Solarius, who designed the new Kremlin wall andits towers, and Marcus Ruffus who designed the new palace for theprince. It was during his reign that three extant cathedrals of the

The Metro Stations Ploshad Revolyutsy, Okhotny Ryad andAlexandrovsky Sad will leave you at the Kremlin and Red

Square. The most impressive of these and the best to use isPloshad Revolyutsy

Kremlin, the Deposition Church, and the Palace of Facets wereconstructed. The highest building of the city and Muscovite Rus-sia was the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, built in 1505–08 and aug-mented to its present height in 1600. The Kremlin walls as theynow appear were built between 1485 and 1495. Spasskie gates ofthe wall still bear a dedication in Latin praising Petrus AntoniusSolarius for the design.

After construction of the new kremlin walls and churches was com-plete, the monarch decreed that no structures should be built in theimmediate vicinity of the citadel. The Kremlin was separated fromthe walled merchant town (Kitay-gorod) by a 30-metre-wide moat,over which the Intercession Cathedral on the Moat was constructedduring the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The same tsar also renovatedsome of his grandfather's palaces, added a new palace and cathe-dral for his sons, and endowed the Trinity metochion inside theKremlin. The metochion was administrated by the Trinity Monas-tery and boasted the graceful tower church of St. Sergius, whichwas described by foreigners as one of the finest in the country.During the Time of Troubles, the Kremlin was held by the Polishforces for two years, between 21 September 1610 and 26 October1612. The Kremlin's liberation by the volunteer army of princeDmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin paved the way for the elec-tion of Mikhail Romanov as the new tsar. During his reign and thatof his son Alexis, the eleven-domed Upper Saviour Cathedral, Ar-morial Gate, Terem Palace, Amusement Palace and the palace ofPatriarch Nikon were built. Following the death of Alexis, the Krem-lin witnessed the Moscow Uprising of 1682, from which tsar Peterbarely escaped, causing him to dislike the Kremlin. Three decadeslater, Peter abandoned the residence of his forefathers for his newcapital, Saint Petersburg.

Although still used for coronation ceremonies, the Kremlin wasabandoned and neglected until 1773, when Catherine the Greatengaged Vasili Bazhenov to build her new residence there.Bazhenov produced a bombastic Neoclassical design on a heroicscale, which involved the demolition of several churches and pal-aces, as well as a portion of the Kremlin wall. After the prepara-tions were over, construction halted due to lack of funds. Severalyears later, the architect Matvey Kazakov supervised the recon-struction of the dismantled sections of the wall and of some struc-tures of the Chudov Monastery, and constructed the spacious andluxurious offices of the Senate, since adapted for use as the princi-pal workplace of the President of Russia.

Following the French invasion of Russia in 1812, the French forcesoccupied the Kremlin from 2 September to 11 October. When Na-poleon retreated from Moscow, he ordered the whole Kremlin tobe blown up. The Kremlin Arsenal, several portions of the Krem-lin Wall and several wall towers were destroyed by explosions andfires damaged the Faceted Chamber and churches. Explosions con-tinued for three days, from 21 to 23 October. Fortunately, the rain

damaged the fuses, and the damage was less severe than intended.Restoration works were held in 1816–19, supervised by Osip Bove.During the remainder of Alexander I's reign, several ancient struc-tures were renovated in a fanciful neo-Gothic style, but many oth-ers were condemned as "disused" or "dilapidated" (including allthe buildings of the Trinity metochion) and simply torn down.On visiting Moscow for his coronation festivities, Nicholas I wasnot satisfied with the Grand, or Winter, Palace, which had beenerected to Rastrelli's design in the 1750s. The elaborate Baroquestructure was demolished, as was the nearby church of St. John thePrecursor, built by Aloisio the New in 1508 in place of the firstchurch constructed in Moscow. The architect Konstantin Thon wascommissioned to replace them with the Grand Kremlin Palace,which was to rival the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in its dimen-sions and the opulence of its interiors. The palace was constructedin 1839–49, followed by the new building of the Kremlin Armouryin 1851.

After 1851, the Kremlin changed little until the Russian Revolu-tion of 1917; the only new features added during this period werethe Monument to Alexander II and a stone cross marking the spotwhere Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was assassi-nated by Ivan Kalyayev in 1905. These monuments were destroyedby the Bolsheviks in 1918.

The Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow on 12March 1918. Vladimir Lenin selected the Kremlin Senate as hisresidence. Joseph Stalin also had his personal rooms in the Krem-lin. He was eager to remove from his headquarters all the "relics ofthe tsarist regime". Golden eagles on the towers were replaced byshining Kremlin stars, while the wall near Lenin's Mausoleum wasturned into the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.The Chudov Monastery and Ascension Convent, with their mag-nificent 16th-century cathedrals, were dismantled to make roomfor the military school and Palace of Congresses. The Little NicholasPalace and the old Saviour Cathedral were pulled down as well.The residence of the Soviet government was closed to tourists un-til 1955. It was not until the Khrushchev Thaw that the Kremlinwas reopened to foreign visitors. The Kremlin Museums were es-tablished in 1961 and the complex was among the first Soviet pat-rimonies inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1990.Although the current director of the Kremlin Museums, ElenaGagarina (Yuri Gagarin's daughter) advocates a full-scale restora-tion of the destroyed cloisters, recent developments have been con-fined to expensive restoration of the original interiors of the GrandKremlin Palace, which were altered during Stalin's rule. The Patri-arch of Moscow has a suite of rooms in the Kremlin, but divineservice in the Kremlin cathedrals is held irregularly, because theyare still administered as museums.

The existing Kremlin walls and towers were built by Italian mas-ters over the years 1485 to 1495. The irregular triangle of the Krem-lin wall encloses an area of 275,000 square metres (68 acres). Itsoverall length is 2235 metres (2444 yards), but the height rangesfrom 5 to 19 metres, depending on the terrain. The wall's thicknessis between 3.5 and 6.5 metres.

Originally there were eighteen Kremlin towers, but their numberincreased to twenty in the 17th century. All but three of the towersare square in plan. The highest tower is the Troizkaya, which wasbuilt up to its present height of 73,9 metres in 1495. Most towerswere originally crowned with wooden tents; the extant brick tentswith strips of colored tiles go back to the 1680s.Cathedral Square is the heart of the Kremlin. It is surrounded bysix buildings, including three cathedrals. The Cathedral of theDormition was completed in 1479 to be the main church of Mos-cow and where all the Tsars were crowned. The massive limestonefacade, capped with its five golden cupolas was the design ofAristotele Fioravanti. Several important metropolitans and patri-archs are buried there, including Peter and Makarii. The gilded,three-domed Cathedral of the Annunciation was completed next in1489, only to be reconstructed to a nine-domed design a centurylater. On the south-east of the square is the much larger Cathedralof the Archangel Michael (1508), where almost all the Muscovitemonarchs from Ivan Kalita to Alexis I of Russia are interred. (BorisGodunov was originally buried there, but was moved to the TrinityMonastery.)

There are two domestic churches of the Metropolitans and Patri-archs of Moscow, the Church of the Twelve Apostles (1653–56)and the exquisite one-domed Church of the Deposition of the

One of the most impressive sights to see inMoscow is the changing of the guard at the

Kremlin Walls

Virgin's Robe, built by Pskov artisans over the years 1484–88 andfeaturing superb icons and frescoes from 1627 and 1644.The other notable structure is the Ivan the Great Bell Tower on thenorth-east corner of the square, which is said to mark the exactcentre of Moscow and resemble a burning candle. Completed in1600, it is 81 meters (266 ft) high. Until the Russian Revolution, itwas the tallest structure in the city, as construction of buildingstaller than that was forbidden. Its 21 bells would sound the alarm ifany enemy was approaching. The upper part of the structure wasdestroyed by the French during the Napoleonic Invasion and has,of course, been rebuilt. The Tsar bell, the largest bell in the world,stands on a pedestal next to the tower.

The oldest secular structure still standing is Ivan III's Palace ofFacets (1491), which holds the imperial thrones. The next oldest isthe first home of the royal family, the Terem Palace. The originalTerem Palace was also commissioned by Ivan III, but most of theexisting palace was built in the 17th century. The Terem Palaceand the Palace of Facets are linked by the Grand Kremlin Palace.This was commissioned by Nicholas I in 1838. The largest struc-ture in the Kremlin, it cost an exorbitant sum of eleven millionrubles to build and more than one billion dollars to renovate in the1990s. It contains dazzling reception halls, a ceremonial red stair-case, private apartments of the tsars, and the lower storey of theResurrection of Lazarus church (1393), which is the oldest extantstructure in the Kremlin and the whole of Moscow.The northern corner of the Kremlin is occupied by the Arsenal,which was originally built for Peter the Great in 1701. The south-western section of the Kremlin holds the Armoury building. Builtin 1851 to a Renaissance Revival design, it is currently a museumhousing Russian state regalia and Diamond fund.

St BASIL’S CATHEDRALYou don’t have to be a religious person to appreciate that St Basil’s Cathedral is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.Seeing it for real truly is a wonderful experience

A lthough it's known to everyone as St. Basil's, this legendarybuilding is officially called "The Cathedral of the Interces-

sion of the Virgin by the Moat". The popular alternative refers toBasil the Blessed, a Muscovite 'holy fool' who was buried on thesite (in the Trinity Cathedral that once stood here) a few yearsbefore the present building was erected.The Cathedral was ordered by Ivan the Terrible to mark the 1552capture of Kazan from Mongol forces. It was completed in 1560.That's pretty much all the genuine history that's known about thiscelebrated landmark. There are, however, scores of legends.Nothing is known about the builders, Barma and Postnik Yakovlev,except their names and the dubious legend that Ivan had themblinded so that they could not create anything to compare. Histori-ans unanimously state that this is nothing but urban folklore.Architectural specialists are to this day unable to agree about thegoverning idea behind the structure. Either the creators were pay-ing homage to the churches of Jerusalem, or, by building eightchurches around a central ninth, they were representing the medi-eval symbol of the eight-pointed star. The original concept of theCathedral of the Intercession has been hidden from us beneath lay-ers of stylistic additions and new churches added to the main build-ing. In fact, when built, the Cathedral was all white to match the

white-stone Kremlin, and the onion domes were gold rather thanmulti-colored and patterned as they are today.In the 17th century a hip-roofed bell tower was added, the galleryand staircases were covered with vaulted roofing, and the helmeteddomes were replaced with decorated ones. In 1860 during rebuild-ing, the Cathedral was painted with a more complex and integrateddesign, and has remained unchanged since.For a time in the Soviet Union, there was talk of demolishing St.Basil's - mainly because it hindered Stalin's plans for massed pa-rades on Red Square. It was only saved thanks to the courage ofthe architect Pyotr Baranovsky. When ordered to prepare the build-ing for demolition, he refused categorically, and sent the Kremlinan extremely blunt telegram. The Cathedral remained standing, andBaranovsky's conservation efforts earned him five years in prison.The Cathedral is now a museum. During restoration work in theseventies a wooden spiral staircase was discovered within one ofthe walls. Visitors now take this route into the central church, withits extraordinary, soaring tented roof and a fine 16th Centuryiconostasis. You can also walk along the narrow, winding gallery,covered in beautiful patterned paintwork.One service a year is held in the Cathedral, on the Day of Interces-sion in October.

LENIN MAUSOLEUMOne of the most impressive experiences on Red Square is to enter Lenin’s Mausoleum and see the preserved body of the founderof the Soviet Union. One word of warning though. No stopping, taking photographs, hand in pockets and certainly no talking

Lenin's Mausoleum also known as Lenin's Tomb, situated inRed Square in the center of Moscow, is the mausoleum that

serves as the current resting place of Vladimir Lenin. His embalmedbody has been on public display there since shortly after his deathin 1924 (with rare exceptions in wartime). Aleksey Shchusev's di-minutive but monumental granite structure incorporates some ele-ments from ancient mausoleums, such as the Step Pyramid and theTomb of Cyrus the Great.

Soon after January 21, 1924, the day that Lenin died, the Sovietgovernment received more than 10,000 telegrams from all overRussia, which asked the government to preserve his body some-how for future generations. On the morning of January 23, Profes-sor Alexei Ivanovich Abrikosov—a prominent Russian patholo-gist and anatomist (not to be confused with physicist AlexeiAlexeyevich Abrikosov, his son) embalmed Lenin's body to keepit intact until the burial. On the night of January 23, architect AlekseyShchusev was given a task to complete within three days: designand build a tomb to accommodate all those who wanted to saytheir goodbyes to Lenin. On January 26, the decision was made toplace the tomb in Red Square by the Kremlin Wall. By January 27,Shchusev built a tomb out of wood and at 4 p.m. that day theyplaced Lenin's coffin in it. More than 100,000 people visited thetomb within a month and a half. By August 1924, Shchusev up-graded the tomb to a bigger version. The architect KonstantinMelnikov designed Lenin's sarcophagus.In 1929, it was established that it would be possible to preserveLenin’s body for a much longer period of time. Therefore, archi-tects Aleksey Shchusev, I.A. Frantsuz, and G.K. Yakovlev wereentrusted to replace the wooden mausoleum with one made of stone.Marble, porphyry, granite, labradorite, and other construction ma-terials were used. In October 1930, the construction of the stonetomb was finished. In 1973, sculptor Nikolai Tomsky designed anew sarcophagus.On January 26, 1924, the Head of the Moscow Garrison issued anorder to place the Guard of Honour at the mausoleum. Russianscall it the "Number One Sentry". After the events of the Russianconstitutional crisis of 1993, the Guard of Honour was disbanded.In 1997 the "Number One Sentry" was restored at the Tomb of theUnknown Soldier in Alexander Garden.The body was removed in October 1941 and evacuated to Tyumen,in Siberia, when it appeared that Moscow might be in imminentdanger of falling to invading Nazi troops. After the war, it wasreturned and the tomb reopened.More than 10 million people visited Lenin's tomb between 1924and 1972.Joseph Stalin's embalmed body shared a spot next to Lenin's, fromthe time of his death in 1953 until October 31, 1961, when Stalinwas removed as part of de-Stalinization and Khrushchev's Thaw,and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis outside the walls of theKremlin.Lenin's body was to have been transferred to the Pantheon upon itscompletion but the project was cancelled in the aftermath of de-Stalinization.

The family of Lenin's embalmers states that the corpse is real andrequires daily work to moisturise the features and inject preserva-tives under the clothes. Lenin's sarcophagus is kept at a tempera-ture of 16 °C (61 °F) and kept at a humidity of 80 - 90 percent. Thechemical used was referred to by the caretakers as "balsam", whichwas glycerine and potassium acetate. Every eighteen months thecorpse is removed and undergoes a special chemical bath. The

chemicals were unknown until after the fall of the Soviet Union,kept secret by authorities. The bath consists of placing the corpsein a glass bath with potassium acetate, alcohol, glycerol, distilledwater, and as a disinfectant, quinine. This was the process used forall subsequent treatments of Lenin's body and continues to be usedeven now.One of the main problems the embalmers faced was the appear-ance of dark spots on the skin, especially on the face and hands.They managed to solve the problem by the use of a variety ofdifferent agents in between baths. For example, if a patch ofwrinkling or discoloration occurred it was treated with an aceticacid diluted with water. Hydrogen peroxide could be used torestore the tissues' original colouring. Damp spots were removedby means of disinfectants like quinine or phenol.Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the continued preserva-tion work was funded by the Russian government. At that point thegovernment discontinued financial support and now privatedonations support the preservation staff

The Mausoleum is open every day from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm,except holidays, Mondays and Fridays. Visitors still wait in linesto see Lenin's body although they are not as long as they oncewere. Entrance is free of charge. All items capable of recordingvideo or audio as well as taking a picture are strictly forbiddeninside the mausoleum. All electronic items must be checked in anearby building containing lockers. Before visitors are allowed toenter the mausoleum, armed police or military guards search eachvisitor. Visitors are required to show respect while in the tomb;photography and videotaping inside the mausoleum are forbidden,as are talking, smoking, keeping hands in pockets, or wearing hats(if male)Since 1991, there has been some discussion about removing theKremlin Wall Necropolis and burying Lenin's body. President BorisYeltsin, with the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, intendedto close the tomb and bury Lenin next to his mother, MariaAlexandrovna Ulyanova, at the Volkov Cemetery in Saint Peters-burg; however, his successor, Vladimir Putin, opposed this, point-ing out that a reburial of Lenin would imply that generations ofcitizens had observed false values during 70 years of Soviet rule.

Vladimir Putin at Lenin’s Mausoleum in 2009

Lenin was one of the leading political figures and revolutionary thinkers of the 20th century, who masterminded the Bolsheviktake-over of power in Russia in 1917, and was the architect and first head of the USSR.

VLADIMIR LENIN

Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov was born in Simbirsk on the Volga Riveron 22 April 1870 into a well-educated family. He excelled at

school and went on to study law. At university, he was exposed toradical thinking, and his views were also influenced by the execu-tion of his elder brother, a member of a revolutionary group.Expelled from university for his radical policies, Lenin completedhis law degree as an external student in 1891. He moved to StPetersburg and became a professional revolutionary. Like many ofhis contemporaries, he was arrested and exiled to Siberia, wherehe married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his Siberian exile, Lenin -the pseudonym he adopted in 1901 - spent most of the subsequentdecade and a half in western Europe, where he emerged as a promi-nent figure in the international revolutionary movement and be-came the leader of the 'Bolshevik' faction of the Russian SocialDemocratic Worker's Party.In 1917, exhausted by World War One, Russia was ripe for change.Assisted by the Germans, who hoped that he would undermine theRussian war effort, Lenin returned home and started working againstthe provisional government that had overthrown the tsarist regime.He eventually led what was soon to be known as the October Revo-lution, but was effectively a coup d'etat. Almost three years of civilwar followed. The Bolsheviks were victorious and assumed totalcontrol of the country. During this period of revolution, war andfamine, Lenin demonstrated a chilling disregard for the sufferingsof his fellow countrymen and mercilessly crushed any opposition.Although Lenin was ruthless he was also pragmatic. When his ef-

forts to transform the Russian economy to a socialist model stalled,he introduced the New Economic Policy, where a measure of pri-vate enterprise was again permitted, a policy that continued forseveral years after his death. In 1918, Lenin narrowly survived anassassination attempt, but was severely wounded. His long termhealth was affected, and in 1922 he suffered a stroke from whichhe never fully recovered. In his declining years, he worried aboutthe bureaucratisation of the regime and also expressed concern overthe increasing power of his eventual successor Joseph Stalin. Lenindied on 24 January 1924. His corpse was embalmed and placed ina mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square.

Lenin’s influence continues to this day (below)

Lenin pictured with Stalin. A man he did not trust

GRAVE OF JOSEPH STALINThere are many graves situated directly behind Lenin’s Mausoleum ranging from those killed in the 1917 revolution rightthrough to cosmonauts. Without doubt the most famous is that of the Soviet leader who took over after the death of Lenin -Joseph Stalin

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born on 18 December1879 in Gori, Georgia, which was then part of the Russian em-

pire. His father was a cobbler and Stalin grew up in modest cir-cumstances. He studied at a theological seminary where he beganto read Marxist literature. He never graduated, instead devotinghis time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian mon-archy. He spent the next 15 years as an activist and on a number ofoccasions was arrested and exiled to Siberia.Stalin was not one of the decisive players in the Bolshevik seizureof power in 1917, but he soon rose through the ranks of the party.In 1922, he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, apost not considered particularly significant at the time but whichgave him control over appointments and thus allowed him to buildup a base of support. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin promotedhimself as his political heir and gradually outmanoeuvred his ri-vals. By the late 1920s, Stalin was effectively the dictator of theSoviet Union.His forced collectivisation of agriculture cost millions of lives, whilehis programme of rapid industrialisation achieved huge increasesin Soviet productivity and economic growth but at great cost. More-over, the population suffered immensely during the Great Terror ofthe 1930s, during which Stalin purged the party of 'enemies of thepeople', resulting in the execution of thousands and the exile ofmillions to the gulag system of slave labour camps.These purges severely depleted the Red Army, and despite repeatedwarnings, Stalin was ill prepared for Hitler's attack on the SovietUnion in June 1941. His political future, and that of the SovietUnion, hung in the balance, but Stalin recovered to lead his coun-try to victory. The human cost was enormous, but was not a con-sideration for him.

After World War Two, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear ageand ruled over an empire which included most of eastern Europe.Increasingly paranoid, Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953.

My good self with an old Stalinist outsidethe Bol Theatre in May 2005

THE BOLSHOI THEATRE

The Bolshoi Theatre was designed by architect Joseph Bové, whichholds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and

Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and operacompanies in the world. The theatre is the parent company of The BolshoiBallet Academy, a world-leading school of ballet.The main building of the theatre, rebuilt and renovated several times dur-ing its history, is a landmark of Moscow and Russia (its iconic neoclassi-cal facade is depicted on the Russian 100-ruble banknote). On 28 October2011, the Bolshoi was re-opened after an extensive six year renovationcosting about 21 billion rubles (about $680 million). The renovation in-cluded restoring acoustics to the original quality (which had been lost dur-ing the Soviet Era), as well as restoring the original Imperial decor of theBolshoi.

The company was founded in 1776 by Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Urusovand Michael Maddox. Initially, it held performances in a private home,but in 1780, it acquired the Petrovka Theatre and began producing playsand operas.The current building was built on Theatre Square in 1824 to replace thePetrovka Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1805. It was de-signed by architect Andrei Mikhailov, who had built the nearby Maly The-atre in 1824.At that time, all Russian theatres were imperial property. Moscow and StPetersburg each had only two theatres, one intended for opera and ballet(these were known as the Bolshoi Theatres), and one for plays (tragediesand comedies). As opera and ballet were considered nobler than drama,the opera houses were named "Grand Theatres" ("Bolshoi" is Russian for"large" or "grand") and the drama theatres were called the "Smaller The-atre" ("Maly" is Russian for "small", "lesser", or "little").The Bolshoi Theatre's original name was the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre ofMoscow, while the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre (demolished in 1886),was called the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre.The Moscow theatre was inaugurated on 18 January 1825 with a perfor-mance of Fernando Sor's ballet, Cendrillon. Initially, it presented onlyRussian works, but foreign composers entered the repertoire around 1840.A fire in 1853 caused extensive damage; reconstruction was carried outby Alberto Cavos, son of Catterino Cavos, an opera composer. The theaterreopened in 1856. During World War II, the theatre was damaged by abomb, but it was immediately repaired.The Bolshoi has been the site of many historic premieres includingTchaikovsky's The Voyevoda and Mazeppa, and Rachmaninoff's Alekoand Francesca da Rimini. Feodor Chaliapin, Leonid Sobinov, AntoninaNezhdanova, Ksenia Derzhinskaia and other outstanding opera singershave performed at the Bolshoi.

The New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre was opened on November 29, 2000.A new stage was built to the left of the historic Main Stage of the Bolshoi.Together with auxiliary buildings (a restored 17th century building, tworehearsal halls, and artists' recreation rooms) it became a single theatercomplex, the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia. The new building is built on anatural hill, where until recently there were blocks of old houses withcommunal apartments.

From July 2005 to October 2011 the Theatre was closed for restoration. Ithad undergone many renovations in its time, but none as major as this.The building, whose architecture includes three different styles, was dam-aged, and a quick renovation seemed to be necessary. The renovation wasinitially due to cost 15 billion rubles ($610 million), but engineers foundthat the structure was more than 75% unstable and it was then estimatedthat about 25.5 billion rubles (app. $850 million) would need to be spent.However, at the completion of the restoration, it was announced that only

I am certainly not into ballet or opera but even I have heard of the Bolshoi Theatre. Now fully restored the building is one of themust sees on any visit to Moscow. It’s also quite easy to find as you only need to heard to Revolution Square when you leave RedSquare and there it is

21 billion rubles were spent. The work was funded entirely by the federalgovernment.Despite the reconstruction, the company was operational, with perfor-mances held on the New Stage and on the stage of the Great KremlinPalace. On 28 October 2011, the Bolshoi Theatre was re-opened with aconcert featuring international artists and the ballet and opera companies.The renovation included an improvement in the acoustics to restore it tothe level of the pre-Soviet era as well as the restoration of the originalImperial decor. The restoration also repaired the foundation and brick-work.Inside the theatre, the entire space was stripped from the bottom up; the19th-century wooden fixtures, silver stage curtain, and French-made redvelvet banquettes were removed for repair in specialist workshops. Out-side, on the top of the facade, the double-headed eagle of the originalRussian coat of arms was installed in the place where the Soviet hammerand sickle had been mounted for decades.

The Bolshoi is a repertory theatre, meaning that it draws from a stable ofproductions, any one of which may be performed on a given evening. Itnormally introduces two to four new ballet or opera productions each sea-son and retires a similar number. The sets and costumes for most produc-tions are made in the Bolshoi's own workshops. The performers are drawnprimarily from the Bolshoi's regular ballet and opera companies, with oc-casional guest performances. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, therehave been a few attempts to reduce the theatre's traditional dependence onlarge state subsidies. Corporate sponsorship occurs for some productions,but state subsidy is still the lifeblood of the company.The Bolshoi has been associated from its beginnings with ballet.Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premiered at the theatre on 4 March 1877.Other staples of the Bolshoi repertoire include Tchaikovsky's The Sleep-ing Beauty and The Nutcracker, Adam's Giselle, Prokofiev's Romeo andJuliet, and Khachaturian's Spartacus.

After the death of Joseph Stalin, international touring companies went outfrom the Bolshoi and became an important source of cultural prestige, aswell as foreign currency earnings. As a result, the "Bolshoi Ballet" be-came a well-known name in the West. However, the Bolshoi suffered fromlosses through a series of defections of its dancers. The first occurrencewas on 23 August 1979, with Alexander Godunov; followed by LeonidKozlov and Valentina Kozlova on 16 September 1979; and other cases inthe following years. Bolshoi-related troupes continue to tour regularly inthe post-Soviet era.The opera company specializes in the classics of Russian opera such asMussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Glinka's A Life for the Tsar, and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, as well as the operas of Tchaikovsky. Manyoperas by western composers are also performed, especially works of Ital-ian composers such as Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini. Until the mid-1990s,most foreign operas were sung in Russian, but Italian and other languageshave been heard more frequently on the Bolshoi stage in recent years.Some operas, such as Borodin's Prince Igor, include extensive ballet se-quences. Many productions, especially of classic Russian opera, are givenon a scale of grand spectacle, with dozens of costumed singers and danc-ers on stage for crowd or festival scenes.

The Bolshoi Theatre is famous throughout the world. It is frequented bymany tourists, with the result that prices can be much higher than otherRussian theatres. This is especially the case for ballet, where the prices arecomparable to those for performances in the West. For local citizens con-certs and operas are still relatively affordable, with prices ranging from100 (50 for students) rubles (balcony seats for matinee performances) to5,000 rubles (for the seats in the orchestra or stalls).

REVOLUTION SQUAREDirectly facing the Bolshoi Theatre is Revolution Square with its impressive monument to Karl Mark tell the workers of theworld to unite (facing). It is here that the Communists gather on May Day and if you are in Moscow during this time it is wellworth going to. If not the park is also well worth a visit at any time of the year.

The square has the shape of an arc running from the southwestto the north and is bounded by Manezhnaya Square to the

southwest, Okhotny Ryad to the north, and the buildings separat-ing it from Nikolskaya Street to the south and to the east. It is oneof the Central Squares of Moscow. The continuation of theRevolution Square north behind Okhotny Ryad is TeatralnayaSquare.There are three Moscow Metro stations located under the square,all of them having at least one exit at the square: PloshchadRevolyutsii, named after the square, Teatralnaya, and OkhotnyRyad. All these stations are transfer stations, with Teatralnayabeing connected with the other two.

Originally, the Neglinnaya River, a tributary of the Moscow River,currently underground, was flowing through the area. Between 1534and 1538, the wall of Kitay-gorod with Iberian Gate and Chapelwas constructed. In 1817-1819, the Neglinnaya was rebuilt as atunnel, and thus the area became a square. It got the name ofVoskresenskaya Square (Ascension Square), after the other nameof Iberian Gate, Ascencion Gate. In 1918, the square was renamedafter the October Revolution. In 1931, Iberian Gate was demol-ished (rebuilt in 1994-1995), and in 1935, Hotel Moskva was builton the northern side of the square, separating it from Okhotny Ryad.The road traffic was subsequantly separated, so that traffic fromTverskaya Street in the direction of Lubyanka Square followedRevolution Square, and road traffic in the reverse directionfollowed Okhotny Ryad. In 1993, all road traffic around theMoscow Kremlin was made unidirectional (in the clockwisedirection), and Revolution Square cased to be a through road.

The building of Lenin Museum, built in 1890-1892 by DmitryChichagov, originally was used as Moscow City Hall. It separatesRevolution Square from Red Square.Resurrection Gate was built in 1535, rebuilt in 1680, demolishedin 1931, and rebuilt in 1994-1996. It connects Revolution Squarewith Red Square.

LUBYASKAYA SQUARE AND THE KGBThere are not many people in the world who have not heard of the KGB and no visit to Moscow is complete without a visit to theirformer headquarters at Lubyaskaya Square. It is a very short walk from Revolution Square. One word of warning though - photo-graph the building from the other side of the road as you can get arrested photographing close to it. The Metro Station Lubyanka ison the square

Left - Poster of the modern Communist Party for a rally at Lub Square

The KGB directors from Lavrentiya Beriya to Yuriy Andropovhad their office on the third floor of the building. The center

of the square was dominated centre by a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky,founder of the first communist secret police, the Cheka. Like manyothers, the statue was removed in August 1991 to Sculpture Park.The Lubyanka actually consists of three buildings. The main yel-low building, which is often shown on television, predates the Revo-lution and was taken over by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Containingthe Lubianka prison, this building is now the headquarters of theBorder Troops, and it also contains a single Federal Security Ser-vice (FSB) Directorate. The Federal Security Service headquartersbuilding is the gray one to left side whose construction began un-der Andropov and was finished under Chebrikov.Since 1984 (when the KGB chief Yuri Andropov became chair-man of the Communist Party and decided to improve the KGB'spublic image) tourists have been able to visit the KGB museum ina gray stone building behind the Lubyanka. The upper floors arethe KGB offices, but the ground floors are used for conferencesand a clubroom for retired KGB offices, featuring a disco, amongother things. And since the Soviet collapse in 1991, Russia's intel-ligence agencies have tried to create an impression of openness,giving guided tours through the yellow Lubianka. The new KGBMuseum, which is open to the public, is housed in the Lubyankabuilding. Across the square from the Lubyanka is Dyetsky Mir(Children's World), the largest children's shop in the country.

THE KGB

ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMITTEE FOR

STATE SECURITY

The basic organizational structure of the KGB was created in 1954,when the reorganization of the police apparatus was carried out. Inthe late 1980s, the KGB remained a highly centralized institution,with controls implemented by the Politburo through the KGB head-quarters in Moscow.Structure of the KGBThe KGB organization was originally designated as a "state com-mittee attached to the Council of Ministers." On July 5, 1978, anew law on the Council of Ministers changed the status of the KGB,along with that of several other state committees, so that its chair-man was a member of the Council of Ministers by law. Accordingto the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the Council of Ministers "coordi-nates and directs" the work of the ministries and state committees,including the KGB. In practice, however, the KGB had more au-tonomy than most other government bodies and operated with alarge degree of independence from the Council of Ministers. Thesituation was similar with the Supreme Soviet, which had formalauthority over the Council of Ministers and its agencies. In 1989the actual powers of the Supreme Soviet, however, gave it little ifany power over KGB operations.The KGB was a union-republic state committee, controlling corre-sponding state committees of the same name in the fourteen non-Russian republics. (All-union ministries and state committees, bycontrast, did not have corresponding branches in the republics butexecuted their functions directly through Moscow.) Below the re-public level, there existed the KGB administrations in the states/county and cities. In the Russian Republic, however, there was noseparate KGB. The main KGB administrations in the Russian Re-public were subordinated directly to the central KGB offices in

Moscow. At the lower levels, autonomous county, cities, and townshad KGB departments or sections.The KGB also had a broad network of special departments in allmajor government institutions, enterprises, and factories. Theygenerally consisted of one or more KGB representatives, whosepurpose was to ensure the observance of security regulations andto monitor political sentiments among employees. The special de-partments recruited informers to help them in their tasks. A sepa-rate and very extensive network of special departments existedwithin the armed forces and defense-related institutions.Although a union-republic agency, the KGB was highly central-ized and was controlled rigidly from the top. The KGB centralstaff kept a close watch over the operations of its branches, leavingthe latter minimal autonomous authority over policy or cadre se-lection. Moreover, local government organs had little involvementin local KGB activities. Indeed, the high degree of centralizationin the KGB was reflected in the fact that regional KGB brancheswere not subordinated to the local soviets but only to the KGBhierarchy. Thus, they differed from local branches of most union-republic ministerial agencies, such as the MVD, which were sub-ject to dual subordination.The KGB was directed by a chairman (who was formally appointedby the Supreme Soviet but actually was selected by the Politburo)one or two first deputy chairmen, and several (usually four to six)deputy chairmen. Key decisions were made by the KGBCollegiums, which was a collective leadership body composed ofthe chairman, deputy chairmen, chiefs of certain KGB director-ates, and one or two chairmen of republic the KGB organizations.

THE SEVEN SISTERSThe "Seven Sisters" is the English name given to a group of Moscow skyscrapers designed in the Stalinist style. Muscovites callthem Vysotki or Stalinskie Vysotki "Stalin's high-rises". They were built from 1947 to 1953, in an elaborate combination ofRussian Baroque and Gothic styles, and the technology used in building American skyscrapers.The seven are: Hotel Ukraina, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Apartments, the Kudrinskaya Square Building, the HotelLeningradskaya, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the main building of the Moscow State University, and the Red Gates Admin-istrative Building.

The "Seven Sisters" is the English name given to a group ofMoscow skyscrapers designed in the Stalinist style. Musco-

vites call them Vysotki or Stalinskie Vysotki "Stalin's high-rises".They were built from 1947 to 1953, in an elaborate combination ofRussian Baroque and Gothic styles, and the technology used inbuilding American skyscrapers.The seven are: Hotel Ukraina, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Apart-ments, the Kudrinskaya Square Building, the Hotel Leningradskaya,the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the main building of the MoscowState University, and the Red Gates Administrative Building.

The first Soviet skyscraper project, Palace of the Soviets, was in-terrupted by the German invasion of 1941, at which point the steelframe was scrapped in order to fortify the Moscow defense ring,and the site was abandoned. Between 1947 and 1956, Boris Iofanpresented six new drafts for this site, and also for Vorobyovy Goryon a smaller scale - they were all rejected. In 1946, Stalin person-ally switched to another idea - construction of vysotki, a chain ofreasonably-sized skyscrapers not tarnished by the memories of theComintern. As Nikita Khrushchev recalled Stalin's words, "We wonthe war ... foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there'sno skyscrapers. If they compare Moscow to capitalist cities, it's amoral blow to us". Sites were selected between January, 1947(the official decree on vysotki) and September 12, 1947 (formalopening ceremony).

Nothing is known about selection of construction sites or designevaluation; this process (1947–1948) was kept secret, a sign ofStalin's personal tight management. The choice of architects is aclear indicator of a rotation in Stalin's preferences. Old profes-sionals like Shchusev, Zholtovsky etc., were not involved. Instead,the job was given to the next generation of mature architects. In1947, the oldest of them, Vladimir Gelfreikh, was 62. The young-est, Mikhail Posokhin, was 37. Individual commissions were rankedaccording to each architect's status, and clearly segmented into twogroups - four first class and four second class towers. Job numberone, a Vorobyovy Gory tower that would become Moscow StateUniversity, was awarded to Lev Rudnev, a new leader of his pro-fession. Rudnev received his commission only in September 1948,and employed hundreds of professional designers. He released hisdraft in early 1949. Dmitry Chechulin received two commissions.In April 1949, the winner of the Stalin Prize for 1948 was an-nounced. All eight design teams received first and second classawards, according to their project status, regardless of their archi-tectural value. At this stage, these were conceptual drafts; oftenone would be cancelled and others would be altered.All the buildings employed over-engineered steel frames with con-crete ceilings and masonry infill, based on concrete slab founda-tions (in the case of the University building - 7 meters thick). Exte-rior ceramic tiles, panels up to 15 square meters, were secured withstainless steel anchors. The height of these buildings was not lim-

Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building. There are two other'Stalin Buildings' nearby including the Ministry of ForeignAffairs which is at the top of Stary Arbat and directly next to

the Metro Station Smolenskaya. The Hotel Ukraine which isdirectly facing the White House (Russian Parliament)

The lobby of Hotel Ukraine is well worth a visit to see thecommunist ceiling murals and the massive model of the

Kremlin and Red Square.

ited by political will, but by lack of technology and experience -the structures were far heavier than American skyscrapers.Buildings are listed under their current names, in the same order asthey appeared in the April 1949 Stalin Prize decree. Note that dif-ferent sources report different number of levels and height, de-pending on inclusion of mechanical floors and uninhabited crownlevels.

Moscow State University, Sparrow Hills (below)Boris Iofan made a mistake placing his draft skyscraper right onthe edge of Sparrow Hills. The site was a potential landslide haz-ard. He made a worse mistake by insisting on his decision and waspromptly replaced by Lev Rudnev, a 53-year-old rising star ofStalin's establishment. Rudnev had already built high-profile edi-fices like the 1932-1937 Frunze Military Academy and the 1947Marshals' Apartments (Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, 28), which earnedthe highest credits of the Party.Lev Rudnev set the building 800 meters away from the cliff. Theopening ceremony was followed by less glorious events - buildingcamps for Gulag laborers, mostly German prisoners of war. A so-called Site-560, run by Gulag, supervised the workforce that reached14,290. While the construction was ongoing, some inmates werehoused on the 24th and 25th levels to reduce transportation costsand the number of guards required. A story, possibly apocryphal,exists about inmates who tried to escape the tower on self-madeplywood gliders. Another apocryphal story asserts that the MGUfoundation requires permanent freezing (otherwise it will slide intothe river) and the basement is occupied by huge cryo freezer. Actu-ally, the foundation is stable, and the 'freezer' is an ordinarycentralised air conditioner.

The main tower, which consumed over 40,000 metric tons of steel,was inaugurated September 1, 1953. At 787.4 feet or 240 metrestall, it was the tallest building in Europe from its completion until1990. It is still the tallest educational building in the world.

Hotel Ukraina - Radisson Royal Hotel (right)Ukraina by Arkady Mordvinov and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky (lead-ing Soviet expert on steel-framed highrise construction) is the sec-ond tallest of the "sisters" (198 meters, 34 levels). It was the tallesthotel in the world from the time of its construction until thePeachtree Plaza Hotel opened in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975.Construction on the low river bank meant that the builders had todig well below the water level. This was solved by an ingeniouswater retention system, using a perimeter of needle pumps drivendeep into ground.The hotel reopened its doors again after a 3-year-renovation onApril 28, 2010, now called Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow, with505 bedrooms and 38 apartments.

Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis 172 meter, 27 story building was built between 1948 and 1953and overseen by V. G. Gelfreikh and M. A. Minkus. Currently, ithouses the offices for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Rus-sian Federation. The Ministry is covered by a light external stonewall with projecting pilasters and pylons. Its interior is splendidlydecorated with stones and metals. According to the 1982 biogra-phy of Minkus, draft plans were first drawn up in 1946 and rangedfrom 9 to 40 stories. In 1947 two designs were proposed: one uti-lized layered setbacks while the other called for a more stream-

lined construction which culminated into a blunt rectangular top.The second proposal was accepted but as the Ministry's comple-tion neared, a metal spire, dyed to match the building's exterior(and presumably ordered by Joseph Stalin), was hastily added totower's roof, assimilating its silhouette with those of the other Sis-ters.

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya HotelOriginally known simply as the Leningradskaya Hotel, this rela-tively small (136 meters, 26 floors, of which 19 are usable) build-ing by Leonid Polyakov on Komsomolskaya Square is decoratedwith pseudo-Russian ornaments mimicking Alexey Shchusev'sKazansky Rail Terminal. Inside, it was inefficiently planned.Khruschev, in his 1955 decree "On liquidation of excesses..." as-

serted that at least 1000 rooms could be built for the cost ofLeningradskaya's 354, that only 22% of the total space was rent-able, and that the costs per bed were 50% higher than in MoskvaHotel. Following this critique, Polyakov was stripped of his 1948Stalin Prize but retained the other one, for a Moscow Metro sta-tion. After a multi-million dollar renovation ending in 2008, thehotel re-opened as the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya.

Kotelnicheskaya Embankment BuildingAnother of Chechulin's works, 176 meters high, with 22 usablelevels, the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building was strategi-cally placed at the confluence of the Moskva River and Yauza River.The building incorporates an earlier 9-story apartment block fac-ing Moskva River, by the same architects (completed in 1940). Itwas intended as an elite housing building. However, very soon af-ter construction, units were converted to multi-family kommunalka(communal apartments). Built in a neo-gothic design, though alsodrew inspiration from Hotel Metropol.

Kudrinskaya Square BuildingDesigned by Mikhail Posokhin (Sr.) and Ashot Mndoyants. 160metres high, 22 floors (17 usable). The building is located on theend of Krasnaya Presnya street, facing the Sadovoye Koltso andwas primary built with high-end apartments for Soviet cultural lead-ers rather than politicians.

Red Gates Administrative Building (below)Designed by Alexey Dushkin of the Moscow Metro fame, thismixed-use block of 11-storey buildings is crowned with a slim tower(total height 133 meters, 24 levels).In this case, cryotechnology was indeed used for the escalator tun-nels connecting the building with the Krasniye Vorota subway sta-tion. The building's frame was erected deliberately tilted to oneside; when the frozen soil thawed, it settled down - although notenough for a perfect horizontal level. Then the builders warmedthe soil by pumping hot water; this worked too well, the structureslightly over-reacted, tilting to the opposite side but well withintolerance.

MUSEUM OF THE SOVIET ARMYThe Central Armed Forces Museum also known as the Museum of the Soviet Army, is located in northern Moscow near the Red Army Theater.The first exposition which showed the military condition of the Soviet Republic and the Red Army was organised in Moscow in the building oftoday's State Universal Store, and was opened by Vladimir Lenin on the 25 May 1919, following a parade in Red Square.

On 23 December 1919 an order was issued on the formation ofa museum-exposition "Life of the Red Army and Fleet" in

the same location, whose purpose was to inform the public aboutthe achievements by post-October Revolution Soviet Russia inmilitary education, culture and political discipline in the Red Armyand Navy.

In 1920 another exhibition was organised and dedicated to the 11thcongress of Comintern in Moscow about the life and deeds of theSoviet Republic and its young armed forces which defend the con-quests of the proletariat. More than 150,000 people visited the ex-hibition. In 1921 the exposition was transformed into the Museumof the Red Army and Fleet, and it was moved to Vozdvizhenka 6 in1922, into a building (demolished in the 1930s), opposite today'sRussian State Library.

The largest events in the museum's first years was the fifth anni-versary exposition for the creation of the Worker-Peasant Red Army(RKKA) between 23 February and 1 November 1923 which wasvisited by 500 groups and 70,000 individuals. In 1924, followingthe opening of similar museums across the country, it was renamedthe Central museum of the Red Army and Fleet. It moved to theleft wing of the Central House of the Red Army on theYekaterinvskaya (now Suvorova), in 1928. In 1951 the museumwas once again renamed the Central Museum of the Soviet Armyand in 1965 moved to its present location in a new, special build-

ing designed by architects N.Gaygarova and V.Barkhin. It was re-named once again the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of theUSSR; it was given its present name in 1993.

Over its history the museum has managed to accumulate the mostprominent and important military relics of the Soviet period, creat-ing a record of its military past. In total more than seven hundredthousand individual exhibits are now stored at the museum. Themost valuable are displayed in the 25 halls of the main building.The period of the Russian Civil War includes a photocopy of theoriginal decree outlining the creation of the RKKA which includesLenin's corrections; a banner of the 195th infantry regiment intowhich Lenin was officially conscripted; weapons, documents,awards and personal belongings of famous Red Army men such asMikhail Frunze, Grigory Kotovsky, Vasily Chapayev and VasilyBlücher as well as others, all help to re-create the post-revolution-ary atmosphere.

The most prized display is that dedicated to the Great PatrioticWar, which includes the Victory Banner as well as all of the frontbanners and the captured Nazi ones that were used during the Vic-tory Parade in 1945. The Great Patriotic War differs from WorldWar II in that it began on 22 July 1941 with the German invasionof the Soviet Union. World War II (in Europe), started on 1 Sep-tember 1939 with the co-ordinated attacks of Germany and theSoviet Union on Poland.

Part of the Great Patriotic War section is devoted to the SovietUnion's allies on the Western Front. There are examples of Sovietpropaganda posters depicting Germany being crushed between thetwo fronts and maps of the Allied advance from Normandy intoGermany. British and American small arms and uniforms are dis-played. A lifesize diorama includes a Jeep pulling a field-gun infront of a wall-sized photograph of Omaha Beach. The photographis Omaha Beach as depicted in the movie "The Longest Day"(1962), not of Omaha Beach in June 1944.

The last halls display the post-war and modern developments ofthe Soviet Army and Navy, the Cold War section contains wreck-age from the U-2 spy-plane that was piloted by Gary Powers andthe involvement of Soviet forces in Cold War conflicts. A specialdisplay is dedicated to the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan andrecent combat operations in Chechnya.Outside the museum, there is an extended collection of militaryequipment and technology, including armour, artillery, railway cars,aircraft and missiles.

MUSEUM OF THE REVOLUTIONA museum founded by the decision of May 9, 1924, of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. It opened in October 1924 inMoscow, at 21 Gorky Street, in an 18th-century building.

From 1831 to 1917, the building housed the English Club, whichwas frequented by A. S. Pushkin, P. Ia. Chaadaev, L. N. Tolstoy,

and other distinguished Russians. In November 1922, in commemo-ration of the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution, theexhibition "Red Moscow" opened in the building. In July 1923,the exhibition was reworked into the Moscow Museum of Revolu-tionary History, which served as the basis for the Museum of theRevolution of the USSR. The exhibition covered the history of therevolutionary movement in Russia beginning with the peasantmovements of the 17th century. In 1939, the museum’s orientationwas revised and it became a museum of the history of the GreatOctober Socialist Revolution and of Soviet society.

In 1924–25 there were 59,000 exhibit units in the museum’sexhibitions and reserve stock; in 1974 there were about 1 million.The museum’s holdings on the history of the international revolu-tionary labor and communist movements contain materials in 33languages from 86 countries. The museum contains the personalbelongings of F. E. Dzerzhinskii, la. M. Sverdlov, M. I. Kalinin,M. V. Frunze, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, V. V. Kuibyshev, G. I.Kotovskii, V. I. Chapaev, S. Lazo, M. Zalka, I. D. Cherniakhovskii,and Z. A. Kosmodem’ianskaia. The museum has a vast collectionof pictures by Russian and Soviet painters, works of applied art bythe peoples of the USSR, and revolutionary, military, and labourbanners and posters. The document collection (leaflets, pamphlets,books, and photographs) is of great historical value. The libraryhas more than 250,000 books, newspapers, and journals. In 1974,the museum’s exhibition filled 50 halls. The exhibits dealt with the

period from the late 19th century to the present and were arrangedin chronological order in conformity with the periodization ofSoviet historiography.The museum has the dioramas "Heroic Presnia" (1905) and "TheStorming of the Winter Palace on Oct. 26 (Nov. 8), 1917."Documentary films are shown in the museum. From 1924 through1974, more than 30 million persons visited the Museum of theRevolution of the USSR and its branches (the Krasnaia PresniaMuseum of the History of the Revolution and the UndergroundPrinting Press of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in the 1905–06 Years; both located in Moscow). Every year there are more than12,000 tours through the museum. Special exhibitions devoted tohistorical dates and events are frequently held.The Museum of the Revolution of the USSR engages ineducational work; it organizes meetings with veterans of theRevolution, heroes of the Civil War (1918–20) and the GreatPatriotic War (1941–45), foremost people in industry, scholars, andwriters. The museum assists Museums of the Revolution of Unionrepublics and departments of the history of Soviet society at othermuseums. It publishes documents and materials on the GreatOctober Socialist Revolution and Soviet society, memoirs ofparticipants in the revolutionary movement and in socialistconstruction, museum guides, and catalogues. The museum wasawarded the Order of Lenin in 1967.

For the tourist there is also a brilliant shop where you can pick upyour Soviet memorabilia ranging from posters (such as thosepictured which I picked up) right through to figures of Lenin.

VICTORY PARK / GLORY PARK

Belfast group outside the museum at Victory Park. Behind us is part of the queue to get in however if you evervisit don't panic. This was on Victory Day (May 9th) when it was free admission but on any other day the queue

is a fraction of this!

During the Second World War it was the Soviets who suffered the most at the hands of Hitler. It was also the Soviets who brokethe back of Nazism and at Victory Park the story of the Great Patriotic War is displayed in great detail.

The park is at Poklonnaya Gora which is, at 171.5 metres,one of the highest spots in Moscow. Its two summits

used to be separated by the Setun River, until one of thesummits was razed in 1987. Since 1936, the area has beenpart of Moscow and now contains the Victory Park with manytanks and other vehicles used in the Second World War ondisplay.Historically, the hill had great strategic importance, as itcommanded the best view of the Russian capital. Its name isderived from the Russian for "to bow down", as everyoneapproaching the capital from the west was expected to dohomage here. In 1812, it was the spot where Napoleon invain expected the keys to the Kremlin to be brought to himby Russians.

In the 1960s, the Soviet authorities decided to put the area touse as an open-air museum dedicated to the Russian victoryover Napoleon. The New Triumphal Arch, erected in woodin 1814 and in marble in 1827 to a design by Osip Bove, wasrelocated and reconstructed here in 1968. A loghouse, whereKutuzov presided over the Fili conference which decided toabandon Moscow to the enemy, was designated a nationalmonument. The huge panorama "Battle of Borodino" byFranz Roubaud (1910–12) was installed here in 1962. Amonument to Kutuzov was opened in 1973.The Victory Park and the Square of Victors are importantparts of the outdoor museum. In the 1990s an obelisk wasadded with a statue of Nike and a monument of St Georgeslaying the dragon, both designed by Zurab Tsereteli. Theobelisk's height is exactly 141,8 meters, which is 10 cm forevery day of the War. A golden-domed Orthodox church waserected on the hilltop in 1993-95, followed by a memorialmosque and the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue.

At the 60th V-day celebrations in 2005, President VladimirPutin inaugurated 15 extravagant bronze columns, symbol-

izing main fronts and navies of the Red Army during theWorld War II.Since the 1980s the hill also includes the monumentalmuseum to the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. Themain building of the museum was constructed between 1983and 1995. 'Hall of glory' holds reliefs of the 12 soviet HeroCities, on its marmor walls are inscribed the names ofseveral thousand Heroes of the Soviet Union, awardedduring the war. 'Hall of remembrance' downstairs contains'Books of remembrance' with the names of more than 26million soviet war dead.The museum features 14,143 square meters of exhibit spacefor permanent collections and an additional 5,500 squaremeters for temporary exhibits. Near the entry to themuseum is the Hall of Commanders (page 51), whichfeatures a decorative "Sword and Shield of Victory" andbronze busts of recipients of the Order of Victory, thehighest military honor awarded by the Soviet Union.

In the center of the museum is the Hall of Glory (page 51), awhite marble room which features the names of over 11,800of the recipients of the Hero of the Soviet Union distinction.A large bronze sculpture, the "Soldier of Victory," stands inthe center of this hall. Below lies the Hall of Remembranceand Sorrow, which honors Soviet people who died in the war.This room is dimly lit and strings of glass beads hang fromthe ceiling, symbolizing tears shed for the dead.The upper floors feature numerous exhibits about the war,including dioramas depicting major battles, photographs ofwartime activities, weapons and munitions, uniforms, awards,newsreels, letters from the battlefront, and model aircraft. Inaddition, the museum maintains an electronic "memory book"which attempts to record the name and fate of every Russiansoldier who died in World War II.

Metro Station Park Pobedy

ALL RUSSIA EXHIBITION CENTREIf you had only one day to spend in Moscow then this is the place to go. The All Russia Exhibition Centre is a massive park withfantastic buildings, fountains and even a Vostok space craft complete with launcher. On the right of the park is the massiveWorker and Farmer monument and on the left side the world famous Cosmos Museum

The centre is still much better known by its Soviet-era name,VDNKh - the Exhibition of National Economic Achievements

- and it remains a fascinating monument to Russia's transitionalperiod.It began life in 1939 as the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, amonumental paean to the achievements of collectivizationepitomized by the famous statue Worker and Collective Farm Girlby renowned Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina. The exhibition washoused in 250 buildings spread over 136 hectares, and attracted4.5 million visitors in 1940 alone; 3,000 guides were employed totake care of them.The exhibition had to be closed during the war years, and was onlyreopened in 1954, with the addition of the magnificent arch thatstands at the main entrance and further exhibition pavilions thatextended the area of the park to 207 hectares. Two years later, theAll-Union Industrial Exhibition was opened on the same site and,in 1958, the Construction Exhibition was moved here, too, and allthree were renamed VDNKh. In 1992, the park was given itscurrent name and opened up to private enterprise.

The results were instantaneous and extraordinary: temporary kiosksand garish billboards spread like a rash across the park, in starkcontrast to the grandiose Stalinist architecture of the originalpavilions. These, too, were swiftly taken over, with luxury cardealerships and gun shops taking the place of earnest exhibitionsdetailing agricultural processes and industrial breakthroughs.Nowadays the centre is a bizarre juxtaposition: part agriculturalfair, part trade expo, part shopping centre and part street market,with amusements as diverse as paint-balling and camel rides - aswell as the ubiquitous slot-machine arcades - on offer in variousparts of the grounds. The park itself is an intriguing example of20th century landscaping and, even if they are a little the worse forwear, the buildings are still preposterously magnificent. The wholeplace is truly unique, and well worth a visit, especially as there isplenty more to be seen nearby, including the wonderfulCosmonautics Musuem, the Ostankino TV Tower, and the verydifferent delights of the Ostankino Park and Estate.

Metro Station VDNKh

Anne Baker and Anne MarieCampbell at the monument

WORKER AND FARMER MONUMENTAnyone who visits Moscow will be struck and the amount of monuments there are throughout the city. One of the most impres-sive is not only well known in Moscow and Russia - it is one of the most famous monuments in the world! It is situated to theright of the All Russia Exhibition Centre and don't worry - you can't miss it

The Worker and Farmer is a 24.5 meter (78 feet) high sculpture made from stainless steel by Vera Mukhina for the 1937

World's Fair in Paris, and subsequently moved to Moscow. Thesculpture is an example of the socialist realistic style, as well asArt Deco style. The worker holds aloft a hammer and the kolkhozwoman a sickle to form the hammer and sickle symbol.The sculpture was originally created to crown the Soviet pavilion(architect: Boris Iofan) of the World's Fair. The organizers had sitedthe Soviet and German pavilions facing each other across the mainpedestrian boulevard at the Trocadéro on the north bank of theSeine.Mukhina was inspired by her study of the classical Harmodius andAristogeiton, the Victory of Samothrace and La Marseillaise,François Rude's sculptural group for the Arc de Triomphe, to bringa monumental composition of socialist realist confidence to theheart of Paris. The symbolism of the two figures striding from Eastto West, as determined by the layout of the pavilion, was also notlost by spectators.Although as Mukhina said, her sculpture was intended "to con-tinue the idea inherent in the building, and this sculpture was to bean inseparable part of the whole structure", after the fair Workerand Kolkhoz Woman was relocated to Moscow where it was placedjust outside the Exhibition of Achievements of the People'sEconomy.In 1941, the sculpture earned Mukhina one of the initial batch ofStalin Prizes.

The sculpture was removed for restoration in the autumn of 2003in preparation for Expo 2010. The original plan was for it to returnin 2005, but because the World's Fair was not awarded to Moscowbut to Shanghai, the restoration process was hampered by finan-cial problems and re-installation delayed.It finally returned to its place at VDNKH on November 28, 2009.The reveiling of the restored monument was held on the eveningof December 4th, 2009, accompanied by fireworks. The restoredstatue uses a new pavilion as its pedestal, increasing its total heightfrom 34.5 meters (the old pedestal was 10 meters tall) to 60 meters(new pavilion is 34.5 meters tall plus 24.5 meters of the statue'sown height).In Soviet cinema, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman was chosen in 1947to serve as the logo for the film studio Mosfilm. It can be seen inthe opening credits of the film Red Heat, as well as many of theRussian films put out by the Mosfilm studio itself.In the 1997 film The Saint Treitiak uses a variation of The Workerand Kolkhoz woman holding a sword on campaign posters.In the 2010 film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,once the Ministry of Magic is taken over by Lord Voldemort's DeathEaters, a statue is placed in the Ministry Atrium depicting the newMinistry agenda: stone Muggles being squashed tring to hold up atall column with the words "MAGIC IS MIGHT" inscribed on it,and two large stone wizards, one male and one female, in a similarpose to this statue, holding their wands up.

COSMOS MUSEUMTo the left of the All Russia Exhibition Centre is the breathtaking Cosmos Museum which is extremely easy to find as all youneed to do is look up! Inside is equally as impressive and after a brief look around you'll come to see how the Soviets won thespace race

The Monument to the Conquerors of Space was erected in Moscow in 1964 to celebrate achievements of the Soviet people in

space exploration. It depicts a starting rocket that rises on itscontrail. The monument is 110 m tall, has 77° incline, and is madeof titanium. The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is locatedinside the base of the monument.The monument is located outside the main entry to today's All-Russia Exhibition Centre (known until 1992 as the Exhibition ofAchievements of the National Economy, VDNKh), in the north-eastern part of Moscow, near Prospekt Mira ("Peace Avenue").Since the 1960s, this part of Moscow in general has had a highconcentration of space-themed sights and names: besides the monu-ment and the museum under it, the grand "Cosmos" pavilion in theExhibition Centre displayed many artifacts of the Soviet spaceprogram. Many streets in the area have been named after theprecursors of the space program (Nikolai Kibalchich, FriedrichZander, Yuri Kondratyuk) and its participants (Sergey Korolyov).The Cosmonauts Alley south of the monument features busts ofSoviet cosmonauts.The choice of this part of Moscow for space-related names andmonuments may have been inspired by the fact that Prospekt Mira runs toward the north-eastern suburbs of Moscow,where, in Podlipki (today's Korolyov City) much of thespace program was based. Korolyov himself lived in a house within a few blocks from the monument, which is nowpreserved as Korolyov Memorial Museum

In March 1958, a few months after the launch ofSputnik 1, a competition was announced for the bestdesign of an obelisk celebrating the dawn of the Space Age.Out of some 350 proposals, the design by sculptor A.P.Faidysh-Krandievsky and architects A.N. Kolchinand M.O. Barshch was chosen. The grand opening of themonument took place on October 4, 1964, on the day of the 7th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch.The monument was designed to accommodate a museum in its base. However, it took until April 10, 1981 (two days before the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight) tocomplete the preparatory work and open the MemorialMuseum of Cosmonautics. On Cosmonautics Day, 2009,

the museum was reopened after three years of reconstruction. Ithas virtually tripled its original size and has added new sectionsdedicated to space programs worldwide, including the USA, Eu-rope, China and the ISS. The museum now features original inter-active exhibits, as well as a refurbished promenade, the sculpture-lined Cosmonauts Alley which connects the museum to theMoscow metro. The museum is a favorite for students worldwideand a primary tourist attraction of the city.

The main part of the monument is a giant obelisk topped by a rocketand resembling in shape the exhaust plume of the rocket. It is 107meters (350 feet) tall and, on Korolyov's suggestion, covered withtitanium cladding.A statue of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the precursor of astronautics,is located in front of the obelisk.A poem in Russian on the front of the stone base of the monumentbase says:And the reward for our efforts was that, having triumphed overoppression and darkness, we have forged wings of fire for ourland and our centuryBelow, in smaller letters, is the statement: This monument wasconstructed to celebrate the outstanding achievements of theSoviet people in space exploration and the year, 1964.Both sides of the monument base, in their front parts, are deco-

Belfast group pictured at the MoscowSpace Museum

May 2011

rated with haut-and bas-reliefs depicting men and women of thespace program: scientists, engineers, workers, their occupationsindicated by appropriate accoutrements of the professions. Notablefigures include a computer programmer (or perhaps some othercomputing or telecommunications professional) holding a punchedtape, a cosmonaut wearing a space suit, and Laika, the first spacedog.No contemporary Soviet politicians are depicted in the monumenteither (that would violate the convention existing in post-Stalin'sSoviet Union against commemorating living persons in this fash-ion), but the crowd on the right side of the monument are movingforward under the banner of Lenin.The Monument to the Conquerors of Space is featured on the 1967ten-kopeck piece, one of the series of the commemorative coinsissued to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the October Revolu-tion. This coin has the distinction of being the smallest-denomina-tion commemorative coin ever minted in the Soviet Union. (It wasthe smallest coin in the 1967 series - the only time commemorativefractional currency coins were ever produced in the USSR.

Visitors to the museum will be surprised to discover a wholesection dedicated to the landing on the moon by the United States.This is there to acknowledge that fantastic achievement but whenyou go around the whole museum you soon discover that it wasreally the Soviets who won the space race and all theirachievements are marked within the complex.1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7 Semyorka1957: First satellite, Sputnik 11957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2

One of the first exhibits you will see when entering the museum are the stuffed remains of Belka and Strelka. These were the firstliving creatures to go into space and return to earth

Sean Campbell pictured next to the MIR Space Station

The MIR Space Station at the museum Huge model of the Soviet Space Shuttle Buran

1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object toescape Earth's gravity, Luna 11959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and fromouter space, Luna 1.1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 11959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 21959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 31960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogsBelka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 11961: First person in space and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarinon Vostok 1, Vostok programme1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov,Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).1962: First dual manned spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 41962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 11963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 61964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 11965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Aleksei Leonov,Voskhod 21965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar system (Venus),Venera 31966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit fromthe surface of the moon, Luna 91966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 101967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/

Cosmos 188. (Until 2006, this had remained the only majorspace achievement that the US had not duplicated.)1969: First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit andexchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 51970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returnedto Earth from another celestial body, Luna 161970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.1970: First data received from the surface of another planet ofthe Solar system (Venus), Venera 71971: First space station, Salyut 11971: First probe to reach surface and make soft landing onMars, Mars 21975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make soft landing on Venus,first photos from surface of Venus, Venera 91980: First Hispanic and Black person in space, ArnaldoTamayo Méndez on Soyuz 381984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7space station)1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir andSalyut 7)1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmo-sphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1,Vega 21986: First permanently manned space station, Mir, 1986–2001,with permanent presence on board (1989–1999)1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titovand Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir

A separate book could be compiled on all these achievements alone but the following are just a few of the major Soviet ones. Allthe space achievements listed on the previous page have their own section in the Moscow Space Museum

SPUTNIKSputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite tobe put into Earth's orbit. It was launched intoan elliptical low Earth orbit by the SovietUnion on 4 October 1957. The unanticipatedannouncement of Sputnik 1's success pre-cipitated the Sputnik crisis in the UnitedStates and ignited the Space Race, a part ofthe larger Cold War. The launch ushered innew political, military, technological, andscientific developments. While the Sputniklaunch was a single event, it marked the startof the Space Age.Apart from its value as a technological first,Sputnik also helped to identify the upperatmospheric layer's density, through mea-suring the satellite's orbital changes. It alsoprovided data on radio-signal distributionin the ionosphere. Pressurized nitrogen inthe satellite's body provided the first oppor-tunity for meteoroid detection. If a meteor-oid penetrated the satellite's outer hull, itwould be detected by the temperature datasent back to Earth[Sputnik 1 was launched during the Interna-tional Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5,at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR(now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome). Thesatellite travelled at 29,000 kilometers(18,000 mi) per hour, taking 96.2 minutesto complete an orbit, and emitted radio sig-nals at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz[4] whichwere monitored by amateur radio operatorsthroughout the world. The signals contin-ued for 22 days until the transmitter batter-ies ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik 1burned up on 4 January 1958, as it fell fromorbit upon reentering Earth's atmosphere,after travelling about 60 million km (37million miles) and spending 3 months inorbit.

The history of the Sputnik 1 project datesback to 17 December 1954, when SergeiKorolev addressed Dimitri Antoniou, thenMinister of Defence Industries, proposingthe development of an Earth-orbiting artifi-cial satellite. Korolev also forwardedUstinov a report by Mikhail Tikhonravovwith an overview of similar projects abroad.Tikhonravov emphasized that an artificialsatellite is an inevitable stage in the devel-opment of rocket equipment in 1951, afterwhich "interplanetary communication"would become possible. On 29 July 1955the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower an-nounced, through his press secretary, thatthe United States would launch an artificialsatellite during the International Geophysi-cal Year (IGY). A week later, on 8 Augustthe Presidium of the Central Committee ofthe CPSU approved the idea of creating anartificial satellite. On 30 August VasilyRyabikov – the head of the State Commis-

sion on R-7 rocket test launches – held ameeting where Korolev presented calcula-tion data for a spaceflight trajectory to theMoon. They decided to develop a three-stage version of the R-7 rocket for satellitelaunches.

On 30 January 1956 the Council ofMinisters approved practical work on anartificial earth-orbiting satellite. This sat-ellite, named "Object D", was planned tobe completed in 1957-58; it would have amass of 1,000 to 1,400 kg (2,200 to 3,090lb) and would carry 200 to 300 kg (440 to660 lb) of scientific instruments. The firsttest launch of "Object D" was scheduled for1957. According to that decision, work onthe satellite was to be divided between in-stitutions as follows:USSR Academy of Sciences was respon-sible for the general scientific leadership andresearch instruments supplyMinistry of Defence Industry and its mainexecutor OKB-1 were assigned the task ofcreating the satellite as a special carrier forscientific research instrumentsMinistry of Radiotechnical Industry woulddevelop the control system, radio/technicalinstruments and the telemetry systemMinistry of Ship Building Industry woulddevelop gyroscope devicesMinistry of Machine Building would de-velop ground launching, refueling and trans-portation meansMinistry of Defence was responsible forconducting launchesBy July 1956 the draft was completed andthe scientist tasks to be carried out by a sat-ellite were defined. It included measuringthe density of the atmosphere, its ion com-position, corpuscular solar radiation, mag-netic fields, cosmic rays, etc. Data, valuablein creating future satellites, was also to be

collected. A ground observational complexwas to be developed, that would collect in-formation transmitted by the satellite, ob-serve the satellite's orbit, and transmit com-mands to the satellite. Such a complexshould include up to 15 measurement sta-tions. Because of the limited time frame,they should have means designed for rocketR-7 observations. Observations wereplanned for only 7 to 10 days and orbit cal-culations were expected to be not quite ac-curate.Unfortunately, the complexity of the ambi-tious design and problems in following ex-act specifications meant that some parts of'Object D', when delivered for assembly,simply did not fit with the others, causingcostly delays. By the end of 1956 it becameclear that plans for 'Object D' were not tobe fulfilled in time because of difficultiescreating scientific instruments and the lowspecific impulse produced by the completedR-7 engines (304 sec instead of the planned309 to 310 sec). Consequently the govern-ment re-scheduled the launch for April 1958.

One of the Sputnik satellites on displayat the Moscow Space Museum

Object D would later fly as Sputnik 3.Fearing the U.S. would launch a satellitebefore the USSR, OKB-1 suggested the cre-ation and launch of a satellite in April–May1957, before the IGY began in July 1957.The new satellite would be simple, light(100 kg or 220 lb), and easy to construct,forgoing the complex, heavy scientificequipment in favour of a simple radio trans-mitter. On 15 February 1957 the Council ofMinisters of the USSR approved this, pro-viding for launching the simplest versionsatellite, designated 'Object PS'. This ver-sion also facilitated the satellite to be trackedvisually by Earth-based observers while inorbit, and transmit tracking signals toground-based receiving stations. Launch oftwo satellites PS-1 and PS-2 with two R-7rockets (8K71) was allowed, but only afterone or two successful R-7 test launches.The two-stage R-7 Semyorka was initiallydesigned as an ICBM by OKB-1. The deci-sion to build it was made by the CPSU Cen-tral Committee and the Council of Minis-ters of the USSR on 20 May 1954. The R-7 was also known by its GRAU (laterGURVO) designation 8K71. Due to Sovietsecrecy at the time the R-7 was known towestern sources as the "T-3, and M-104, andType A. A special reconnaissance commis-sion selected Tyuratam as a place for theconstruction of a rocket proving ground (the5th Tyuratam range, usually referred to as"NIIP-5", or "GIK-5" in the post-Soviettime). The selection was approved on 12February 1955 by the Council of Ministersof the USSR, but the site would not be com-pleted until 1958. Actual work on the con-struction of the site began on 20 July bymilitary building units. On 14 June 1956Sergei Korolev decided to adapt the R-7rocket to the 'Object D', that would later bereplaced by the much lighter 'Object PS'.The first launch of an R-7 rocket (8K71No.5L) occurred on 15 May 1957. The flightwas controlled until the 98th second, but afire in a strap-on rocket led to an unintendedcrash 400 km from the site. Three attemptsto launch the second rocket (8K71 No.6)were made on 10–11 June, which failedbecause of a mistake made during therocket's assembly. The unsuccessful launchof the third R-7 rocket (8K71 No.7) tookplace on 12 July. During the flight the rocketbegan to rotate about its longitudinal axisand its engines were automatically turnedoff. The packet of stages was destroyed 32.9seconds into the flight. The stages fell 7 km(4.3 mi) from the site and exploded.The launch of the fourth rocket (8K71No.8), on 21 August at 15:25 Moscow Time,was successful. Its head part separated,reached the defined region, entered the at-mosphere, and was destroyed at a height of10 km (6.2 mi) because of thermodynamicoverload after traveling 6,000 km. On 27August TASS in the USSR issued a state-

ment on the launch of a long-distance mul-tistage ICBM. The launch of the fifth R-7rocket (8K71 No.9), on 7 September wasalso successful, but the head part was alsodestroyed in the atmosphere, and henceneeded a long redesign to completely fit itsmilitary purpose. The rocket, however, wasalready suitable for scientific satellitelaunches, and following the successfullaunches, Korolev was able to convince theState Commission to allow the use of thenext R-7 to launch a hastily designed andbuilt satellite, allowing the delay in therocket's military exploitation to launch thePS-1 and PS-2 satellites.On 22 September a modified R-7 rocket,named Sputnik and indexed as 8K71PS,arrived at the proving ground and prepara-tions for the launch of PS-1 began. As theR-7 was designed to carry the much heavierObject D, its adaptation to PS-1 reduced itsinitial mass from 280 to 272.83 short tons(254 to 248 metric tons) and its mass atlaunch was 267 short tons (242 metric tons);its length with PS-1 was 29.167 metres (95ft 8.3 in) and the thrust was 3.90 MN(880,000 lbf).

The measurement complex at the provingground for monitoring the launch vehiclefrom its launch was completed prior to thefirst R-7 rocket test launches in December1956. It consisted of six static stations: IP-1through IP-6, with IP-1 situated at a distanceof 1 km (0.62 mi) from the launch pad. Themain monitoring devices of these stationswere telemetry and trajectory measurementstations, "Tral," developed by OKB MEI.They received and monitored data from the"Tral" system transponders mounted on theR-7 rocket; an on-board system that pro-vided precise telemetric data about Sputnik1's launch vehicle. The data was useful evenafter the satellite's separation from the sec-ond stage of the rocket; Sputnik 1's loca-tion was calculated from the data on the sec-

ond stage's location (which followed Sput-nik 1 at a known distance) using nomogramsdeveloped by P.E. Elyasberg.An additional observation complex, estab-lished to track the satellite after its separa-tion from the rocket, was completed by agroup led by Colonel Yu.A.Mozzhorin inaccordance with the General Staff directiveof 8 May 1957. It was called the Command-Measurement Complex and consisted of thecoordination center in NII-4 by the Minis-try of Defence of the USSR (at Bolshevo)and seven ground tracking stations, situatedalong the line of the satellite's ground track.They were: NIP-1 (at Tyuratam station,Kazakh SSR, situated not far from IP-1),NIP-2 (at Makat station, Guryev Oblast),NIP-3 (at Sary-Shagan station,Dzhezkazgan Oblast), NIP-4 (at Yeniseysk),NIP-5 (at village Iskup, Krasnoyarsk Krai),NIP-6 (at Yelizovo) and NIP-7 (at Klyuchi).The complex had a communication chan-nel with the launch pad. Stations wereequipped with radar, optical instruments,and communications systems. PS-1 was notdesigned to be controlled, it could only beobserved. Data from stations were transmit-ted by telegraphs into NII-4 where ballis-tics specialists calculated orbital parameters.The complex became an early prototype ofthe Soviet Mission Control CenterIn the West, the satellite was tracked byamateur radio operators, and a 36 Mc/s re-ceiver at the Jodrell Bank Observatory.

The chief constructor of Sputnik 1 at OKB-1 was M.S.Khomyakov. The satellite wasa 585 mm (23 in) diameter sphere, as-sembled from two hemispheres which werehermetically sealed using o-rings and con-nected using 36 bolts, and had a mass of83.6 kilograms (184 lb). The hemispheres,covered with a highly polished 1 mm-thickheat shield made of aluminium-magne-sium-titanium AMG6T ("AMG" is an ab-breviation for "aluminium-magnesium" and"T" stands for "titanium", the alloy contains6% of magnesium and 0.2% of titanium)alloy, were 2 mm-thick. The satellite car-ried two antennas designed by the AntennaLaboratory of OKB-1 led byM.V.Krayushkin. Each antenna was madeup of two whip-like parts: 2.4 and 2.9 meters(7.9 and 9.5 ft) in length, and had an al-most spherical radiation pattern, so that thesatellite beeps were transmitted with equalpower in all directions; making receptionof the transmitted signal independent of thesatellite's rotation. The whip-like pairs ofantennas resembled four long "whiskers"pointing to one side, at equal 35 degreesangles with the longitudinal axis of the sat-ellite.The power supply, with a mass of 51 kg (110lb), was in the shape of an octagonal nutwith the radio transmitter in its hole. It con-sisted of three silver-zinc batteries, devel-

oped at the All-Union Research Institute ofCurrent Sources (VNIIT) under the leader-ship of N. S. Lidorenko. Two of them pow-ered the radio transmitter and one poweredthe temperature regulation system. Theywere expected to fade out in two weeks, butended up working for 22 days. The powersupply was turned on automatically at themoment of the satellite's separation from thesecond stage of the rocket.The satellite had a one-watt, 3.5 kg (7.7 lb)radio transmitting unit inside, developed byV. I. Lappo from NII-885, that worked ontwo frequencies, 20.005 and 40.002 MHz.Signals on the first frequency were trans-mitted in 0.3 sec pulses (under normal tem-perature and pressure conditions on-board),with pauses of the same duration filled bypulses on the second frequency. Analysis ofthe radio signals was used to gather infor-mation about the electron density of theionosphere. Temperature and pressure wereencoded in the duration of radio beeps,which additionally indicated that the satel-lite had not been punctured by a meteorite.A temperature regulation system containeda fan, a dual thermal switch, and a controlthermal switch. If the temperature inside thesatellite exceeded 36 °C (97 °F) the fan wasturned on and when it fell below 20 °C (68°F) the fan was turned off by the dual ther-mal switch. If the temperature exceeded 50°C (122 °F) or fell below 0 °C (32 °F), an-other control thermal switch was activated,changing the duration of the radio signalpulses. Sputnik 1 was filled with dry nitro-gen, pressurized to 1.3 atm. For the pres-sure control the satellite had a barometricswitch, activated when the pressure insidethe satellite fell below 0.35 kg/cm2 (5.0 psi),changing the duration of radio signal im-pulse.While attached to the rocket, Sputnik 1 wasprotected by a cone-shaped payload fairing,with a height of 80 cm (31.5 in) and an ap-erture of 48 degrees. The fairing separatedfrom both Sputnik 1 and the rocket at thesame time when the satellite was ejected.Tests of the satellite were conducted atOKB-1 under the leadership of O. G.Ivanovsky.The control system of the Sputnik rocketwas tuned to provide an orbit with the fol-lowing parameters: perigee height - 223 km(139 mi), apogee height - 1,450 km (900mi), orbital period - 101.5 min. A rocket tra-jectory with these parameters was calculatedearlier by Georgi Grechko, after complet-ing the calculations over several nights onthe USSR Academy of Sciences' mainframecomputer.

The Sputnik rocket was launched at19:28:34 UTC, on 4 October 1957, fromSite No.1 at NIIP-5. Processing of the in-formation, obtained from the "Tral" systemshowed that the side boosters separated

116.38 seconds into the flight and the sec-ond-stage engine was shut down 294.6 sec-onds into the flight. At this moment the sec-ond stage with PS-1 attached had a heightof 223 km (139 mi) above Earth's surface, avelocity of 7,780 m/s (25,500 ft/s) and ve-locity vector inclination to the local hori-zon was 0 degrees 24 minutes. This resultedin an initial orbit with a perigee of 223kilometres (139 mi), an apogee of 950kilometres (590 mi), 65.1 degrees of incli-nation and a period of 96.2 minutes.After 3.14 seconds PS-1 separated from thesecond stage and at the same moment at thesmall "Finnish house" of IP-1 station Jun-ior Engineer-Lieutenant V.G. Borisov heardthe "Beep-beep-beep" signals from the ra-dio receiver R-250. Reception lasted for twominutes, while PS-1 was above the horizon.There were many people in the house, bothmilitary and civil, and they were probablythe first to celebrate the event. After 325.44seconds a corner reflector on the secondstage was opened, that also allowed mea-surement of its orbit parameters – like theworking "Tral" system did.

The designers, engineers and technicianswho developed the rocket and satellitewatched the launch from the range. Afterthe launch they ran to the mobile radio sta-tion to listen to signals from the satellite.They waited about 90 minutes to ensure thatthe satellite had made one orbit and wastransmitting, before Korolyov called Sovietpremier Nikita Khrushchev. The downlinktelemetry included data on temperaturesinside and on the surface of the sphere.On the first orbit the Telegraph Agency ofthe Soviet Union (TASS) transmitted: "Asresult of great, intense work of scientificinstitutes and design bureaus the first artifi-cial Earth satellite has been built". The Sput-nik 1 rocket booster (second stage of therocket) also reached Earth orbit and wasvisible from the ground at night as a firstmagnitude object following the satellite.Korolyov had intentionally requested reflec-tive panels placed on the booster in order tomake it so visible. The satellite itself, asmall but highly polished sphere, was barelyvisible at sixth magnitude, and thus moredifficult to follow optically. Ahead of Sput-nik 1 flew the third object – the payload fair-ing, 80 cm (31 in)-long cone, i.e. a little bitbigger than the satellite.[Sputnik 1 remained in orbit until 4 January1958, when it decayed and reentered theatmosphere, having completed 1,440 orbitsof the Earth._Teams of visual observers at 150 stationsin the United States and other countries werealerted during the night to watch for theSoviet sphere at dawn and during theevening twilight. They had been organizedin Project Moonwatch to sight the satellitethrough binoculars or telescopes as it passed

overhead. The USSR asked radio amateursand commercial stations to record the soundof the satellite on magnetic tape.News reports at the time pointed out that"anyone possessing a short wave receivercan hear the new Russian earth satellite asit hurtles over his area of the globe". Direc-tions, provided by the American Radio Re-lay League were to "Tune in 20 megacyclessharply, by the time signals, given on thatfrequency. Then tune to slightly higher fre-quencies. The 'beep, beep' sound of the sat-ellite can be heard each time it rounds theglobe," The first recording of Sputnik 1'ssignal was made by RCA engineers nearRiverhead, Long Island. They then drovethe tape recording into Manhattan for broad-cast to the public over NBC radio. How-ever, as Sputnik rose higher over the EastCoast, its signal was picked up by ham sta-tion W2AEE, the ham radio station of Co-lumbia University. Students working in theuniversity's FM station, WKCR, made a tapeof this, and were the first to rebroadcast theSputnik 1 signal to the American public (orsuch of it as could receive the FM station).The next morning two FBI agents took thetape from the station. It has never been re-turned.At first the Soviet Union agreed to useequipment "compatible" with that of theUnited States, but later announced the lowerfrequencies. The White House declined tocomment on military aspects of the launch,but said it "did not come as a surprise." On5 October the Naval Research Laboratoryannounced it had recorded four crossingsof Sputnik-1 over the United States. U.S.President Dwight Eisenhower obtained pho-tographs of the Soviet facilities fromLockheed U-2 flights conducted since 1956.The USSR's launch of Sputnik spurred theUnited States to create the Advanced Re-search Projects Agency (ARPA or DARPA)in February 1958 to regain a technologicallead.Sputnik 1 was not immediately used bySoviet propaganda. The Soviets were fo-cused on their own scientific goals and de-termination to win the Space Race and keptquiet about their earlier accomplishments,fearing that it would lead to secrets beingrevealed and possible failures being ex-ploited by the enemy. When the Sovietsbegan using Sputnik in their propaganda,they emphasised pride in the achievementof Soviet technology, arguing that it dem-onstrated the Soviets' superiority over theWest. People were encouraged to listen toSputnik's signals on the radio and to lookout for Sputnik in the night sky. Reportedly,the body of the spacecraft had been highlypolished in order to make it visible - via tele-scope - from the surface of the planet. How-ever, what watchers actually saw was a stageof the carrier rocket. Shortly after the launchof PS-1, Krushchev pressed Korolev to

launch another satellite in time for the 40thanniversary of the October Revolution on 7November 1957.

The value of Sputnik to Soviet propagandawas especially evident in the response ofthe American public, as it surprised theAmerican public, resulting in a "wave ofnear-hysteria". Not only did Sputnik shat-ter the perception of the United States asthe technological superpower and the So-viet Union as a backward country, as theirown Project Vanguard was caught off guardby the Soviets' early launch. The satellite's

launch also evoked fears that with the So-viets protruding into space would put theU.S. territory at their mercy. and forced theAmericans to take up a more offensivestance in the emerging space race, resultingin an emphasis on science and technologi-cal research and reforms in many areas fromthe military to education systems.

A model of Sputnik 1 was given to theUnited Nations and now decorates the En-try Hall of its Headquarters in New YorkCity. Other replicas are on display at theSmithsonian's National Air and Space Mu-

seum in Washington, D.C., at the ScienceMuseum, London, and at the World Mu-seum in Liverpool, UK.Three one-third scale student-built replicasof Sputnik 1 were deployed from the Mirspace station between 1997 and 1999. Thefirst, named Sputnik 40 to commemorate thefortieth anniversary of the launch of Sput-nik 1, was deployed in November 1997.Sputnik 41 was launched a year later, andSputnik 99 was deployed in February 1999.A fourth replica was launched but neverdeployed, and was destroyed when Mir wasdeorbited.

LAIKALaika (meaning "Barker"; c. 1954 – Novem-ber 3, 1957) was a Soviet space dog thatbecame the first animal to orbit the Earth –as well as the first animal to die in orbit.As little was known about the impact ofspaceflight on living creatures at the timeof Laika's mission, and the technology tode-orbit had not yet been developed, therewas no expectation of Laika's survival.Some scientists believed humans would beunable to survive the launch or the condi-tions of outer space, so engineers viewedflights by non-human animals as a neces-sary precursor to human missions. Laika, astray dog, originally named Kudryavka(Little Curly), underwent training with twoother dogs, and was eventually chosen asthe occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sput-nik 2 that was launched into outer space onNovember 3, 1957.Laika likely died within hours after launchfrom overheating, possibly caused by a fail-ure of the central R-7 sustainer to separatefrom the payload. The true cause and timeof her death was not made public until 2002;instead, it was widely reported that she diedwhen her oxygen ran out on day six, or asthe Soviet government initially claimed, shewas euthanised prior to oxygen depletion.The experiment aimed to prove that a liv-ing passenger could survive being launchedinto orbit and endure weightlessness, pav-ing the way for human spaceflight and pro-viding scientists with some of the first dataon how living organisms react to spaceflightenvironments.On April 11, 2008, Russian officials un-veiled a monument to Laika. A small monu-ment in her honour was built near the mili-tary research facility in Moscow which pre-pared Laika's flight to space. It features adog standing on top of a rocket.

After the success of Sputnik 1, NikitaKhrushchev, the Soviet leader, wanted aspacecraft launched on November 7, 1957,the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revo-lution. A more sophisticated satellite wasalready under construction, but it would notbe ready until December; this satellite would

later become Sputnik 3.To meet the November deadline, a new craftwould have to be built. Khrushchev specifi-cally wanted his engineers to deliver a"space spectacular," a mission that wouldrepeat the triumph of Sputnik I, stunningthe world with Soviet prowess. The plan-ners settled on an orbital flight with a dog.Soviet rocket engineers had long intendeda canine orbit before attempting humanspaceflight; since 1951, they had lofted 12dogs into sub-orbital space on ballisticflights, working gradually toward an orbitalmission possibly some time in 1958. To sat-

isfy Khrushchev's demands, the orbital ca-nine flight was expedited for the Novem-ber launch.According to Russian sources, the officialdecision to launch Sputnik 2 was made onOctober 10 or 12, leaving the team only fourweeks to design and build the spacecraft.Sputnik 2, therefore, was something of arush job, with most elements of the space-craft being constructed from rough sketches.Aside from the primary mission of sendinga living passenger into space, Sputnik 2 alsocontained instrumentation for measuringsolar radiation and cosmic rays.

The craft was equipped with a life-supportsystem consisting of an oxygen generatorand devices to avoid oxygen poisoning andto absorb carbon dioxide. A fan, designedto activate whenever the cabin temperatureexceeded 15 °C (59 °F), was added to keepthe dog cool. Enough food (in a gelatinousform) was provided for a seven-day flight,and the dog was fitted with a bag to collectwaste. A harness was designed to be fittedto the dog, and there were chains to restricther movements to standing, sitting or lyingdown; there was no room to turn around inthe cabin. An electrocardiogram monitoredheart rate and further instrumentationtracked respiration rate, maximum arterialpressure and the dog's movements.Laika was found as a stray wandering thestreets of Moscow. Soviet scientists choseto use Moscow strays since they assumedthat such animals had already learned toendure conditions of extreme cold and hun-ger. This specimen was an eleven-poundmongrel female, approximately three yearsold. Another account reported that sheweighed about 6 kg (13 lb). Soviet person-nel gave her several names and nicknames,among them Kudryavka (Russian for LittleCurly), Zhuchka (Little Bug) andLimonchik (Little Lemon). Laika, the Rus-sian name for several breeds of dogs simi-lar to the husky, was the name popularized

around the world. The American pressdubbed her Muttnik (mutt + suffix -nik) asa pun on Sputnik, or referred to her as Curly.Her true pedigree is unknown, although itis generally accepted that she was part huskyor other Nordic breed, and possibly part ter-rier. A Russian magazine described her tem-perament as phlegmatic, saying that she didnot quarrel with other dogs.The Soviet Union and United States hadpreviously sent animals only on sub-orbitalflights. Three dogs were trained for the Sput-nik 2 flight: Albina, Mushka, and Laika.Soviet space-life scientist Oleg Gazenkoselected and trained Laika. Albina flewtwice on a high-altitude test rocket, and

Laika is commemorated on the Space Monument at the Moscow Space Museum

Mushka was used to test instrumentationand life support.To adapt the dogs to the confines of the tinycabin of Sputnik 2, they were kept in pro-gressively smaller cages for periods up to20 days. The extensive close confinementcaused them to stop urinating or defecat-ing, made them restless, and caused theirgeneral condition to deteriorate. Laxativesdid not improve their condition, and the re-searchers found that only long periods oftraining proved effective. The dogs wereplaced in centrifuges that simulated the ac-celeration of a rocket launch and wereplaced in machines that simulated the noisesof the spacecraft. This caused their pulsesto double and their blood pressure to in-crease by 30–65 torr. The dogs were trainedto eat a special high-nutrition gel that wouldbe their food in space.Before the launch, one of the scientists tookLaika home to play with his children. In abook chronicling the story of Soviet spacemedicine, Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote,"I wanted to do something nice for her: Shehad so little time left to live."

According to a NASA document, Laika wasplaced in the satellite on October 31, 1957—three days before the start of the mission.At that time of year the temperatures at thelaunch site were extremely cold, and a hose

connected to a heater was used to keep hercontainer warm. Two assistants were as-signed to keep a constant watch on Laikabefore launch. Just prior to liftoff on No-vember 3, 1957 from BaikonurCosmodrome, Laika's fur was sponged in aweak alcohol solution and carefullygroomed, while iodine was painted onto theareas where sensors would be placed tomonitor her bodily functions.At peak acceleration Laika's respiration in-creased to between three and four times thepre-launch rate. The sensors showed herheart rate was 103 beats/min before launchand increased to 240 beats/min during theearly acceleration. After reaching orbit,Sputnik 2's nose cone was jettisoned suc-cessfully; however the "Block A" core didnot separate as planned, preventing the ther-mal control system from operating correctly.Some of the thermal insulation tore loose,raising the cabin temperature to 40 °C (104°F). After three hours of weightlessness,Laika's pulse rate had settled back to 102beats/min, three times longer than it hadtaken during earlier ground tests, an indica-tion of the stress she was under. The earlytelemetry indicated that Laika was agitatedbut eating her food. After approximately fiveto seven hours into the flight, no furthersigns of life were received from the space-craft.The Russian scientists had planned toeuthanize Laika with a poisoned serving offood. For many years, the Soviet Union gaveconflicting statements that she had died ei-ther from oxygen starvation when the bat-teries failed, or that she had been euthanized.Many rumors circulated about the exactmanner of her death. In 1999, several Rus-sian sources reported that Laika had diedwhen the cabin overheated on the fourth day.In October 2002, Dimitri Malashenkov, oneof the scientists behind the Sputnik 2 mis-sion, revealed that Laika had died by thefourth circuit of flight from overheating.According to a paper he presented to theWorld Space Congress in Houston, Texas,"It turned out that it was practically impos-sible to create a reliable temperature con-trol system in such limited time constraints."Over five months later, after 2,570 orbits,Sputnik 2 disintegrated — along withLaika's remains — during re-entry on April14, 1958.

Due to the overshadowing issue of the So-viet vs. US Space Race, the ethical issuesraised by this experiment went largely un-addressed for some time. As newspaper clip-pings from 1957 show, the press was fo-cused on reporting the political perspective,while the health and retrieval — or lackthereof — of Laika was hardly mentioned.Only later were there discussions regardingthe fate of the dog—which some initiallyinsisted be called Curly rather than Laika.

Sputnik 2 was not designed to be retriev-able, and Laika had always been intendedto die. The mission sparked a debate acrossthe globe on the mistreatment of animalsand animal testing in general to advancescience. In the United Kingdom, the Na-tional Canine Defence League called on alldog owners to observe a minute's silence,while the Royal Society for the Preventionof Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) receivedprotests even before the Soviet Union hadfinished announcing the mission's success.Animal rights groups at the time called onmembers of the public to protest at Sovietembassies. Others demonstrated outside theUnited Nations in New York; nevertheless,laboratory researchers in the U.S. offeredsome support for the Soviets, at least be-fore the news of Laika's death.In the Soviet Union, there was less contro-versy. Neither the media, books in the fol-lowing years, nor the public openly ques-

tioned the decision to send a dog into space.It was not until 1998, after the collapse ofthe Soviet regime, that Oleg Gazenko, oneof the scientists responsible for sendingLaika into space, expressed regret for allow-ing her to die:

Work with animals is a source of sufferingto all of us. We treat them like babies whocannot speak. The more time passes, themore I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't havedone it... We did not learn enough from thismission to justify the death of the dog.Laika is memorialized in the form of a statueand plaque at Star City, Russia, the RussianCosmonaut training facility. Future spacemissions carrying dogs would be designedto be recovered. The only other dogs to diein a Soviet space mission were Pchyolka andMushka, who died when Korabl-Sputnik 3accidentally disintegrated on re-entry onDecember 1, 1960.

LUNA 2Luna 2 (E-1A series) was the second of theSoviet Union's Luna programme spacecraftlaunched to the Moon. It was the first space-craft to reach the surface of the Moon. Itsuccessfully impacted with the lunar surfaceeast of Mare Imbrium near the cratersAristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus.Luna 2 was similar in design to Luna 1, aspherical spacecraft with protrudingantennae and instrument parts. Theinstrumentation was also similar, includingscintillation counters, geiger counters, amagnetometer, Cherenkov detectors, andmicrometeorite detectors. There were nopropulsion systems on Luna 2 itself.

The spacecraft also carried Soviet pennants.Two of them, located in the spacecraft, weresphere-shaped, with the surface covered byidentical pentagonal elements. In thecenter of this sphere was an explosive forthe purpose of slowing the huge impactvelocity. This was designed as a very simpleway to provide the last necessary delta-v forthose elements on the retro side of the sphereto not get vaporized. Each pentagonalelement was made of stainless steel and hadthe USSR Coat of Arms and the Cyrillicletters which translates into English asUSSR relief engraved on one side, and thewords USSR SEPTEMBER 1959 (inRussian) relief engraved on the other side.

The third pennant was located in the laststage of the Luna 2 rocket, which collidedwith the moon's surface 30 minutes after thespacecraft did. It was a capsule filled withliquid, with aluminium strips placed into it.On each of these strips the USSR Coat ofArms, the words (in Russian) UNION OFSOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS wereengraved.On September 15, 1959, the premier of the

USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, presented to theAmerican president Dwight D. Eisenhowera copy of the spherical pennant as a gift.That sphere is located at the EisenhowerPresidential Library and Museum inAbilene, Kansas.

The only other known copy of the sphericalpennant is located at the KansasCosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas.

BELKA AND STRELKABelka (Squirrel or, alternately, Whitey) andStrelka (Arrow) spent a day in space aboardKorabl-Sputnik-2 (Sputnik 5) on August 19,1960 before safely returning to Earth.They were accompanied by a grey rabbit,42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plantsand fungi. All passengers survived. Theywere the first Earth-born creatures to go intoorbit and return alive.Strelka went on to have six puppies with amale dog named Pushok who participated inmany ground-based space experiments, butnever made it into space. One of the pups wasnamed Pushinka (Fluffy) and was presentedto President John F. Kennedy's daughterCaroline by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. ACold War romance bloomed between Pushinkaand a Kennedy dog named Charlie resultingin the birth of 4 pups that JFK referred to jok-ingly as pupniks. Two of their pups, Butterflyand Streaker were given away to children inthe Midwest. The other two puppies, WhiteTips and Blackie, stayed at the Kennedy homeon Squaw Island but were eventually givenaway to family friends. Pushinka's descen-dants are still living today. A photo of descen-dants of some of the Space Dogs is on displayat the Zvezda Museum outside Moscow.A Russian animated feature film called Belkaand Strelka: Star Dogs (English title: SpaceDogs) was released in 2010.

YURI GAGARINYuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934– 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot andcosmonaut. He was the first human to jour-ney into outer space, when his Vostok space-craft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12April 1961.Gagarin became an international celebrity,and was awarded many medals and honours,including Hero of the Soviet Union, thenation's highest honour. Vostok 1 markedhis only spaceflight, but he served as backupcrew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which endedin a fatal crash). Gagarin later becamedeputy training director of the CosmonautTraining Centre outside Moscow, which waslater named after him. Gagarin died in 1968when a MiG 15 training jet he was pilotingcrashed.

Gagarin was born in the village of Klushinonear Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast,Russia), on 9 March 1934. The adjacenttown of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in1968 in his honour. His parents, AlexeyIvanovich Gagarin and Anna TimofeyevnaGagarina, worked on a collective farm.While manual labourers are described inofficial reports as "peasants", his mother wasreportedly a voracious reader, and his fa-ther a skilled carpenter. Yuri was the thirdof four children, and his elder sister helpedraise him while his parents worked. Likemillions of people in the Soviet Union, theGagarin family suffered during Nazi occu-pation in World War II. After a German of-ficer took over their house, the family con-structed a small mud hut where they spent ayear and nine months until the end of theoccupation. His two older siblings weredeported to Nazi Germany for slave labourin 1943, and did not return until after thewar. In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk.

In his youth, Gagarin became interested inspace and planets. After studying for oneyear at a vocational technical school inLyubertsy, Gagarin was selected for furthertraining at a technical high school in Saratov.While there, he joined the "AeroClub", andlearned to fly a light aircraft, a hobby thatwould take up an increasing portion of histime.

In 1955, after completing his technicalschooling, he entered military flight train-ing at the Orenburg Pilot's School. Whilethere he met Valentina Goryacheva, whomhe married in 1957, after gaining his pilot'swings in a MiG-15. Post-graduation, he wasassigned to Luostari airbase in MurmanskOblast, close to the Norwegian border,where terrible weather made flying risky.He became a Lieutenant in the Soviet AirForce on 5 November 1957 and on 6 No-vember 1959 he received the rank of Se-nior Lieutenant.

In 1960, after the search and selection pro-cess, Yuri Gagarin was chosen with 19 otherpilots for the Soviet space program. Gagarinwas further selected for an elite traininggroup known as the Sochi Six from whichthe first cosmonauts of the Vostokprogramme would be chosen. Gagarin andother prospective cosmonauts were sub-jected to experiments designed to test physi-cal and psychological endurance; he alsounderwent training for the upcoming flight.Out of the twenty selected, the eventualchoices for the first launch were Gagarinand Gherman Titov because of their perfor-mance in training, as well as their physicalcharacteristics — space was at a premiumin the small Vostok cockpit and both menwere rather short. Gagarin was 1.57 metres(5 ft 2 in) tall, which was an advantage inthe small Vostok cockpit.In August 1960, when Gagarin was one of20 possible candidates, an Air Force doctor

evaluated his personality as follows:Modest; embarrasses when his humor getsa little too racy; high degree of intellectualdevelopment evident in Yuriy; fantasticmemory; distinguishes himself from hiscolleagues by his sharp and far-rangingsense of attention to his surroundings; awell-developed imagination; quick reac-tions; persevering, prepares himself pains-takingly for his activities and training exer-cises, handles celestial mechanics and math-ematical formulae with ease as well as ex-cels in higher mathematics; does not feelconstrained when he has to defend his pointof view if he considers himself right; ap-pears that he understands life better than alot of his friends.—Soviet Air Force doctor,Gagarin was also a favoured candidate byhis peers. When the 20 candidates wereasked to anonymously vote for which othercandidate they would like to see as the firstto fly, all but three chose Gagarin. One ofthese candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, be-lieved that Gagarin was very focused, andwas demanding of himself and others whennecessary.Gagarin kept physically fit throughout hislife, and was a keen sportsman. In additionto being a keen ice hockey player, Gagarinwas also a basketball fan, and coached theSaratov Industrial Technical School team,as well as being an umpire/referee.

On 12 April 1961, aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1), Gagarin became both the firsthuman to travel into space, and the first toorbit the earth. His call sign was Kedr (Si-berian Pine)In his post-flight report, Gagarin recalledhis experience of spaceflight, having beenthe first human in space:The feeling of weightlessness was some-what unfamiliar compared with Earth con-ditions. Here, you feel as if you were hang-ing in a horizontal position in straps. Youfeel as if you are suspended.Following the flight, Gagarin told the So-viet leader Nikita Khrushchev that duringreentry he had whistled the tune "The Moth-erland Hears, The Motherland Knows" Thefirst two lines of the song are: "The Moth-erland hears, the Motherland knows/Whereher son flies in the sky". This patriotic songwas written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951(opus 86), with words by YevgeniyDolmatovsky.Some sources have claimed that Gagarincommented during the flight, "I don't seeany God up here." However, no such wordsappear in the verbatim record of his con-versations with Earth-based stations duringthe spaceflight. In a 2006 interview,Gagarin's friend Colonel Valentin Petrovstated that the cosmonaut never said suchwords, and that the quote originated fromNikita Khrushchev's speech at the plenum

Massive monument to Yuri Gagarin atMoscow's Gagarin Square

of the Central Committee of the CPSU aboutthe state's anti-religion campaign, saying"Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see anygod there." Petrov also said that Gagarin hadbeen baptised into the Orthodox Church asa child, and a 2011 Foma magazine articlequoted the rector of the Orthodox church inStar City saying, "Gagarin baptized his el-der daughter Elena shortly before his spaceflight; and his family used to celebrateChristmas and Easter and keep icons in thehouse."

After the flight, Gagarin became a world-wide celebrity, touring widely abroad. Hevisited Italy, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Ja-pan, and Finland to promote the SovietUnion's accomplishment of putting the firsthuman in space. He visited the United King-dom three months after the Vostok 1 mis-sion, visiting the cities of London andManchester, the latter of which has beenfondly remembered by locals.The sudden rise to national and internationalfame took its toll on Gagarin. In attendingvarious functions and receptions in hishonour, he consumed large amounts ofvodka and other alcoholic beverages, eventhough otherwise he was not a regulardrinker. His physical appearance changedand he became noticeably heavier. The at-tention of female fans took a toll on hismarriage. It was rumoured that his wife oncecaught him in a hotel room with anotherwoman and Gagarin jumped out of the sec-ond floor window and hit his face on akerbstone, which resulted in a deep cutabove his left eye. The scar remained vis-ible after the incident.In 1962, he began serving as a deputy to theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Helater returned to Star City, the cosmonautfacility, where he spent seven years work-ing on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He

became Lieutenant Colonel (orPodpolkovnik) of the Soviet Air Force on12 June 1962 and on 6 November 1963 hereceived the rank of Colonel (Polkovnik) ofthe Soviet Air Force. Soviet officials triedto keep him away from any flights, beingworried of losing their hero in an accident.Gagarin was backup pilot for his friendVladimir Komarov in the Soyuz 1 flight,which was launched despite Gagarin's pro-tests that additional safety precautions wereneeded. When Komarov's flight ended in afatal crash, Gagarin was ultimately bannedfrom training for and participating in fur-ther spaceflights.Gagarin had become deputy training direc-tor of the Star City cosmonaut training base.At the same time, he began to re-qualify asa fighter pilot.

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine train-ing flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, he andflight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in

a MiG-15UTI crash near the town ofKirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin andSeryogin were cremated and the ashes wereburied in the walls of the Kremlin on RedSquare. Gagarin was survived by his wifeValentina, and daughters Elena and Galina.Elena Gagarina, Yuri's elder daughter, is anart historian who works as a director-gen-eral of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since2001. His younger daughter, Galina, is adepartment chair at Plekhanov Russian Eco-nomic University in Moscow.The cause of the crash that killed Gagarinis not entirely certain, and has been subjectto speculation and conspiracy theories overthe ensuing decades.Soviet documents declassified in March2003 showed that the KGB had conductedtheir own investigation of the accident, inaddition to one government and two mili-tary investigations. The KGB's report dis-missed various conspiracy theories, insteadindicating that the actions of air base per-sonnel contributed to the crash. The reportstates that an air traffic controller providedGagarin with outdated weather information,and that by the time of his flight, conditionshad deteriorated significantly. Ground crewalso left external fuel tanks attached to theaircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activitiesneeded clear weather and no outboard tanks.The investigation concluded that Gagarin'saircraft entered a spin, either due to a birdstrike or because of a sudden move to avoidanother aircraft. Because of the out-of-dateweather report, the crew believed their alti-tude to be higher than it actually was, andcould not properly react to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.In his 2004 book Two Sides of the Moon,Alexey Leonov recounts that he was flyinga helicopter in the same area that day whenhe heard "two loud booms in the distance."Corroborating other theories, his conclusionis that a Sukhoi jet (which he identifies as aSu-15 'Flagon') was flying below its mini-mum allowed altitude, and "without realiz-ing it because of the terrible weather condi-tions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters ofYuri and Seregin's plane while breaking thesound barrier." The resulting turbulencewould have sent the MiG into an uncon-trolled spin. Leonov believes the first boomhe heard was that of the jet breaking thesound barrier, and the second was Gagarin'splane crashing.Another theory, advanced by the originalcrash investigator in 2005, hypothesizes thata cabin air vent was accidentally left openby the crew or the previous pilot, leading tooxygen deprivation and leaving the crewincapable of controlling the aircraft. A simi-lar theory, published in Air & Space maga-zine, is that the crew detected the open ventand followed procedure by executing a rapiddive to a lower altitude. This dive causedthem to lose consciousness and crash.

On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a newinvestigation into the death of Gagarin.Government officials said that they saw noreason to begin a new investigation.In April 2011, documents from a 1968 com-mission set up by the Central Committee ofthe Communist Party to investigate the ac-cident were declassified. Those documentsrevealed that the commission's original con-clusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin hadmaneuvered sharply either to avoid aweather balloon, leading the jet into a "su-per-critical flight regime and to its stallingin complex meteorological conditions," orto avoid "entry into the upper limit of thefirst layer of cloud cover".

Aside from his short stature at 1.57 metres(5 ft 2 in), one of Gagarin's most notabletraits was his smile. Many commented on

how Gagarin's smile gained the attention ofmany in the crowd on the frequent toursGagarin did in the months after the Vostok1 mission success.Gagarin also garnered a reputation as anadept public figure. When he visitedManchester in the United Kingdom, it waspouring with rain; however, Gagarin insistedthat the car hood remain back so that thecheering crowds could catch a glimpse ofhim. Gagarin stated, "If all these people haveturned out to welcome me and can stand inthe rain, so can I." Gagarin refused an um-brella and remained standing in his open-top Bentley so that the cheering crowdscould still see him.Sergei Korolev, one of the masterminds be-hind the early years of the Soviet space pro-gram, later said that Gagarin possessed asmile "that lit up the Cold War".Gagarin was also honored by the Americanspace program during Apollo 11 when as-tronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrinleft on the surface of the Moon a memorialbag containing medals commemoratingGagarin and fellow cosmonaut VladimirKomarov. On 1 August 1971, Apollo 15astonauts David Scott and James Irwin leftthe Fallen Astronaut on the surface of theMoon as a memorial to all the Americanastronauts and Soviet cosmonauts that diedin the Space Race, with Yuri Gagarin listedamong 14 others.

There were two commemorative coins is-sued in the Soviet Union to commemorate20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: 1ruble coin (1981, copper-nickel) and 3 rublecoin (1991, silver). In 2001, to commemo-rate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight,a series of four coins bearing his likenesswas issued in Russia: 2 ruble coin (copper-nickel), 3 ruble coin (silver), 10 ruble coin(brass-copper, nickel), and 100 ruble coin

(silver). In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000 rublecoin (gold) and 3 ruble coin (silver) to markthe 50th anniversary of his flight.

Gagarin Raion in the Sevastopol city(Ukraine) was named after him during theSoviet Union.In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey Leaguenamed their championship trophy theGagarin Cup.In January 2011, Armenian airline Armavianamed their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 inGagarin's honour.On 14 July 2011, a copy of the Yuri GagarinStatue from outside his former school inLyubertsy was unveiled at the AdmiraltyArch end of The Mall in London, oppositethe permanent sculpture of James Cook.

The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journeyinto space was marked in 2011 by tributesaround the world. A film entitled First Or-bit was shot from the International SpaceStation, combining the original flight audiowith footage of the route taken by Gagarin.The Russian, American, and Italian Expe-dition 27 crew aboard the ISS sent a specialvideo message to wish the people of theworld a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirtswith an image of Gagarin.Swiss-based German watchmaker BernhardLederer created a limited edition of 50Gagarin Tourbillons to commemorate the50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight.The launch of Soyuz TMA-21 on 4 April2011 was devoted to the 50th anniversaryof the first manned space mission.

Monument to Gagarin in London

VALENTINA

TERESHKOVAValentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (bornMarch 6, 1937) was the first woman inspace. She was selected out of more thanfour hundred applicants, and then out of fivefinalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June,1963, becoming both the first woman andthe first civilian to fly in space, as she wasonly honorarily inducted into the USSR'sAir Force as a condition on joining the Cos-monaut Corps. During her three-day mis-sion, she performed various tests on herselfto collect data on the female body's reac-tion to spaceflight.Before being recruited as a cosmonaut,Tereshkova was a textile-factory assemblyworker and an amateur parachutist. After thedissolution of the first group of female cos-monauts in 1969, she became a prominentmember of the Communist Party of the So-viet Union, holding various political offices.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, shestayed in politics, and remains revered as ahero in post-Soviet Russia.

Tereshkova was born in the villageMaslennikovo, Tutayev Raion, YaroslavlOblast, in central Russia. Her parents hadmigrated from Belarus. Tereshkova's fatherwas a tractor driver and her mother workedin a textile plant. Tereshkova began schoolin 1945 at the age of eight, but left schoolin 1953 and continued her education by cor-respondence courses. She became interestedin parachuting from a young age, and trainedin skydiving at the local Aeroclub, makingher first jump at age 22 on 21 May 1959; atthe time, she was employed as a textileworker in a local factory. It was her exper-tise in skydiving that led to her selection asa cosmonaut. In 1961 she became the sec-retary of the local Komsomol (Young Com-

munist League) and later joined the Com-munist Party of the Soviet Union.After the flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961,Sergey Korolyov, the chief Soviet rocketengineer, came up with the idea of putting awoman in space. On February 16, 1962,Valentina Tereshkova was selected to jointhe female cosmonaut corps. Out of morethan four hundred applicants, five were se-lected: Tatyana Kuznetsova, IrinaSolovyova, Zhanna Yorkina, ValentinaPonomaryova, and Tereshkova. Qualifica-tions included that they be parachutists un-der 30 years of age, under 170 cm (5 feet 7inches) tall, and under 70 kg (154 lbs.) inweight.Tereshkova was considered a particularlyworthy candidate, partly due to her "prole-tarian" background, and because her father,tank leader sergeant Vladimir Tereshkov,was a war hero. He lost his life in the Finn-ish Winter War during World War II in theLemetti area in Finnish Karelia. Tereshkovawas two years old at the time of her father'sdeath. After her mission she was asked howthe Soviet Union should thank her for herservice to the country. Tereshkova asked thatthe government search for, and publish, thelocation where her father was killed in ac-tion. This was done, and a monument nowstands at the site in Lemetti — now on theRussian side of the border. Tereshkova hassince visited Finland several times.Training included weightless flights, isola-tion tests, centrifuge tests, rocket theory,spacecraft engineering, 120 parachutejumps and pilot training in MiG-15UTI jetfighters. The group spent several months inintensive training, concluding with exami-nations in November 1962, after which fourremaining candidates were commissionedJunior Lieutenants in the Soviet Air Force.Tereshkova, Solovyova and Ponomaryovawere the leading candidates, and a jointmission profile was developed that wouldsee two women launched into space, on soloVostok flights on consecutive days in March

or April 1963.Originally it was intended that Tereshkovawould launch first in Vostok 5 whilePonomaryova would follow her into orbitin Vostok 6. However, this flight plan wasaltered in March 1963. Vostok 5 would nowcarry a male cosmonaut Valery Bykovskyflying the joint mission with a womanaboard Vostok 6 in June 1963. The StateSpace Commission nominated Tereshkovato pilot Vostok 6 at their meeting on May21 and this was confirmed by NikitaKhrushchev himself. At the time of her se-lection, Tereshkova was ten years youngerthan the youngest Mercury Seven astronaut,Gordon Cooper.After watching the successful launch ofVostok 5 on June 14, Tereshkova began fi-nal preparations for her own flight. She was26 at the time. On the morning of 16 June1963, Tereshkova and her back-upSolovyova were both dressed in spacesuitsand taken to the launch pad by bus. Aftercompleting her communication and life sup-port checks, she was sealed inside theVostok. After a flawless two-hour count-down, Vostok 6 launched faultlessly, andTereshkova became the first woman to flyinto space. Her call sign in this flight wasChaika (English: Seagull), later commemo-rated as the name of an asteroid, 1671Chaika.Although Tereshkova experienced nauseaand physical discomfort for much of theflight, she orbited the earth 48 times andspent almost three days in space. With asingle flight, she logged more flight timethan the combined times of all Americanastronauts who had flown before that date.Tereshkova also maintained a flight log andtook photographs of the horizon, which werelater used to identify aerosol layers withinthe atmosphere.Vostok 6 was the final Vostok flight and waslaunched two days after Vostok 5 whichcarried Valery Bykovsky into a similar or-bit for five days, landing three hours after

Monument to Valentina at the MoscowSpace Museum

Tereshkova. The two vessels approachedeach other within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) atone point, and Tereshkova communicatedwith Bykovsky and with Khrushchev byradio.Even though there were plans for furtherflights by women, it took 19 years until thesecond woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, flewinto space. None of the other four inTereshkova's early group ever flew, and inOctober 1969 the pioneering female cosmo-naut group was dissolved.

After her flight, she studied at theZhukovsky Air Force Academy and gradu-ated with distinction as a cosmonaut engi-neer. In 1977 she earned a doctorate in en-gineering. Due to her prominence she waschosen for several political positions: from1966 to 1974 she was a member of the Su-preme Soviet of the Soviet Union, from1974 to 1989 a member of the Presidium ofthe Supreme Soviet, and from 1969 to 1991she was in the Central Committee of theCommunist Party. In 1997 she was retiredfrom the air force and the cosmonaut corpsby presidential order.After the Vostok 6 flight a rumor began cir-culating that she would marry AndrianNikolayev (1929–2004), the only bachelorcosmonaut to have flown. Nikolayev andTereshkova married on 3 November 1963at the Moscow Wedding Palace.Khrushchev himself presided at the weddingparty, together with top government andspace program leaders.On June 8, 1964, she gave birth to theirdaughter Elena Andrianovna Nikolaeva-Tereshkova (who is now a doctor and wasthe first person to have both a mother andfather who had travelled into space). Sheand Nikolayev divorced in 1982. Her sec-ond husband, Yuli Shaposhnikov, died in1999.

Valentina Tereshkova later became a promi-nent member of the Soviet government anda well known representative abroad. Shewas made a member of the World PeaceCouncil in 1966, a member of the YaroslavlSoviet in 1967, a member of the SupremeSoviet of the Soviet Union in 1966–1970and 1970–1974, and was elected to the Pre-sidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1974. Shewas also the Soviet representative to the UNConference for the International Women'sYear in Mexico City in 1975. She also ledthe Soviet delegation to the World Confer-ence on Women in Copenhagen and playeda critical role in shaping the socialistwomen's global agenda for peace. She at-tained the rank of deputy to the SupremeSoviet, membership of the Communist Partyof the Soviet Union Central Committee,Vice President of the International Woman’sDemocratic Federation and President of theSoviet-Algerian Friendship Society.She was decorated with the Hero of the So-viet Union medal, the USSR's highestaward. She was also awarded the Order ofLenin, Order of the October Revolution,

numerous other medals, and foreign ordersincluding the Karl Marx Order, United Na-tions Gold Medal of Peace and the SimbaInternational Women’s Movement Award.She was also bestowed a title of the Hero ofSocialist Labor of Czechoslovakia, Hero ofLabor of Vietnam, and Hero of Mongolia.In 1990 she received an honorary doctoratefrom the University of Edinburgh.Tereshkova crater on the far side of theMoon was named after her. ValentinaTereshkova became the first and still re-mains to be the only female general officerin both Soviet and Russian armed forces.After the collapse of the Soviet Union,Tereshkova lost her political office but noneof her prestige. To this day, she is still re-vered as a Russian hero, and to some herimportance in Russian space history is onlysurpassed by Yuri Gagarin and AlexeyLeonov. Since her retirement from politics,she appears infrequently at space-relatedevents, and appears to be content with be-ing out of the limelight.

Tereshkova's life and spaceflight were firstexamined (in the west) in the 1975 book: ItIs I, Sea Gull; Valentina Tereshkova, the firstwoman in space by Mitchel R. Sharpe andthen again in greater detail of her life andspaceflight in the 2007 book Into That Si-lent Sea by Colin Burgess and FrancisFrench, including interviews withTereshkova and her colleagues.Tereshkova was invited to Prime MinisterVladimir Putin's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo for the celebration of her 70thbirthday. While there she said that she wouldlike to fly to Mars, even if it meant that itwas a one way trip.On 5 April 2008, she became a torchbearerof the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relayin Saint Petersburg, Russia.

ALEXEY LEONOVAlexey Arkhipovich Leonov (born 30 May1934 in Listvyanka, Kemerovo Oblast, So-viet Union) became the first human to con-duct a space walk on the 18 March 1965Leonov was one of the twenty Soviet AirForce pilots selected to be part of the firstcosmonaut group in 1960. As all the Sovietcosmonauts Leonov was a member of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union. Hiswalk in space was originally to have takenplace on the Vostok 11 mission, but this wascancelled, and the historic event happenedon the Voskhod 2 flight instead. He wasoutside the spacecraft for 12 minutes andnine seconds on 18 March 1965, connectedto the craft by a 5.35 meter tether. At theend of the spacewalk, Leonov's spacesuithad inflated in the vacuum of space to thepoint where he could not re-enter the airlock.He opened a valve to allow some of the suit'spressure to bleed off, and was barely ableto get back inside the capsule. Leonov hadspent some eighteen months undergoingintensive weightlessness training for themission.As of November 2011, Leonov is the lastsurvivor of the five cosmonauts in theVoskhod program.

In 1968, Leonov was selected to be com-mander of a circumlunar Soyuz flight. How-ever as all unmanned test flights of thisproject failed, and the Apollo 8 mission al-ready given that step in the Space Race tothe USA, the flight was canceled. He wasalso selected to be the first Soviet person toland on the Moon, aboard the LOK/N1spacecraft. This project was also canceled.(Incidentally, the design required a riskyspacewalk between lunar vehicles, some-thing that contributed to his selection.)Leonov was to have been commander of theill-fated 1971 Soyuz 11 mission to Salyut1, the first manned space station, but hiscrew was replaced with the backup after thecosmonaut Valery Kubasov was suspectedto have contracted tuberculosis.Leonov was to have commanded the nextmission to Salyut 1, but this was scrappedafter the deaths of the Soyuz 11 crew mem-bers, and the space station was lost. The nexttwo Salyuts (actually the military Almazstation) were lost at launch or failed soonafter, and Leonov's crew stood by. By thetime Salyut 4 reached orbit Leonov had beenswitched to a more prestigious project.Leonov's second trip into space was simi-larly significant: he commanded the Soviethalf of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission -Soyuz 19 - the first joint space mission be-tween the Soviet Union and the UnitedStates.From 1976 to 1982, Leonov was the com-mander of the cosmonaut team ("Chief Cos-monaut"), and deputy director of the YuriGagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, where

he oversaw crew training. He also edited thecosmonaut newsletter Neptune. He retiredin 1991.Leonov is an accomplished artist whosepublished books include albums of his ar-tistic works and works he did in collabora-tion with his friend Andrei Sokolov. Leonovhas taken colored pencils and paper intospace, where he has sketched the Earth anddrawn portraits of the Apollo astronauts whoflew with him during the Apollo-Soyuz TestProject. Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his notesto 2010: Odyssey Two that, after a 1968screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey,Leonov pointed out to him that the align-ment of the Moon, Earth, and Sun shown inthe opening is essentially the same as thatin Leonov's 1967 painting Near the Moon,although the painting's diagonal framing ofthe scene was not replicated in the film.Clarke kept an autographed sketch of thispainting - which Leonov made after thescreening, hanging on his office wall.

In 2001, he was a vice president of Mos-cow-based Alfa Bank and an advisor to thefirst deputy of the Board.In 2004, Leonov and former American as-tronaut David Scott began work on a dualbiography / history of the Space Race be-tween the United States and the SovietUnion. Titled Two Sides of the Moon: Our

Story of the Cold War Space Race, it waspublished in 2006. Neil Armstrong and TomHanks both wrote introductions to the book.Leonov was also a contributor to the 2007book Into That Silent Sea by Colin Burgessand Francis French, which describes his lifeand career in space exploration.

Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010: OdysseyTwo was dedicated to Leonov and AndreiSakharov; the fictional spaceship Cosmo-naut Alexei Leonov in the book was namedafter him.

Alexey Leonov was decorated twice as theHero of the Soviet Union (March 23, 1965and 1975). He was also awarded the Orderof Lenin, Order of the Red Star, numerousmedals and foreign orders. He bears the titleof the Hero of Socialist Labor of Bulgariaand Hero of Vietnam.

Leonov wore a Russian Poljot "FMWFStrela" chronograph during his historic firstspace walk.

At an Apollo-Soyuz Test Project press con-ference, Leonov stated (in English) that,while in the United States for ASTP train-ing, he wanted to visit Hollywood, becausehe had aspirations of being a movie star.

Leonov, along with Rusty Schweickart,Vitaly Sevastyanov and Georgi Grechkoestablished the Association of Space Explor-ers in 1984. Membership is open to allpeople who have flown in outer space.

In the Star Trek novel Destiny: Gods ofNight there is a ship named the U.S.S.Alexey Leonov, which sacrifices itself tosave the planet Korvat from the Borg.

SALYUT 1Salyut 1 (DOS-1) was the first space sta-tion of any kind, launched by the USSR onApril 19, 1971. It was launched unmannedusing a Proton-K rocket. Its first crew camelater in Soyuz 10, but was unable to dockcompletely; its second crew launched inSoyuz 11 and remained on board for 23days. A pressure-equalization valve in theSoyuz 11 reentry capsule opened prema-turely when the crew was returning, killingall three. Following the accident, missionswere temporarily suspended and the stationwas burned in the atmosphere purposelyafter a total of 6 months in orbit.

At launch, the announced purpose of Salyutwas to test the elements of the systems of aspace station and to conduct scientific re-search and experiments. The craft was de-scribed as being 20 m in length, 4 m in maxi-mum diameter, and 99 m_ in interior spacewith an on-orbit dry mass of 18,425 kg. Ofits several compartments, three were pres-surized (100 m_ total), and two could beentered by the crew.[

The transfer compartment was to connectdirectly with Soyuz. The docking cone hada 2 m front diameter and a 3 m aft diam-eter.[The second, and main, compartment wasabout 4 m in diameter. Televised viewsshowed enough space for eight big chairs(seven at work consoles), several controlpanels, and 20 portholes (some obstructedby instruments).[The third pressurized compartment con-tained the control and communicationsequipment, the power supply, the life sup-port system, and other auxiliary equipment.The fourth, and final, unpressurized com-partment was about 2 m in diameter andcontained the engine installations and asso-ciated control equipment. Salyut had bufferchemical batteries, reserve supplies of oxy-gen and water, and regeneration systems.Externally mounted were two double setsof solar cell panels that extended like wingsfrom the smaller compartments at each end,the heat regulation system's radiators, andorientation and control devices.[Salyut 1 was modified from one of theAlmaz airframes. The unpressurized servicemodule was the modified service moduleof a Soyuz craft.The astrophysical Orion 1 Space Observa-tory designed by Grigor Gurzadyan ofByurakan Observatory in Armenia, was in-stalled in Salyut 1. Ultraviolet spectrogramsof stars were obtained with the help of amirror telescope of the Mersenne systemand a spectrograph of the Wadsworth sys-tem using film sensitive to the far ultravio-let. The dispersion of the spectrograph was32 Å/mm (3.2 nm/mm), while the resolu-tion of the spectrograms derived was about

5 Å at 2600 Å (0.5 nm at 260 nm). Slitlessspectrograms were obtained of the starsVega and Beta Centauri between 2000 and3800 Å (200 and 380 nm). The telescope

was operated by crew member ViktorPatsayev, who became the first man to op-erate a telescope outside the Earth’s atmo-sphere.

MIRMir means "peace" and "community" inRussian. The Mir space station (above)contributed to world peace by hostinginternational scientists and Americanastronauts. It also supported a communityof humans in orbit and symbolized thecommonwealth of the Russian people.Mir was constructed in orbit by connectingdifferent modules, each launched separatelyfrom 1986 to 1996. During the Shuttle-MirProgram, Russia's Mir combined itscapabilities with America's space shuttles.The orbiting Mir provided a large andlivable scientific laboratory in space. Thevisiting space shuttles provided trans-portation and supplies, as well as temporaryenlargements of living and working areas,

creating history's largest spacecraft, with acombined mass of 250 tons.Magnificent to behold through the windowsof a space shuttle, the 100-ton Mir was asbig as six schoolbuses. Inside, it lookedmore like a cramped labyrinth, crowdedwith hoses, cables and scientific instrumentsas well as articles of everyday life, such asphotos, children's drawings, books and aguitar. It commonly housed threecrewmembers, but it sometimes supportedas many as six, for up to a month. Exceptfor two short periods, Mir was continuouslyoccupied until August 1999.The journey of the 15-year-old Russianspace station ended March 23, 2001, as Mirre-entered the Earth's atmosphere near Nadi,Fiji, and fell into the South Pacific.

THE MOSCOW METROWithout doubt the best way to get around Moscow is to use the underground Metro system. Any traveller can be from one endof this massive city to the other in a matter of minutes. Don’t think for one minute that this can be compared to any otherunderground transport system in the world as many of the stations are more like art galleries complete with works of art andchandeliers!

The Moscow Metro is a rapid transit system serving Moscowand the neighbouring town of Krasnogorsk. Opened in 1935

with one 11-kilometre (6.8 mi) line and 13 stations, it was the firstunderground railway system in the Soviet Union. As of 2011, theMoscow Metro has 185 stations and its route length is 305.7kilometres (190.0 mi). The system is mostly underground, with thedeepest section 84 metres (276 ft) below ground at the Park Pobedystation. The Moscow Metro is the world's second-most-heavily-used rapid transit system, after Tokyo's twin subway.

The Moscow Metro is a state-owned enterprise. Its total length is305.5 km (189.8 mi) and consists of 12 lines and 185 stations. Theaverage daily passenger traffic is 6.6 million. Ridership is higheston weekdays (when the Metro carries over 7 million passengersper day) and lower on weekends. Each line is identified accordingto an alphanumeric index (usually consisting of a number), a nameand a colour. Voice announcements refer to the lines by name. Amale voice announces the next station when traveling towards thecentre of the city, and a female voice when going away from it. Onthe circle line the clockwise direction has a male announcer for thestations, while the counter-clockwise direction has a female an-nouncer. The lines are also assigned specific colours for maps andsigns. Naming by colour is frequent in colloquial usage, except forthe very similar shades of green assigned to the Kakhovskaya Line(route 11), the Zamoskvoretskaya Line (route 2), the Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya Line (route 10) and the Butovskaya Line (route L1).

The system operates in an enhanced spoke-hub distribution para-digm, with the majority of rail lines running radially from the cen-tre of Moscow to the outlying areas. The Koltsevaya Line (route 5)forms a 20-kilometre (12 mile) long ring which enables passengertravel between these spokes. Signs showing the stations that canbe reached in a given direction are in each station. A completemap is also on each station both inside and outside. Most of thestations and lines are underground, but some lines have at-gradeand elevated sections. The Filyovskaya Line is notable for beingthe only line with most of its route at grade.The Moscow Metro is open from about 05:30 until 01:00. The pre-cise opening time varies at different stations according to the ar-rival of the first train, but all stations close their entrances simulta-neously at 01:00 for maintenance. The minimum interval betweentrains is 90 seconds, during the morning and evening rush hours.

The first plans for a metro system in Moscow date back to theRussian Empire but were postponed by World War I, the OctoberRevolution and the Russian Civil War. In 1923, the Moscow CityCouncil formed the Underground Railway Design Office at theMoscow Board of Urban Railways. It carried out preliminary stud-ies, and by 1928 had developed a project for the first route fromSokolniki to the city centre. At the same time, an offer was made toGerman company Siemens Bauunion to submit its own project forthe same route. In June 1931, the decision to begin construction ofthe Moscow Metro was made by the Central Committee of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union. In January 1932 the planfor the first lines was approved, and on March 21, 1933 the Sovietgovernment approved a plan for 10 lines with a total route lengthof 80 km.The first lines were built using the Moscow general plan designedby Lazar Kaganovich in the 1930s, and the Metro was named afterhim until 1955 (Metropoliten im. L.M. Kaganovicha).

The Moscow Metro construction engineers consulted with theircounterparts from the London Underground, the world's oldestmetro system. Partly because of this connection, the design of GantsHill tube station (although not completed until much later) is remi-niscent of a Moscow Metro Station.

The first line, from Okhotny Ryad to Smolenskaya, was opened tothe public on 15 May 1935 at 07:00. It was 11 kilometres (6.8 mi)long and included 13 stations. The line connected Sokolniki andPark Kultury. The latter branch was extended westwards to a newstation (Kiyevskaya) in March 1937, the first Metro line crossingthe Moskva River over the Smolensky Metro Bridge.

The second stage was completed before the war. In March 1938,the Arbatskaya branch was split and extended to the Kurskaya sta-tion (now the dark-blue Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line). In Septem-ber 1938, the Gorkovskaya Line opened between Sokol andTeatralnaya. Here the architecture was based on that of the mostpopular stations in existence (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotnyi Ryad andKropotkinskaya); while following the popular art-deco style, it wasmerged with socialist themes. The first deep-level Column stationMayakovskaya was built at the same time.

Building work on the third stage was delayed (but not interrupted)during World War II, and two Metro sections were put into service;Teatralnaya–Avtozavodskaya (three stations, crossing the MoskvaRiver through a deep tunnel) and Kurskaya–Partizanskaya (fourstations) were inaugurated in 1943 and 1944 respectively. Warmotifs replaced socialist visions in the architectural design of thesestations. During the Siege of Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941,Metro stations were used as air-raid shelters; the Council of Minis-ters moved its offices to the Mayakovskaya platforms, where Stalinmade public speeches on several occasions. The Chistiye Prudystation was also walled off, and the headquarters of the Air De-fence established there.

After the war construction began on the fourth stage of the Metro,which included the Koltsevaya Line, a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Kievskaya and asurface extension to Pervomaiskaya during the early 1950s. Thedecoration and design characteristic of the Moscow Metro is con-sidered to have reached its zenith in these stations. The KoltsevayaLine was first planned as a line running under the Garden Ring, awide avenue encircling the borders of Moscow's city centre. Thefirst part of the line – from Park Kultury to Kurskaya (1950) –follows this avenue. Plans were later changed and the northern partof the ring line runs 1–1.5 kilometres (0.62–0.93 mi) outside theSadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for seven (out of nine)rail terminals. The next part of the Koltsevaya Line opened in 1952(Kurskaya–Belorusskaya), and in 1954 the ring line was completed.

The beginning of the Cold War led to the construction of a deepsection of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line. The stations on this linewere planned as shelters in the event of nuclear war. After finish-ing the line in 1953 the upper tracks between Ploshchad Revolyutsiiand Kiyevskaya were closed, and later reopened in 1958 as a partof the Filyovskaya Line. In the further development of the Metrothe term "stages" was not used any more, although sometimes thestations opened in 1957–1959 are referred to as the "fifth stage".During the late 1950s the architectural extravagance of new Metrostations was toned down, and decorations at some stations (such asVDNKh and Alexeyevskaya) were simplified by comparison withthe original plans. This was done on the orders of NikitaKhrushchev, who favoured more spartan decoration. A typical lay-out (which quickly became known as Sorokonozhka–"centipede",from early designs with 40 concrete columns in two rows) wasdeveloped for all new stations and the stations were built to lookalmost identical, differing from each other only in colours of themarble and ceramic tiles. Most stations were built with simpler,less-costly technology; this was not always appropriate, and re-sulted in utilitarian design. For example, walls with cheap ceramictiles were susceptible to train vibration and some tiles eventuallyfell off. It was not always possible to replace the missing tiles withthe ones of the same color, which eventually led to variegated partsof the walls. Not until the mid-1970s was the architectural extrava-gance restored and original designs again popular. However, thenewer design of "centipede" stations (with 26 more-widely-spacedcolumns) continued to dominate.

The Moscow Metro was one of the USSR’s most extravagant ar-chitectural projects. Stalin ordered the metro’s artists and archi-tects to design a structure that embodied svet (radiance or bril-liance) and svetloe budushchee (a radiant future). With their re-flective marble walls, high ceilings and grandiose chandeliers, manyMoscow Metro stations have been likened to an "artificial under-ground sun". This underground communist paradise reminded itsriders that Stalin and his party had delivered something substantial

to the people in return for their sacrifices. Most importantly, prole-tarian labor produced this svetloe budushchee.Stalin developed a cult of personality through various methods ofpolitical and cultural propaganda. This propaganda effort was aconcerted effort to encourage Soviet citizens to deify Stalin. Stalinreferred to himself as "the god of the sun" because the sun is thesource of all life, symbolizing a radiant future, eternal life and hap-piness. It was crucial that Stalin associate himself with the sungod, because the Communist Party’s power hinged on its promiseto the people that the party could provide all that the sun symbol-ized.The metro design’s emphasis on verticality was a reinforcement ofStalin's deification. He directed his architects to design structureswhich would encourage citizens to look up, admiring the station’sart (as if they were looking up to admire the sun and—by exten-sion—him as a god. Another aspect of the apotheosis propagandawas the metro’s electrification; the Moscow Metro's chandeliersare one of the most beautiful and technologically-advanced aspectsof the project.The chief lighting engineer was Abram Damsky, a graduate of theHigher State Art-Technical Institute in Moscow. By 1930 he was achief designer in Moscow’s Elektrosvet Factory, and during WorldWar II was sent to the Metrostroi (Metro Construction) Factory ashead of the lighting shop. Damsky recognized the importance ofefficiency, as well as the potential for light as an expressive form.His team experimented with different materials (most often castbronze, aluminum, sheet brass, steel, and milk glass) and methodsto optimize the technology. Damsky’s discourse on "Lamps andArchitecture 1930–1950" describes in detail the epic chandeliersinstalled in the Kaluzhskaia (now called the Oktiabrskaia) Stationand the Taganskaia Station:The Kaluzhskaya Station was designed by the architect [Leonid]Poliakov. Poliakov’s decision to base his design on a reinterpreta-tion of Russian classical architecture clearly influenced the con-cept of the lamps, some of which I planned in collaboration withthe architect himself. The shape of the lamps was a torch – thetorch of victory, as Poliakov put it... The artistic quality and stylis-tic unity of all the lamps throughout the station’s interior madethem perhaps the most successful element of the architectural com-position. All were made of cast aluminum decorated in a black andgold anodized coating, a technique which the Metrostroi factoryhad only just mastered. The Taganskaia Metro Station on the RingLine was designed in...quite another style by the architects K.S.Ryzhkov and A. Medvedev... Their subject matter dealt with im-ages of war and victory...The overall effect was one of ceremony,perhaps even lavish to excess. In the platform halls the blue ce-ramic bodies of the chandeliers played a more modest role, butstill emphasised the overall expressiveness of the lamp."This is an example of how the artistic composition of the MoscowMetro incorporated the Communist Party’s propaganda messages.The work of Abram Damsky facilitated the dissemination of thispropaganda, so the people would associate the party with svetloe

budushchee.Stalin's First Five-Year Plan (1928–1932) facilitated rapidindustrialisation to build a socialist motherland. The plan was am-bitious, seeking to reorient an agrarian society towards industrial-ism. It was Stalin's fanatical energy, large-scale planning, and am-bitious resource allocation that kept up industrialisation's punish-ing pace. The First Five-Year Plan was instrumental in the comple-tion of the Moscow Metro; without industrialisation, the SovietUnion would not have had the raw materials necessary for theproject. For example, steel was a main component of many sub-way stations. Before industrialisation, it would have been impos-sible for the Soviet Union to produce enough steel to incorporate itinto the metro's design; in addition, a steel shortage would havelimited the size of the subway system and its technological ad-vancement.

The Moscow Metro furthered the construction of a socialist SovietUnion because the project accorded with Stalin's Second Five-YearPlan. The Second Plan focused on urbanisation and the develop-ment of social services. The Moscow Metro was necessary to copewith the influx of peasants who migrated to the city during the1930s; Moscow's population grew to 3.6 million in 1933 from 2.16million in 1928. The Metro also bolstered Moscow's shaky infra-structure the its communal services, which hitherto were nearlynonexistent.

The Communist Party had the power to mobilise; because the partywas a single source of control, it could focus its resources and in-spire its people. The most notable example of mobilisation in theSoviet Union occurred during World War II. The country alsomobilised in order to complete the Moscow Metro with unprec-edented speed. A main motivation of the mobilization was to over-take the West and prove that a socialist metro could surpass capi-talist designs. It was especially important to the Soviet Union thatsocialism succeed industrially, technologically, and artistically inthe 1930s, since capitalism was at a low ebb during the Great De-pression.The person in charge of Metro mobilization was Lazar Kaganovich.A prominent Party member, he assumed control of the project aschief overseer. Kaganovich was nicknamed the "Iron Commissar";he shared Stalin's fanatical energy, dramatic oratory flare, and abilityto keep workers building quickly with threats and punishment. Hewas determined to realise the Moscow Metro, regardless of cost.Without Kaganovich's managerial ability, the Moscow Metro mighthave met the same fate as the Palace of the Soviets: failure.This was a comprehensive mobilisation; the project drew resourcesand workers from the entire Soviet Union. In his article, archeolo-gist Mike O'Mahoney describes the scope of Metro mobilisation:A specialist workforce had been drawn from many different re-gions, including miners from the Ukrainian and Siberian coalfieldsand construction workers from the iron and steel mills ofMagnitogorsk, the Dniepr hydroelectric power station, and theTurkestan-Siberian railway... materials used in the construction ofthe metro included iron from Siberian Kuznetsk, timber from north-ern Russia, cement from the Volga region and the norther Caucasus,bitumen from Baku, and marble and granite from quarries inKarelia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, the Urals, and the Soviet FarEast.

Skilled engineers were scarce, and unskilled workers were instru-mental to the realisation of the metro. The Metrostroi (theorganisation responsible for the Metro's construction) conductedmassive recruitment campaigns. It printed 15,000 copies of Udarnikmetrostroia (Metrostroi Shock Worker, its daily newspaper) and700 other newsletters (some in different languages) to attract un-skilled laborers. Kaganovich was closely involved in the recruit-

ment campaign, targeting the Komsomol generation because of itsstrength and youth.

The completion of the Moscow Metro was important, because theparty used it as a means to build a socialist society. The Metro wasperhaps the Soviet Union’s most effective social-engineering toolnot only due to the project’s scale, but also because Socialist Real-ism (the movement according to which the Metro was designedand built) was an instrument for such experimentation. SocialistRealism was in fact a method, not a style. This method was influ-enced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Lenin’s favorite 19th-centurynihilist, who stated that "art is no use unless it serves politics".This maxim explains why the stations combined aesthetics, tech-nology and ideology. Any plan which did not incorporate all threeareas cohesively was rejected. Without this cohesion, the Metrowould not reflect Socialist Realism. If the Metro did not utilizeSocialist Realism, it would fail to illustrate Stalinist values andtransform Soviet citizens into socialists. Anything less than So-cialist Realism’s grand artistic complexity would fail to inspire along-lasting, nationalistic attachment to Stalin’s new society.

The first 13 stations of the Moscow Metro opened on May 15,1935, a day which was celebrated as a technological and ideologi-cal victory for socialism (and, by extension, Stalinism). 285,000people rode the Metro at its debut, and its design was greeted withpride; street celebrations included parades, plays and concerts. TheBolshoi Theatre presented a choral performance by 2,200 Metroworkers; 55,000 colored posters (lauding the Metro as the busiestand fastest in the world) and 25,000 copies of "Songs of the JoyousMetro Conquerors" were distributed. This publicity barrage, pro-duced by the Soviet government, stressed the superiority of theMoscow Metro over all other metros in capitalist societies and theMetro's role as a prototype for the Soviet future. In reality, theMoscow Metro averaged 29 miles per hour (47 km/h) and couldnot exceed 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). In comparison, New YorkCity Subway trains averaged 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) and hada top speed of 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). While the celebrationwas an expression of popular joy it was also an effective propa-ganda display, legitimizing the Metro and declaring it a success.

It has been alleged that a second and deeper metro system code-named "D-6", designed for emergency evacuation of key city per-sonnel in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War, exists undermilitary jurisdiction. It is believed that it consists of a single trackconnecting the Kremlin, chief HQ (General Staff–Genshtab),Lubyanka (FSB Headquarters), the Ministry of Defence and sev-eral other secret installations. There are alleged to be entrances tothe system from several civilian buildings, such as the Russian StateLibrary, Moscow State University (MSU) and at least two stationsof the regular Metro. It is speculated that these would allow for theevacuation of a small number of randomly chosen civilians, in ad-dition to most of the elite military personnel. A suspected junction

IZMAILOVO MARKETNo trip to Moscow is complete without picking up your traditional souvenir however your problem will be what to get? Will itbe a Russian doll, hat, Soviet item, Russian jewellery box or figure of Lenin? There are plenty of stalls at tourist hotspots whichare, surprisingly, quite cheap. However the must go place for any visitor is the Izmailovo Market where you can pick upanything from an AK-47 to ten million Russian Dolls!

Izmailovo Market is your one-stop souvenir venue in Moscow.Hundreds of vendors selling everything from novel souvenirs

to expensive jewellery will tempt. Your first trip to IzmailovoMarket will leave you a little dazzled, so either plan a full day ofshopping there or come back at a later date to make your purchases.The Market has a ground level and two upper levels. The groundlevel is where the folk art and other typical Russian souvenirs aresold. The next level up will have you sorting through old spoons,obsolete camera equipment, and other odds and ends. The thirdtier of the market contains some hardcore antiques dealers as wellas original artwork. The latter is great for browsing but not so goodfor your wallet.It is located near Izmaylovsky Park. You can take the metro(Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, which is dark blue or purple on themetro map) to the station of the same name, get off there, and askany local to point you in the direction of the market. It's easy tospot with its wooden-fortress-like encasement and crowds of satedshopper milling back to the metro. If you decide to stay at any ofthe Izmailovo Hotels then it is just next door.You can go to Izmailovo Market any day of the week, but somevendors only show up on weekends, so you may find you have thebest selection then. The best times to go are on Saturday, from10am to 6pm or Sunday from 10am to around 3. Different guidesmay suggest other hours of operation, but you'll be guaranteed tofind what you want on these days and times.A Word of Caution: Some vendors will exaggerate the quality oftheir wares. A "wolf fur" hat might be merely rabbit, or a piece ofSoviet military history might be a low-grade reproduction.Examine what you want to purchase closely, and only buy afteryou have familiarised yourself with other vendors' wares.While some of the sales people are just out to make a quick ruble,some of the other vendors are truly a delight to talk to. Often, thesepeople make their products themselves or contribute to a familybusiness. It is a joy to chat with these people who lovingly wraptheir little treasures so that you can take them home safely. Notonly will they sell you their painted folk art or embroidered aprons,but they will give you a story to accompany each, making thesouvenirs all the more special.

I myself have made plenty of friends at this market over the yearsand it's always a joy to get back to see them. I arrange trips toMoscow twice each year and if you're interested in coming alongthen simply contact me on Facebook where I have an open profileor use any of the contact details at the start of this book.