I’ve been working with Russian vehicles (but on the NASA side, obviously) for more than 3 years and haven’t managed to finagle myself a work trip to Moscow yet. Woe is me! But Jose got to go for work last month and that’s the next best thing, I guess. He came back with some cool photos, and today I’m sharing a few of them here:
Jose was traveling with 4 other people. They arrived on a Sunday morning (which felt like a late Saturday night) and kept themselves awake for the rest of the day by walking around Moscow. This is the Russian State Library — which used to be named for Lenin, so his name is still large above the columns. The statue in front is Dostoyevsky.
Random Dunkin Donuts! It’s always fun to see stores and restaurants you recognize written in a totally different language.
They visited Red Square, of course, and saw St. Basil’s cathedral, the Kremlin (the red-walled compound) and Lenin’s tomb (the monument in front with the stripe of black stone).
This is the view from Jose’s hotel room. Please note the snow!
One evening after a day of meetings, the Russians took them to a planetarium, and outside was Yuri Gagarin’s old car!
“I want to be a cosmonaut!”
Here’s Jose standing (in the snow) outside the Russian Mission Control Center, or the “TsUP” if you say the Russian acronym. The name on the sign officially translates to “Center for the Control of Flight.”
This is the view from inside the TsUP on a snowy morning…
…and this is the lobby of the TsUP! Sadly, they didn’t actually go into the control room itself since they didn’t have the proper security clearance arrangement, but their meetings were held in the building.
After the week-long meeting ended, they had a full Saturday to do some more touristy things — and the sun was back out after the snow! They saw this gigantic cannon that I know nothing about other than the fact that, like I said, it is gigantic.
They also went to the Cosmonautics Museum, where there was a big status of Korolev — the “chief architect” of the Soviet/Russian space program in the 50s and 60s.
There was also a huge spire with a rocket on top…
…and a statue of Tsiolkovsky, one of the “founding fathers” of modern rocketry.
I love how there is space hardware scattered all over Moscow. Towards the end of the day, Jose came across this Vostok rocket in an exhibition/pavilion area. Just hanging out, looking awesome.
Hopefully I’ll be able to share my own photos from Moscow someday! Fingers crossed!
Made me shiver…..and not from looking at the snow. Thankful for the good old US of A.
That giant cannon is the ‘Tsar Cannon’. Nearby is the equally large ‘Tsar Bell’. Before each Soyuz launch, along with a few other traditions, the crews have their pictures taken in front of these relics. I was fortunate to see one session. Never been to the TsUP, though, since never gone for work.
Cool! He had a photo of that giant bell too but I didn’t know what it was!
Two of my favorite things in the same post: Russia and space. 🙂 Thanks for sharing! I have been worrying about the Russia-US relations lately.
For what it’s worth, it seems like mostly political posturing at the moment. At the working level, nothing has changed.