Day 17 - Sunday, Sept 29 - In Moscow


In the morning, we went to the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics which highlights the history of Soviet/Russian space exploration where they had numerous advances over the American space program. It starts with Sputnik, the first successful satellite in 1957, the dogs that went into space and Yuri Gagarin, the first man to circle the earth in 1961. The museum is similar to the US museums at Cape Canaveral and Johnson Space Center. At the end of our tour we were able to visit with the Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and ask him questions about his experiences. He is an easy-going and charismatic man who was happy to answer our questions. He wanted to emphasize that although the politics between Russia and the US may be complicated, there was never an issue working on the International Space Station.
Model of Sputnik
Actual first surviving space dogs (stuffed after natural death)
Discussion with cosmonaut
"Our" cosmonaut - from Russia Today program

After lunch there was a tour of the museums inside the Kremlin but a number of us feeling under the weather went back to the hotel so we would be rested for the evening dance performance. Walking around in the rain with 40 degree temperatures didn’t seem like a good idea.

In the evening we went to the Tchaikovsky Performance Hall to see a famous traveling group of folk dancers who performed folk dances from Spain to Greece to Russia to Mongolia and China. It was truly spectacular and we were glad that we had made plans to go.

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