Cosmonautics Museum

Today my target was the Cosmonautics Museum. I came out of the metro, and started my usual confused reorientation. "Let's see. The map shows that green area, and the station is here, so the museum should be in this general direct- oh."



Say what you will, the Russians can do monuments. Check out the march of progress:



Even Laika is gazing sternly at the future:



There was a row of stars approaching the monument, marking significant moments in the Russian space program. Oddly, there were several at the end of the row that hadn't been used yet. They'd clearly been saved for future accomplishments, and yet the last one inscribed with a date (there were several with just names) was from 1975:



Does this mean that Russia isn't as proud of its space program post-1975, or did I miss the point completely?

The museum itself was an excellent collection of hardware and mementos. I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I couldn't resist this one:



Note the universal symbols for "this way up" (upper right) and "fragile" (upper left), and instructions for cosmonaut extraction. Sensible, of course, given that the capsule might go wildly off-course before landing, but I love the idea of the cosmonauts being urgently offered a glass of wine the moment the hatch opened!