Baikonur: Vestiges of the Soviet Space Program

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but who wants to spend his life in a cradle?” Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was created by the Soviets in the 1950s. It was from Baikonur in 1988 that the first Soviet spaceplane, Buran, was launched, in response to the United States Space Shuttle.

The Buran programme would officially end in 1993 during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, with only one Buran launch ever taking place — in 1988. Thereafter, parts of the Baiko...