The company "Etalon-Invest" has improved the Alley of Cosmonautics in the microdistrict "Emerald City" built by it. The creation of the alley - a museum of models of famous Soviet spacecraft in the open air - was a response of the development company to the initiative of Alexei Leonov, pilot-cosmonaut and hero of the Soviet Union, who fifty years ago became the first person to walk into outer space. The Cosmonautics Alley stretches through the territory of the microdistrict from east to west, symbolically echoing the trajectories of the orbits of spaceships.
The first exhibit - a model of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, on which Alexei Leonov made his first spacewalk - was installed in the alley in March 2015. A life-size model of the spacecraft was assembled at the Samara plant "Progress" and installed on a high parabolic arch, symbolizing, according to the authors of the composition, a near-earth orbit.
The second exhibit was solemnly opened on the Cosmonautics Alley on April 12, 2016 - this is a mock-up of the Vostok-1 spacecraft, on which Yuri Gagarin made the world's first flight in space - its appearance is timed to coincide with the 55th anniversary of this event. The opening was attended by Elena Serova, a Russian test cosmonaut, the first Russian woman to visit the ISS. Alexei Leonov, who could not be at the opening due to urgent work to do at the Vostochny cosmodrome, greeted the residents in a video message.
The Cosmonautics Alley is planned to be replenished. So, there will probably be installed mock-ups of the Soyuz TM spacecraft and the first artificial earth satellite. “There is a lot of unknown ahead, and that is why it is so interesting to constantly develop and move forward, both in the knowledge and conquest of outer space, and in other areas of our life,” says Vyacheslav Zarenkov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Etalon Group.
The place for the new museum of cosmonautics was not chosen by chance: the Krasnogorsk district of the Moscow region is closely related to space themes. Here, from the military engineering range near the village of Nakhabino, on August 17, 1933, the first liquid-propellant rocket GIRD-9 was launched, which is considered one of the starting events that marked the beginning of future flights into space. There is also the Krasnogorsk Optical and Mechanical Plant - the oldest Soviet optical plant, which produces, among other things, space optics, which were used both in near-earth orbit and for flights to other planets of the solar system. Now the plant is part of the Shvabe holding. Therefore, Etalon-Invest believes that the creation of a cosmonautics museum in the Emerald Hills microdistrict is important not only to maintain interest in the history of Soviet and Russian cosmonautics in general, it also appeals to the history of the place, reminding residents of its “space” specialization …
