Mirzo Ulugh Beg

This guy is Uzbekistan’s pride, known for his creation of educational centers, diametrically opposed to the conquest and destruction during the time of his grandfather. For example, Ulugh Beg built a huge observatory back in the 15th century in Samarkand. Consequently, Samarkand was at a major center of scientific discovery for a few decades during Ulugh Beg’s lifetime.

Spoiler alert: Ulugh Beg’s son destroyed it out of spite. Nevertheless, his legacy of great scientific precision lasted and you’ll find loads of places named after him or carrying his image—such as Kosmonavtlar station.

Yuri A. Gagarin

Probably the most beloved figure in Soviet history, Gagarin – 27 years old at the time – became the first human in space in April 1961 on mission Vostok 1. You can’t name your metro station ‘Kosmonavtlar’ and not pay homage to this man who died in a plane seven years later.

If you love watching movies in Russian, here’s a recommendation Gagarin: First in Space (2013). It certainly has a delightfully optimistic tone and I thoroughly enjoyed this kinda propagandist watch. It’s on Netflix with the right VPN and we watched with English subtitles.

Icarus

This is a weird one, huh? I don’t know, I’d rather not explain the story of Icarus (Russian: Ikar) because I’m getting flashbacks from Greek and Latin classes in high school.

In short: Icarus tries to fly to the sun with DIY wax and feather wings and it turns out to be a bad idea because was melts when heated. He dies. It’s a lesson about hubris and humility, but honestly, I think the Soviet space program was full of hubris that worked out rather well for them in the end.

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky

I had never heard of this guy before visiting this metro station. He’s one of the founding fathers of rocket science (rocketry) and astronautics along with three other guys from other countries. Tsiolkovsky was born in the 19th century during the Russian Empire and died in 1935 in the Soviet Union. His main spiel is the rocket equation named after him and it has all the good sciency things like thrust, momentum, unburnt accelerant, and the like.

Valentina V. Tereshkova

No Soviet metro station is complete without a woman doing the same thing men have done before her. Tereshkova – at 26 years of age – is the first woman who went to space in 1963 on Vostok 6. I absolutely love for her that she went solo, and honestly, I’d probably prefer to do the same. Vostok 6 also was the last mission with this type of spacecraft before the Soviet space missions switched to Voskhod spacecraft. The Vostok capsule ejected the cosmonaut upon re-entry into the atmosphere at about 7000 meters and she parachuted down as was all part of the plan. She landed here west of Barnaul in Altai Krai. Villagers helped her out of her – probably ill-fitting – spacesuit and they invited her for food. So of course she said yes. Honestly, this is all very, very relatable.

Alexei A. Leonov

The first human to conduct a spacewalk in 1965 on the suspenseful Voskhod-2 mission. In the medallion, he’s portrayed as having his space sunglasses down as instructed, but he only put them halfway down during his actual spacewalk. He and his colleague Pavel Belyayev had to survive in the wilderness of Perm Oblast for a couple of days before they were recovered. Side note: since 2020, you can hike to the Voskhod-2 landing location via a nice boardwalk. Leonov was also there to command the Soyuz part of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission (see below) and shake hands with his NASA counterpart Thomas P. Stafford.

Leonov passed away in 2019.

Vladimir A. Dzhanibekov

Born when his village was part of the Kazakh SSR but then moved to the Tashkent Region of the Uzbek SSR, Dzhanibekov is the only real Uzbekistani cosmonaut who has a plaque in Kosmonavtlar metro station. He made five flights to space on the Soyuz spacecrafts between 1978 and 1985. He docked on the orbital space stations Salyut 6 and Salyut 7. During his fifth and last mission, he arrived at Salyut 7 when all the space station’s electrical stuff was dead. This event was portrayed in the 2017 film Salyut 7, which I’d love to watch one day.

I wonder if Dzhanibekov sometimes takes the Tashkent metro and makes a stop at Kosmonavtlar to look at his portrait. That would probably be weird. By the way, his text reads “Our fellow countryman cosmonaut V.A. Dzhanibekov”.

Sergei P. Korolyov

Though he’s never been to space, none of the Soviet missions would have launched without this guy. He was out there managing things during the real early days of the Space Race. Korolyov was the chief Soviet rocket scientist and designer for Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite that orbited Earth, in 1957.

Likewise, he was also responsible for sending Laika – the first dog in space – on Sputnik 2 in orbit, who died by overheating. After that, he also helped Gagarin into space.

He died in 1966 after which someone else took over management of the Soviet Space Program.

Programma “Interkosmos”

The Soviet space diplomacy program called Interkosmos helped citizens of non-launch + human spaceflight capable countries go to space. They trained these foreign crew during their stays in Star City and launched them alongside experienced Soviet cosmonaut comrades. The program ran from 1967 till 1994. So who are the two guys in this medallion? I have no idea and honestly, I couldn’t match the faces with confidence. Since Kosmonavtlar station only opened in 1984, the list of candidates who can be portrayed in this medallion is short. Meanwhile, I already reduced it to only two-man crews who didn’t have mustaches in space:

• Perhaps they are Aleksei Gubarev and Vladimír Remek (Czechoslovakia) on Soyuz 28 in 1978?
• Piotr Klimuk and Mirosław Hermaszewski (Poland) on Soyuz 30 (1978)?
• Could they be Valery Bykovsky and Sigmund Jähn (East Germany) on Soyuz 31 (1978)?
• Are they Yuri Ramanenko and Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (Cuba) on Soyuz 38 (1980)?
• Should one place bets on Leonid Popov and Dumitru Prunariu (Romania) on Soyuz 40 (1981)?

After looking at so many pictures of men, they all kind of start looking the same. Perhaps anyone who reads it can identify the two guys?

Apollo–Soyuz

Ah, the end of the space race. In 1975, the Soviet Union and the USA decided to join scientific forces by connecting one of their Soyuz capsules with an Apollo module. As mentioned before, the first thing that happened when they opened the hatch was Leonov (see above) and Stafford shaking hands. Both crews had to learn each other’s languages. Of course, doing a mission like this required full cooperation between the two parties in order not to kill anyone aboard or on the ground. This mission led to later collabs such as the Shuttle–Mir program. Meanwhile the Soviet Union became Russia.

Space missions for peace!

Person. Mind. Universe

I guess this one is a little too abstract for me. The text says “человек. разум. вселенная” and it translates to these three words. For the rest, somewhere in the hair of the person, it says “Bella” in Latin script.

No idea what this is supposed to mean, but I’m welcoming your theories in the comment section at the bottom of this article.

The First Automatic Vehicle “Lunokhod”

The Lunokhod programme saw the first-ever rover land on the surface of another celestial object (the Moon). Lunokhod 1 was the machine that traveled there on mission Luna 17. Despite the low expected lifetime of about 84 earth days, Lunokhod 1 rolled around happily for 321 days on the surface of the Moon, taking samples, measuring stuff with the instruments, and snapping photos to send them back to Earth. It traveled for more than 10 kilometers, which is pretty impressive. Supposedly it’s somewhere around here on the surface of the Moon.

Side note: the technology developed for Lunokhod rovers later proved useful during the removal of radioactive debris on top of the roof of Reactor 4 after the Chornobyl disaster.