Star City Limits
The hydrostation at Zvezdny Gorodok doesn’t usually impress foreigners. Equipment appears carelessly strewn over the grayish, mildewed tile around the pool. Men with radios sit chatting. Faded inspirational posters grace the walls of the observation deck. It looks a lot like a public swimming pool that hasn’t been remodeled since the 1970s. Technically, that's what it is. Except this swimming pool has a spaceship in it.
Zvezdny Gorodok, or “Star City,” is the beating heart of Russia’s space program. Every cosmonaut, starting with Yury Gagarin himself, has lived and trained in this secluded community northeast of Moscow. And while the hydrostation may not look like much from above, below the water, prospective space travelers get their first taste of weightlessness. In the hulking centrifuge next door, trainees still prepare for the severe G-forces experienced during launch and re-entry.
Tour guides here admit that Western journalists are often a bit shocked by the condition of the facilities. They look at the hydrostation, the ancient museum exhibits, the bleak, stuffy hallways, and hurry back to their hotels to write a eulogy for the once-mighty Russian space program. This reaction is partly forgivable; the décor suggests that the last person to cut Star City a check probably worked for Brezhnev. Another part of it, however, comes from sheer prejudice. In the U.S., there is a general preconception that things relating to space—from the rockets to the spacesuits to the vacuum-sealed ice cream—should be white. Pristine. That’s how we know they are from “the future,” and thus space-worthy. We are not ready for the Soviet vision of the future, expressed in Star City’s flashy, metallic “Zvezdny” sign; its turquoise centrifuge; or its drum-shaped yellow buildings with zigzagging brick facades.
We also have differing philosophies about technology. In the U.S., the decrepit space station Mir, shedding bits and pieces toward the end of its 15-year run, was a punchline. At Star City, where a full-scale model of the station takes up half the museum, Mir’s longevity is a great source of pride. “It was only designed to operate for three years,” the tour guide brags. “We mostly took it out of service because it was competing with the International Space Station.” When it comes to Russian aerospace technology, the mantra begins “if it ain’t broke…”
And for the most part, it ain’t. Overall, cosmonauts have launched more missions and logged more hours in space than their U.S. counterparts, and in the history of the Russian-Soviet program, only four cosmonauts have (um, officially) died in flight, compared with 18 NASA astronauts. So despite NASA’s shinier facilities, the people training in the green swimming pool have a better chance of survival.
Certainly, the whole place could use a facelift. The equipment they’re using isn’t getting any younger, and some of the buildings in the residential sector look like the khruschevkas (see page TK) now slated for destruction in Moscow’s suburbs. But if you’re not a jaded journalist looking for flaws or a Russian scientist starving for a government grant, Star City can be a fascinating place. And for those with a keen appreciation of kitsch, the town’s cocktail of Soviet dereliction and cosmic memorabilia is nothing short of nirvana.
Obsolete space capsules blanketed in snow are arranged in a neat row on the ground outside the hydrostation. It’s unclear why they’re placed at the forest’s edge, or indeed why they’re outside at all, but there they are. Inside, things are even more surreal. In one room, astrophysicists sit hunched over a massive blue computer covered with dials and gauges. If you didn’t know they were monitoring the progress of a real cosmonaut in a nearby simulator, you’d think they were playing an advanced version of Pong on their tiny screens. And it appears they call each other on—you guessed it—rotary telephones.
Then there’s the museum. “We need to get rid of all this stuff. It’s been here forever,” the tour guide sighs. Ironically, the supposedly old-hat objects in the display cases are often indistinguishable from those in the rest of the facility. In one series of faded photos, 1980s cosmonauts go camping. Apparently, the thing to do when your spaceship crash-lands in the Russian taiga is build an igloo, put on a cool jumpsuit, and listen to the radio. There are orange flares involved as well.
If Star City ever does get renovated, someone should first call Wes Anderson and convince him to film his next movie here. The opening scene would have to take place in the hydrostation: a space-tourist-in-training floats through the green light toward the mock spaceship. A team of divers hover around him in a kind of underwater ballet, documenting his every move with their clunky cameras. Above deck, a man wearing coke-bottle glasses watches on a snowy television screen. He whispers directions into the divers’ earpieces between pulls on his cigarette. And off to the side, a cleaning lady briefly dips her mop into the pool (an actual sight reported by one visitor).
But the movie will never be made. A Western filmmaker likely wouldn’t be allowed in (Chris Doyle came close, when scouting locations for Sunshine), and a Russian one wouldn’t find the facilities remarkable. As is the case with most of the strange, beautiful things left over from the Soviet era, it's likely that Star City won't get its proper due until it's gone.
More Star City photos by Varvara Lozenko in RUSSIA!'s winter 2008 Cosmos Issue.