Star City, Russia

Coordinates: 55°52′50″N 38°06′38″E / 55.880585, 38.110542

Statue of Yuri Gagarin in Star City

Mir mockup in the training center pool.

Star City (Russian: Звёздный городок, Zvyozdny Gorodok^[1]) is a military research and training facility near Shchyolkovo in Moscow Oblast, Russia, some 32 km northeast of Moscow. Cosmonauts have lived and trained in Star City at the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre (GCTC) since the 1960s. Although Star City is the official translation of its name, the diminutive Starry Township is more accurate.

In the Soviet era the town was a highly secretive guarded installation restricted from the rest of the country and the world. Many Russian cosmonauts, past and present, and Training Centre's personnel live in Star City with their families. The town has its own post office, high school, shops, child day care/kindergarten, movie theater, sports and recreation facilities, railway station and a museum of space travel and human exploration. Air transportation is available through nearby Chkalovsky Airport.

In the mid- to late 1990s, groups of select students from high school in Star City participated in the Russian American Cultural Exchange Program (RACE). Students first hosted, then visited, American counterparts attending five high schools in the Sewanhaka Central High School District on Long Island, New York.

[edit] Sister City

Star City is the sister city of Nassau Bay, Texas, USA.

[edit] References

1. ^ Star City is the official English name of the location. However, звёздный is an adjective, and городок is a diminutive of город, "city", making Starry Town a more appropriate translation.

[edit] External links

• Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre (GCTC)
• Interesting BBC Article about Star City

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