When you go out of VDNKH Metro Station, you’ll not miss the 107-meter high “Conquerors of Space” monument that resembles the rocket being launching into space. This monument (made of titanium plates) houses the famous Space Museum in its basement.
They renovated this museum in 2009, so now it’s a modern, interactive, and well-made museum with lots of relics of early-to-modern Space Age.
What I like this museum for is that most of the displayed items are real (or spare) space probes, rocket stages and engines, space suits, and they even have a small section of the famous Russian MIR space station that you can walk in (and take a look at the space toilet, too!). They have the scale mock-up of the (once top-secret) “N-1” Soviet Lunar Rocket, along with the Lunokhod lunar rover. The reentry Vostok capsule that was used by the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, is also there, along with the real Belka and Strelka space dogs, who were the first animals that returned to Earth alive, well-preserved for display.
The museum is not so big, but it’s very cozy and inspiring. I would recommend planning at least 3 hours to take a brief look.
