After pickup at your hotel, you’ll drive an hour north of Moscow to Star City, where the Soviet Union’s space program trained Russian astronauts at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Named after famous Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin, the training center’s location was a closely-held secret during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the USA were trying to gain supremacy in space exploration in what was known as the Space Race.

You’ll tour the once-closed area with a guide who will share stories about the space program and its history. Learn about Yuri Gargarin, the charismatic Russian astronaut who was the first man in space, and see the massive sculpture of him  it is tradition that Russian astronauts place flowers at the foot of his monument before they fly.

You’ll also see full-size models of major spacecraft, including the Soyuz  which was built in the 1960s to take astronauts to the Soviet space stations, and the Buran  which was the Soviet equivalent to the US Space Shuttle. Check out the hydro laboratory, which simulates the weightlessness of space; a model of the International Space Station sits in water where astronauts can practice working outside of it in neutral buoyancy. Then marvel at the centrifuge, the largest in the world with a radius of 60 feet (18 meters).

You’ll also learn about famous Russian astronauts that were trained at Star City, including Gherman Titov, Alexei Leonov and Valentina Tereshkova  the world’s first female astronaut. Then admire the statue of ‘space dog’ Laika, the first animal to be sent into space.

After approximately two hours of touring the space center in Star City, your guide will return you to your Moscow hotel.