Roscosmos has initiated the process of including Gagarin's Start on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This was announced by the new head of the state corporation, Dmitry Bakanov, at the 23rd meeting of the Commission on Cooperation between the Federation Council and the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Gagarin's Start is the famous launch site of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from which the most important space missions in human history have been carried out. In the first half of 2025, the authorities of Kazakhstan plan to receive the Gagarin's Start facilities from the Russian side and create a museum complex there for the development of tourism at the Baikonur complex. According to Bakanov, this is necessary to preserve the historical heritage for future generations.
Together with our Kazakh colleagues, we plan to implement an initiative to create a museum complex based on Gagarin's Start and include it on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Interest in Gagarin's Start is constantly growing. On April 8 alone, the site was visited by a record number of tourists — about three thousand people. They came to see the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 manned spacecraft.
The inclusion of Gagarin's Start on the UNESCO World Heritage List will be an important step in preserving the historical heritage of mankind.
All the legendary launches were carried out from this site: the first artificial satellite of the Earth, the first human flight into space, and the historic docking of the Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft. In total, 519 launches have been carried out during the existence of the site.
No launch site at Baikonur was built as quickly as this one — it was built in less than a year.
During the excavation of the pit at a depth of 35 meters, an ancient fire site was discovered. Part of the find was sent to Moscow for examination, and experts determined that it was 10 to 30 thousand years old. The chief designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, upon learning about this, said that building on the site of an ancient civilization would bring good luck.
Based on the design of "Gagarin's Start", five more similar sites were created in 1958–1961: one at Baikonur ("Vostok" at the 31st) and four at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
The development of space tourism could become an additional incentive for preserving the historical site and attracting attention to human achievements in space exploration.
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