Category: Travel
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Baikonur Tour Logistics
I visited the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Dec 14th-17th 2010 for the Soyuz TMA-20 launch. (Here are highlights and a photo archive.) For anyone considering this trip, here are a few details on tour logistics. Permissions and Entry Formalities Baikonur is inside of Kazakhstan but is under Russian administration. It is a secure zone, with controlled…
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Baikonur: Soyuz TMA-20 Launch
I was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to watch the Soyuz TMA-20 launch. It was spectacular. I strongly recommend it. (Tour Logistics.) (More Baikonur photos.) I found myself in a tour group of six: our guide told us we were all the tourists visiting the launch. There were also some press, and various Roscosmos/ESA/NASA…
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Lord Cochrane in Valparaiso
For all you Patrick O’Brian fans: In Valparaiso, Chile, I discovered that Lord Cochrane is regarded as one of the great Chilean naval heroes and is suitably commemorated in Chile’s main port city, with a street named for him, a large monument, a stained glass window in the Naval Museum, and inside the Museum a…
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Stalin in Virginia
The US National D-Day Memorial is in the small rural town of Bedford, VA. Overall it’s a fine, elegant and well designed monument, commemorating a key WWII event. But it has recently become noteworthy for a certain small addition… The Memorial include busts of the principal allied commanders and of all the principal allied leaders.…
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Moscow: Museum of Cosmonautics
I took the Metro out to the VDNKh stop. As you emerge, you see the stunning soaring tower of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. 100 meters of titanium clad concrete, thrusting a rocket ship into the cosmos. Build back in 1964, as a tribute to the bold new Soviet Cosmonauts and the Brave…
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Moscow: Armed Forces Museum
Moscow’s Central Museum of the Armed Forces doesn’t specify a country in its title, but the answer becomes clear when you step inside. This is the Armed Forces of the USSR, comrade! Allowing for the Soviet focus, it is an excellent museum of its kind, well laid out, with many shiny artifacts. Outside are arrays…