Cosmic Samara
Thanks to rocket engineering and production, Samara is named the Space Capital of Russia. The space theme also prevails in the design of the new "Samara-Arena" stadium which will welcome football fans during Mundial 2018. You can get acquainted with the history of space exploration in the "Cosmic Samara (Samara Kosmicheskaya)" museum and exhibition center. This is one of the youngest museums in Samara. The front of the building is adorned by the genuine "Soyuz" rocket. In fact, it is the only vertically mounted assembled launch vehicle in Europe! Diving inside the museum, in the hall on the ground floor you'll see interactive exhibits which will tell you about how they forecast weather, how navigation systems operate, and how we can explore the Earth and outer space. You will also learn how cosmonauts occupy themselves at the orbital space station, how they work and rest, what they eat, how they wash themselves and workout, what experiments they set up, and what the results of those experiments are. One of the displays is based on fantastic films by directors of the first half of the XX century. In view of this, touring the magic space of the exhibition, you'll see how the vision of space flights changed from the most approximate, broad-brush and funny sketches to detailed, visionary and prophetic canvases! The main attention is paid to the legendary epoch of space exploration. The most important dates and events, persons and devices — all main break-through facts forming the history of space science and exploration are displayed at the exhibition. Besides, this story is told in an unusual and unexpected way, by using the folklore character - Russian "matreshka" (also known as the nesting doll)!