The illegal trips to see Kazakhstan’s hidden space rockets
There’s something that we all find so fascinating about space.
Whether that’s the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin being the first man into space, Neil Armstrong being the first man to walk on the moon, all the way to the present day and the rise of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.
When it comes to tourism, most of us don’t have the cold, hard cash to actually visit space, with the first seat for Blue Origin’s flight costing $28million at auction. Instead, we have to get our space-based kicks on this planet.
There are obvious dangers to trying to get into an active cosmodrome, with anyone trying to break into a NASA facility to have a look around likely ending up getting banged up or worse. However, there’s been a rising trend of people visiting Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome to see the famous Buran, with these iconic Soviet era shuttles abandoned on the site.
While the Baikonur Cosmodrome sits in the Kyzlordia region in central Kazakhstan, it’s technically Russian soil, with the facility leased until 2050. It was built in the 1950s when both countries were part of the Soviet Union and was the centre for their secret space programme, and a key site in the space race against the United States.
The site is most famous for launching Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, and the incredible Vostok 1 that took Gagarin into space, becoming the first human to ever venture there.
Now this huge site remains a core site for Russia’s space programme, and is still very much in use today, launching Soyuz spacecraft, as well as Progress cargo ships that supply the International Space Station. The site is gigantic, covering over 2,600 square miles, and given its location, it’s extremely remote and hard to get to, especially if you’re having to do so covertly and without permission.
Given that it’s still an active cosmodrome, the security is high, and trespassers are not appreciated. There are occasional tour groups allowed into the facility, but they are thoroughly vetted, and those trips cost a huge amount of money. Those costs, and the chance to see the famous Buran shuttle, of which there are two abandoned, have led to a number of tourists taking the risk to visit without permission.
This is a site that has developed highly classified technology in the past and still operates some of the most important missions of the Russian regime, so going there without permission is hugely dangerous. Over recent years, a number of tourists, including vloggers, one of whom was Bald and Bankrupt, have been detained trying to access the site.
It’s clear why anyone would want to visit. This is a site that wasn’t even shown on maps for decades, a place that was totally off-limits and only known about within very small circles in the USSR. Reaching and exploring Baikonur Cosmodrome is in many ways the final boss of urban exploration.
With content creators on YouTube looking to one-up each other and find even more exciting and rare experiences, it has continued to drive traffic to this mythical location, knowing that high view counts are a near-certainty if you can get in and out of Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Then there’s the Buran shuttles. The Baikonur Cosmodrome has two decomposing inside, and these are true relics. The Buran was the Soviet Union’s answer to NASA’s Space Shuttle, and these Cold War icons are unique, iconic and with the programme collapsing after the fall of the Soviet Union, they act as lasting monuments to the rivalry and brilliance that the space race began.
Across Instagram and YouTube, there are huge amounts of content, much of which is recycled, about the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It’s eerily beautiful and looks very much unreal, like something from a movie.
The reality is that while this is bucket-list stuff for some, including myself, it’s dangerous and incredibly stupid to be accessing what is a heavily restricted area, especially at this time of increased tensions.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome is iconic, as are the Buran shuttles at reside in it. It’s arguably one of the most important sites in the history of our species, acting as our first step into space and the unknown. However, it’s also very much still a working cosmodrome, and if you want to avoid getting locked up in a Russian slammer, you’ll want to avoid.
Hopefully, there’ll be a time in the future when visiting Baikonur will be easier and cheaper, but for now, it’s best to enjoy it through the lenses of people who’ve been crazy enough to risk their lives to visit it and document it for us.
