“Soyuz” carrier rocket at Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, in the early 70s. From this base was launched, in 1961, the spaceship Vostok 1 vthe vehicle that carried the first man in space: Major Yuri Gagarin. Bajkonur is the world’s first and largest operational space launch facility. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the base remained under the Russian administration, yet in Kazakh territory.
(photo: © 1975 Novosti news agency, Moscow – personal collection)
