The 10 Best Things to do in Smolensk Oblast, Central Russia

The Yuri Gagarin United Museum includes the following departments: Yuri Gagarin’s childhood museum in Klushino The interior of the house reminds of a peasant house in the Smolensk region in the 1930s, that atmosphere surrounded little Yuri Gagarin in his early childhood. In the courtyard there are outbuildings, a dugout in which the Gagarin family lived during a year and a half of the German occupation, and a well. According to the legend existing among cosmonauts, if a person drinks water out of the well, his dream comes true! The Yuri Gagarin Memorial Complex (Gagarin street, 74 a) In this house, that was brought from Klushino by Yuri’s father, Alexei Gagarin, in 1945, Yuri Gagarin spent his school years. The house decorated in the style of 1949, the period when Yuri Gagarin left his parental house. The exhibit items introduce the lifestyle of the laborious Gagarin family, their family traditions that played an important role in the moulding of the future cosmonaut’s character. In the courtyard there is a monument dedicated to Anna Gagarina, the first cosmonaut’s mother. The Parents’ memorial house This building was presented to the first cosmonaut’s parents by the USSR government in 1961. The interior of three rooms reminds of those years when Yuri Gagarin used to come home: there are photographs on the walls, numerous presents that were given to Yuri Gagarin and to his parents. It was the last place Yuri Gagarin visited before his death. Near the house, placed under the glass dome, there is an automobile “Volga” that belonged to the first cosmonaut. The cosmonauts’ house The cosmonauts’ house was built in 1983; a part of the house was inhabited by Yuri Gagrin’s mother, Anna; the other part of the house served as a hotel for cosmonauts which come to visit Anna Gagarina. In the present time in this house we dispose a biographical exhibition “A word about the son”, that shows Yuri Gagarin’s life and feat. The museum of Yuri Gagarin’s games In this museum you will get acquainted with games of the 1930-40s. Use a unique possibility to play the same games Yuri Gagarin played with his peers. The First Flight Museum (Lenin street, 12) This unique museum is dedicated to the preparation and implementation of the first flight of a person to the space. Here we collected unique and rare items of space technique that are directly relevant to Yuri Gagarin’s flight. You will see and have a possibility to take a picture of the following items: the real Sikhote Alin meteorite; the large-tonnage engine RD-108 of the launcher “Vostok”; Sergey Korolev’s working table with unique documents; the isolation chamber and the simulators at which the first cosmonauts were given a preflight training. The Museum of history and art (Sovetskaya street, 3) The museum includes the exhibitions dedicated to the nature and ecology of the Gagarin region, the establishment of Ghatsk hithe, heroical events of Patriotic War of 1812, the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, pieces of art on the space theme produced by leading space artists, among those A. Leonov and V. Dghanibekov.