It's the birthplace of spaceflight and the place where cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin, have trained since the 1960s.0:30
Until recently, it was a highly secret facility, and it is still not featured on any maps.0:40
After more than 50 years, Star City, or Zvyozhny Gorodok, near Moscow, is still at the heart of the Russian space program.0:47
Surrounded by thick pine forest, Star City has been described as the perfect town, with its clean, wide streets and friendly people.0:57
There are no traffic jams or billboards, and the town has its own school, shops, cinema, recreation facilities, and railway station.1:07
Almost 7,000 cosmonauts, training centre personnel, and their families live here.1:18
In the town's central square, there is a huge statue of Yuri Gagarin.1:24
Traditionally, all cosmonauts place flowers here before they fly.1:30
The reason for Star City's existence is the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, where cosmonauts undertake their years of intensive training.1:36
The training equipment at the center is very advanced.1:47
There are full-sized replicas of real spacecraft such as the Soyuz spacecraft and the ISS, International Space Station.1:51
There's a planetarium simulating the stars where the cosmonauts learn how to calculate their position while in space.2:01
There's also a giant pool with a replica of a part of the ISS submerged in it.2:09
Cosmonauts wear diving suits loaded with weights to learn how to spacewalk while working on the outside of a space station.2:16
Elsewhere, there's the centrifuge, which rotates the trainees in a tiny capsule to simulate g-force and weightlessness.2:26
This spins at 170 mph , and riders are told not to open their mouths while moving because the pressure would break their jaw.2:35
This is a necessary part of training though.2:46
During a spacecraft launch, a cosmonaut can experience 4 times the force of gravity.2:49
It's extremely tough to be accepted for cosmonaut training, but some wealthy people have paid around $30 million to have the chance to be a space tourist.2:56
These people still had to spend about 8 months training at the center though until they blasted off.3:07
But if, like most people, you don't have tens of millions of dollars to spare, you can still visit the training center to be a cosmonaut for the day.3:14
You can take a tour of the center, try on a spacesuit, experience weightlessness, and practice docking a spacecraft in a simulator.3:24
There are exciting plans to make Star City a top tourist attraction in the near future.3:34
It's already an extraordinary place.3:42
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