How Tyuratam became Baikonur, and Why the Soviet cosmodrome could not be detected by the CIA

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The first and largest cosmodrome in the world "Baikonur" today is located on the territory of Kazakhstan. From it, the world's first manned flight into space was carried out. Until recently, Baikonur remained the world leader in the number of launches. For 50 years, more than 1,500 different spacecraft and up to 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles have been launched from here. And its name, known to the whole world, the object owes to the Soviet secret services, seeking to confuse the enemy's intelligence at the time of construction.

How the place was chosen

While the German FAU ballistic missiles were overcoming the 300-kilometer frontiers, the design bureau of Sergei Korolev was actively developing the R-5 rocket, capable of flying more than 1000 kilometers. And a few years later, Soviet engineers were ready to create a completely new design, the effectiveness of which surpassed the first developments dozens of times. To test new equipment, a special test site was needed, which was the reason for the signing of a secret decree of March 17, 1954.

The main question arose about choosing a location for such a large-scale object. A special commission decided: a large sparsely populated area with fresh water sources and a railway nearby is suitable. Several options have been proposed. The first - the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - was shallowed immediately due to the fact that the spent rocket stages threatened to descend on the residential Volga and Ural regions. According to the second scenario, it was proposed to place the test site on the sea coast of Dagestan, and then the parts of the missiles would fall into the Caspian waters. But this plan was also rejected: the extraction of space debris from the seabed was considered very difficult in technical terms. According to the decision of analysts, the Astrakhan region was rejected as a construction site.

Why Kazakhstan?

As a result, the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan was chosen as the place for future tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile. This decision was supported by the legendary rocket designer Sergei Korolev. He argued that the closer the site is to the equator, the more effective the use of the Earth's rotation speed will be. It was decided to build the secret "Polygon No. 5" in the uninhabited Kazakh steppe, through which, nevertheless, the railway tracks connecting the European part of the Soviet Union with Asia passed.

The Tyuratam railway branch was chosen as the base point on the map for the polygon. The location of the main launch sites was planned near the siding, and the construction of the rest of the facilities necessary for the missile range was the second series of works. The word “tyuratam” is translated into Russian as “sacred place”. An ancient civilization once lived here, and, according to archaeologists, there was even a mazar - the burial place of a Kazakh saint. Korolyov then said that a unique structure erected in such a place is doomed to success.

False "Baikonur" and real "Tyuratam"

According to the story of a participant in the construction of the future "Baikonur", retired colonel Sergei Alekseenko, the object's secrecy was maximum. At first, the military builders had no idea what they were working on. They only knew that one of the cordons was being erected to protect the Soviet frontiers.

An interesting story is connected with the very name "Baikonur", which appeared at the main Soviet cosmodrome much later - by the mid-60s. Since the beginning of the 19th century, a settlement with the same name existed in Kazakhstan, but in reality it was 300 kilometers north of the Tyuratam test site, and no rocket tests were ever conducted there. It was a major KGB disinformation operation.

The Soviet state security agencies and the USSR Ministry of Defense, trying to mislead American reconnaissance aircraft, in parallel with the construction of the Tyuratam test site, created a false cosmodrome in the area of the village of Baikonur. Here, in the shortest possible time, a wooden launch pad, plywood models of missiles and related objects were built, which looked like real ones when shooting from a high altitude. KGB veterans claim that in such a simple way the state security organs really managed to fool the Americans for several years in advance. The masks were torn off only with the first launch from the real Tyuratam cosmodrome. After the launch from the Vostok cosmodrome with Yuri Gagarin, the name “Baikonur”, which often appears in print, was also attached to the real cosmodrome.

Baikonur, which became foreign

In the cradle of world cosmonautics and the largest Russian space harbor of Baikonur, many spacecraft have been tested. Serious changes overtook the testing ground in the post-perestroika 1990s, when, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baikonur found itself outside the Russian border on the same day. Sovereign Kazakhstan, whose plans did not include the maintenance of the cosmodrome, demanded a substantial rent from Russia for the use of its territory.

In those years, the Russian Federation did not have enough funds to maintain the entire infrastructure of the landfill in the required volume. In addition to the launch sites, this includes assembly and test buildings, hundreds of kilometers of roads and railways, settlements with military personnel and civilians. In the era of the USSR, these were fairly large towns of up to 2-3 thousand inhabitants, erected among the bare steppe.

For that time, a lot of attention was paid to the comfortable living of people. In the settlements, five-story Khrushchev buildings were erected with cold and hot water supply in apartments. There were also catering and consumer services enterprises operating here, and in the shops one could even find scarce products and manufactured goods, which were inaccessible even on the "mainland". But with the economic crisis of the 90s, the decline came to Baikonur.

Due to the rapid decline in the number of rocket launches, thousands of employees had to return to the Russian Federation in search of work. And the abandoned villages around the landfill simply began to ravage. By 2004, Russia had paid off all debts to Kazakhstan for the lease of the cosmodrome and adjacent military facilities. The lease agreement is valid until 2050, however, only automatic spacecraft are planned to be launched from Baikonur in the future. Russia intends to conduct manned flights from its own cosmodromes.

Unfortunately, tragedies with human casualties have happened more than once at the cosmodrome. Some astronauts flew away and did not return.