Even if you’ve got just a passing interest in space travel, Moscow’s Memorial Museum of Astronautics – it’s often called the Museum of Cosmonautics too, but it’s the same place – is a museum you just have to visit. I was there a few years ago shortly before it closed for renovations, and last year it reopened and has tripled in size. Even the original version was fascinating for me so I have no hesitation in recommending the current one!

The original exhibitions featured displays and information about the Soviet space programme, and the new sections also look at the space travel carried out by other countries. They have managed to gather numerous pieces of truly historic space travel paraphernalia, including space suits, parts of ships, rocket units and even a moonrover. They’ve also got a large collection of the promotional posters used for the Soviet space programme (presumably it was necessary to justify the expense of space exploration to less-than-happy citizens), and that’s an interesting display.

As usual with Russia, it’s difficult to get some accurate tourist information on the museum – the official website looks like it promises an English version but hasn’t yet delivered. It appears that the current daily opening hours are 11am to 7pm and that an adult entry ticket costs 100 rubles.

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