Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center

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The Cosmonaut Training Center was inaugurated on January 11, 1960 in Star City outside Moscow. In 1968 it was renamed Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center in memory of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. In this facility, cosmonauts are trained for their missions. It belongs to the Russian ministry of defence. It also has the largest of three cosmonaut units in Russia and more than half of Russian cosmonauts belong to this unit.

The GCTC facility includes:

Full-size mockups of all major spacecraft developed in the former USSR, from Soyuz to Buran from TKS spacecraft to Mir and ISS, were coexisting or replacing each other inside the main hall of the center.
A water pool for simulating weightlessness, used for EVA (spacewalk) training. In 1980, it was replaced with a larger hydro-laboratory capable of accommodating a 20-ton space station module. The pool has a depth of 12 meters, diameter 23 meters and volume of 5,000 cubic meters.
Aircraft for imitating weightlessness, including Mig-15 UTI, Tu-104 and later IL-76 MDK, with internal volume of 400 cubical meters.
Two centrifuges, large TsF-18 and smaller TsF-7, designed to imitate G-forces during the rocket liftoff.
A planetarium developed in East Germany, capable of projecting as many as 9,000 stars.
The original office of Yuri Gagarin and numerous monuments to him and other cosmonauts.