Space beyond the fence
How the house where Gagarin rested after his flight was supposed to be turned into a museum, but was turned into a closed governor's residence.
In Samara, on Pervaya Prosek, on the steep bank of the Volga, stands a two-story house where Yuri Gagarin was brought on April 12, 1961, having just returned to Earth. Here, the planet's first cosmonaut ate borscht, played billiards, and gazed out over the Volga, gradually realizing that the world would never be the same.
Today, this building is a restricted area. It's the governor's residence, where even the legendary designer Dmitry Kozlov was only allowed in after a phone call to "higher up."
April 2026 marks the 65th anniversary of the first human spaceflight. Samara is rightfully considered the country's space capital: it was here, at the Progress plant, that the first two stages of Gagarin's rocket were manufactured. Russian Railways is launching a special tourist train, "Space Weekend," on the Moscow-Samara-Orenburg-Saransk route. But the city's main space landmark, the "House on the Volga," remains fenced and guarded.
NeMoscow tells how space in the city of space ended up behind closed doors.
A rush job for the General Secretary
The History of the "Little House on the Volga" begins on a nomenklatura whim. Summer 1958. Kuibyshev is preparing for Nikita Khrushchev's visit, which will take place on August 9 arrives To the region where the Zhigulevskaya hydroelectric power station is scheduled to launch on the 10th. The First Secretary needs a decent residence—and he needs it yesterday.
Architect Alexey Morgun, a thirty-three-year-old veteran with a medal "For Courage," is designing a two-story house—a dacha version of Stalinist neoclassicism—on a tight deadline. The Giprovostokneft Research Institute is appointed as the general contractor, and will build the structure with its own funds. Construction is carried out around the clock, in teams, with that inimitable Soviet fervor, when the impossible becomes necessary.
When Khrushchev, like recalled Morgun finally arrives and touches the still wet paint with his fingers, he smiles: “You made it, well done!”
The builders will continue to work on the finishing throughout 1959, using funds "for royalties on oil production" i (The Giprovostokneft Research Institute is an institute for design and research in the oil and gas industry, which received and continues to receive a percentage of oil and gas production from the wells it explored or designed; these funds were used to build the regional committee's dacha) As the documents evasively stated, the dacha on Pervaya Prosek, in a forested park area near Zagorodny Park, on the steep bank of the Volga, would become the residence of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a place of recreation and informal meetings for the party leadership and distinguished guests.
But its main guest will arrive only in three years.
Three rows of cordons and the mystery of the "city on the Volga"
The morning of April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin rose into orbit. Man had been in space—the first time in the history of civilization—and returned alive. True, not quite where he had planned: the descent module was supposed to land in the Kuibyshev (now Samara) region, but landed 110 kilometers from the planned point, near Engels, Saratov. However, Gagarin was taken from there to Kuibyshev anyway. First, to the TsSKB-Progress, and then to rest.
Security in Kuibyshev was top-notch. Sergei Khumaryan, then a senior detective in the counterintelligence department of the local KGB office, recalledA few days before April 12, special teams were created from agency employees. The mission was vague: "to be prepared to carry out the entire necessary range of operational and security measures related to space exploration."
Khumaryan learned of man's first flight to the stars from a radio broadcast on the morning of April 12—as did almost everyone else on Earth. The level of secrecy was such that even the KGB was kept secret from the details.
Gagarin was expected at the Volga sanatorium on Seventh Prosek, where he had already been on March 16, along with six other pilot-cosmonauts who were also preparing for flight i (First, 20 candidates were selected, then the top six were chosen to prepare for the first flight. Gradually, it became clear that the main battle was between Gagarin and Titov. Four days before the launch, the official confirmation was made: the primary pilot was Yuri Gagarin, the backup was German Titov, and the reserve cosmonaut was Grigory Nelyubov.) However, the USSR was afraid of losing its star pioneer, fearing sabotage and provocation. So the location was changed.
When the cosmonaut was brought to the regional committee dacha on Pervaya Prosek, the area was cordoned off in three lines. The motorcade's route most likely ran along Kirov and Novo-Sadovaya Avenues—shorter and quicker—although legends more often mention Chernovskoye Highway, which was renamed Yuri Gagarin Street on April 15.
Information about where the first cosmonaut was being taken was a state secret. Under a photograph of Gagarin playing billiards in Pravda, the caption read: "In one of the cities on the Volga." Journalists from Volzhsky Komsomolets that day rushed about From the editorial board: "We're drinking vodka and eating slices of tea sausage cut on a newspaper. To the health of the happily landed Yuri Gagarin, who—that's all we've learned!—was brought to Kuibyshev and settled somewhere... But where?!"
Borscht, billiards, and a boat on the Volga
The cosmonaut turned out to be completely different from what the KGB officers imagined him to be.
"We couldn't help but imagine a brave, fearless, tall officer, who couldn't care less. But in reality, we saw before us an ordinary guy of short stature, with a simple face and a wide, open, and benevolent smile," recalled Humaryan.
Gagarin have placed In a "superior comfort" room. Soon after arriving, they arranged a dinner—no lavish banquet, just a typical Russian meal with a starter, main course, and entree. The first course, they say, was borscht.
From Gagarin's own memoirs in the book "The Road to Space": he walked along the banks of the Volga, visiting doctors, talked With the journalists who were allowed to see him. He periodically went down to the billiard room. They also organized a boat ride for him—they ferried him to the opposite bank and had a picnic with a campfire.
Gagarin spent two days in the “little house over the Volga,” then flew to Moscow.
The Museum That Didn't Open
Space explorers visited the First Clearing regularly. In August 1961, after their flight rested German Titov, the second Soviet cosmonaut, returned to Kuibyshev in August 1962 as a greeter: was taking Cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich. For over 60 years, locals have called this building "Gagarin's House" or "Cosmonauts' House."
In the early 1990s, they wanted to open a cosmonautics museum here. Didn't openIn 2001, there was a project to transform the Zagorodny Park into a scientific and educational complex called "Space Samara," complete with a hotel and a cinema and concert hall on the site of the regional party committee's dacha. It was never implemented.
Dmitry Kozlov, the legendary chief designer of TsSKB-Progress, Sergei Korolev's closest associate and successor, the man whose rockets still carry cosmonauts into orbit, advocated I wanted at least the room where Gagarin lived to be open to the public. It didn't happen—not in 1991, not in 2001, not later.
Only on April 9, 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the flight, on the facade have established a memorial plaque. This, apparently, was considered sufficient.
In Kaluga, there's the Tsiolkovsky Museum of the History of Cosmonautics. In Moscow, there's the Cosmonautics Museum at VDNKh. In Orenburg, where Gagarin attended flight school, there's a museum-apartment with interactive exhibits. All of these organizations are preparing special programs and exhibitions for the next anniversary. But the space capital of Russia i (It was in Samara that the famous "Seven"—the R-7A intercontinental ballistic missile—was developed, becoming the basis for a family of launch vehicles. Samara rockets became the only means of transporting cosmonauts to the Soyuz and Mir orbital stations. For over sixty years, Samara has been designing and building spacecraft, rockets, and satellites.) Currently, the museum can only offer tourists a temporary exhibition located in the Gudok shopping center. Both of its key space facilities are closed.
The Samara Space Museum on Lenin Avenue—the one with the actual Soyuz R-7 launch vehicle on its façade, the only fully assembled, vertically mounted rocket in all of Europe— closed for reconstruction. Here are building planetarium. It's unclear when they'll be finished: the museum was previously promised to open in 2024, but due to "imperfections of the project" The deadline for the price hike has already been pushed back several times. The latest announced date is the first or second quarter of 2027.
Well, the "little house on the Volga" is closed by definition. Because it's now the governor's residence.
"Do you know Gagarin?" - "I don't know."
Today at the address Pervaya Prosek-2 appears State-owned institution "Hotel and Representative Complex." It is essentially the residence of the regional head. Territory guardedYou can only get inside by special invitation or as part of an organized excursion group on space anniversaries.
One incident is particularly telling. Dmitry Kozlov told it to a NeMoskva journalist shortly before his death.
Before the next flight anniversary celebration, he came to the house on Pervaya Prosek to remember, honor, and lay flowers.
"No outsiders allowed in here!" the guard stated coldly. — I want to look at Gagarin’s house. - What kind? — Do you know Gagarin? - I do not know. - I am the general designer Kozlov... — I don’t know, it’s impossible!
A certain "chief," summoned by security, then called the "higher-ups" in the regional administration, and Kozlov was finally allowed to enter the fence. But not by car.
And so Dmitry Ilyich, an eighty-year-old front-line soldier and brilliant designer, whose contributions to cosmonautics are incalculable, walked up the mountain.
As he returned to his car, seething with anger, the car gate finally opened - in front of someone's powerful jeep.
In Samara, on Pervaya Prosek, on the steep bank of the Volga, among the pine trees, stands a house where a newly minted twenty-seven-year-old major was able to become human again. Not the number one cosmonaut, not the hero of the planet, whom everyone now knows by sight—simply Yura Gagarin, playing billiards, eating borscht, sitting by the fire, and trying to comprehend the incredible thing he had accomplished.
It's a pity that now only the governor, his family and their guests can see this place from the inside.
And here are the readers of "NeMoskva" - in the photo.
The Cosmonauts' House inside. Photo by NeMoskva
