Yu. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center is located in a closed campus named Star City 25km east outside Moscow. It takes 1 hour 10 minutes to get here by suburban train that goes every 30 minutes from Yaroslavsky train station - Komsomolskaya metro station. Intended to prepare cosmonauts and International astronauts for space flights, Star City was built in early 1960s. First group of selected candidates for the first flight consisted of 20 men, military jet pilots. In the Soviet era it was a secret town with military guards at checkpoints. However, it’s now a “closed base” also with civilian guards. A visitor needs to have a special permission to get to the Space Center. Many Russian cosmonauts, Training Center’s personnel and their families live and work here too. Star City has its own secondary/high school, shops, post office, child center, church, movie theatre, sports and recreation facilities, railway station, pharmacy, rehabilitation facility for returned crew, etc. About 7000 people live here. It's a small town which is functioning autonomously. Nowadays, Training Center is subordinated to Roscosmos, Russian Federal Space Agency. Before that it belonged to the Ministry of Defense, Air Force.
Star City and its Space Center area is just about 7 square kilometers; you can walk it around in 30 minutes. There are a lot of trees, and woods surrounding the territory. It also has two lakes with swans in a summertime.
Cosmonaut Training Center is a part of Star City and belong to Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos). Besides training facilities located close to each other on the Center’s territory, GCTC has its soccer stadium, heating facility feeding Star City in winter time, children space camp, small metal factory. But the main purpose remaining is cosmonaut training. Everyone who works here is focused on this. About 600 people work in the Center.
We implement Train Like an Astronaut 1-week-long educational programs at Cosmonaut Training Center on a regular basis.