Kaluga - Tsiolkovskys home

from Ralf Heckel,
www.spaceeducation.eu

It is early morning, dark and -15°C. I only was sleeping 2 hours. To many photos and student infos I uploaded untill late nigh. It needed time. So I am tired now, make myselfe ready and go to the metrostation. The subway is busy, every 30 secons a new train drive into the station, on each direction!

Finally at the trainstation "Kiev" (Kievskaya) I entered my train to Kaluga at 7:20 am. It is an electric express train. The seats are comfortable and with a little table. So I can work a little bit on my computer. Outside I see a snow-covered landscape. There are forest, grassland and small villages with houses from wood. Long electric cables spins along the railway.

I arrive in Kaluga 2,5 hours later. It is 10 am. A lot of snow is everywhere. So all voices are damped. You cannot hear the loud traffic of the city. It is as I am at a sanatorium. You only can hear the crunch of the snow under the shoes of the passengers. They are walking to the busstop. Taxi drivers are standing there and offer their service.

I went through. At the busstop workers are chracking the ice on the streets and make clusters. They have large pick-axes and shovels. I take the bus (marshrutka) no 1. My ticket cost 10 rubels (50 cent). 15 min later I am at the Tsiolkovsky (Ziolkowski)-Parc. This is a little forest with a memorial for Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. At the side is a large Space & Rocket Museum. Not far from this is Tsiolkovskys house. It is at the near of the river Oka. Today it is a museum. First I go to this home-museum.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskiy (1857-1935) is russians "grandfather of spaceflight". He formulated the mathematical fundamentals of modern astronautics. He showed that space travel was possible only by means of rocket propulsion.

He also said the sentence:

"The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot eternally live in a cradle. So the solar system will be our kindergarden."

As I entered the office of the home museum. There was a "Big hello". All people are happy to see me and asking for Yvonne and Cosma. I meet the great-great-granddaughter of Tsiolkovsky. Her name is Elena and she is the director of this state museum. We drink tea, talk about the last year and our travels around the world. She is very surpriced about the Moonbuggy contest and looks to all photos. I ask her for a contact to schools in Kaluga, to make exchange and collective projects. I explain that we have an independend way to travel to all space places of the world to show the youth the future - and to solve with them actual technical problems. Then she pics up the telephone and calls a lot of people.

The time runs fast and so I have to go forward. At 12 o´clockI meet the general director of the big and modern Space & Rocket Museum of Kaluga. His name is Evgeniy Kusin and he is waiting for me in his new office. After a conversation he has a surprice for me. I will describe it in my next report. See at: "Gagarins Medal". Then also the time runs fast and I have to go. Mr. Kusin introduced me Leonid. He will be my driver. Then he said: "Go forward, you have to work. A next director is waiting for you! Good luck".

Leonid has a car and he drives fast over the snow covered streets. At 2:30 pm he stops infront of a red buildung. It is the school were Tsiolkovsky was a teacher. Today it is the "Tsiolkovski-Gymasium No. 9". The director Evgeniy Ivanov is waiting for me. He is a long and smart man. His secretary is rubberstamp me quick. In his office I present our intrnational spce education work and offer him cooperation. He is impressed and agrees with my arguments. We change our businesscards, some presents and files. Then I have to go. The train to Moscow is not waiting for me at 3:21 pm.

After 2,5 hours I am back in Moscow and went to bed.