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A strange, on-call kind of day...
May. 12th, 2010 08:49 pmI'm not exactly sure why Olga and I catch museum duty on these campaigns, but there you have it. I was the on-call interpreter until roughly 10 am, when the prop team, which hails from the UK, and I piled into a van and headed for the museum.
Once there, the group elected to pay for the full experience, which consists of a visit to the museum exhibits proper, to the Buran mockup that has been relocated next to the museum, and to the small cottages that were built for Sergey Korolev and Yuri Gagarin.
Korolev was the feisty chief architect of the Soviet space program, who led the effort to orbit the first artificial satellite and fly the first manned mission into space. Gagarin, of course, was the first human to fly in space, blasting off as a senior lieutenant and landing 108 minutes later as a major.
It was the first time I'd been with a group that had the time (and inclination) to visit the cottages, which have been preserved over the years and still contain Korolev's old books and papers and Gagarin's lieutenant's uniform.
One interesting story I had not heard before concerned a photo of a wine bottle that is on display on top of the refrigerator in Korolev's cottage. It seems there was once a French winemaker who issued a challenge, promising to deliver a lot of excellent wine to anyone who successfully took pictures of the back side of the moon. Under Korolev's leadership, a Soviet spacecraft did photograph the back side of the moon, and after the photos were released to the world, the winemaker made good on his promise, sending 1000 bottles of wine to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, as Korolev's identity was a closely guarded state secret at the time.
"A number of those bottles found their way down to Baikonur," explained Irina, our guide, "but as nobody was aware of the full story behind the wine and how it came to arrive here, nobody thought to save any of the empty bottles."
The prop team headed over to town after the museum, eating lunch at the Palermo and then heading over to the market and what I've come to call the "beer warehouse." I helped the team buy some spices that had been requested by the French team for tomorrow night's dinner (cloves, coriander, thyme, bay leaves), as well as a replacement kettle to boil water for tea.
I assume I am again the on-call interpreter, so I've got the radio on and am staying on the bounce. The visit to the museum clarified some ideas I've been having along the lines for this week's evolution of LJ Idol, which I shall have to address tomorrow morning. Time grows short.
Cheers...
Once there, the group elected to pay for the full experience, which consists of a visit to the museum exhibits proper, to the Buran mockup that has been relocated next to the museum, and to the small cottages that were built for Sergey Korolev and Yuri Gagarin.
Korolev was the feisty chief architect of the Soviet space program, who led the effort to orbit the first artificial satellite and fly the first manned mission into space. Gagarin, of course, was the first human to fly in space, blasting off as a senior lieutenant and landing 108 minutes later as a major.
It was the first time I'd been with a group that had the time (and inclination) to visit the cottages, which have been preserved over the years and still contain Korolev's old books and papers and Gagarin's lieutenant's uniform.
One interesting story I had not heard before concerned a photo of a wine bottle that is on display on top of the refrigerator in Korolev's cottage. It seems there was once a French winemaker who issued a challenge, promising to deliver a lot of excellent wine to anyone who successfully took pictures of the back side of the moon. Under Korolev's leadership, a Soviet spacecraft did photograph the back side of the moon, and after the photos were released to the world, the winemaker made good on his promise, sending 1000 bottles of wine to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, as Korolev's identity was a closely guarded state secret at the time.
"A number of those bottles found their way down to Baikonur," explained Irina, our guide, "but as nobody was aware of the full story behind the wine and how it came to arrive here, nobody thought to save any of the empty bottles."
The prop team headed over to town after the museum, eating lunch at the Palermo and then heading over to the market and what I've come to call the "beer warehouse." I helped the team buy some spices that had been requested by the French team for tomorrow night's dinner (cloves, coriander, thyme, bay leaves), as well as a replacement kettle to boil water for tea.
I assume I am again the on-call interpreter, so I've got the radio on and am staying on the bounce. The visit to the museum clarified some ideas I've been having along the lines for this week's evolution of LJ Idol, which I shall have to address tomorrow morning. Time grows short.
Cheers...
