The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics opened on April 10, 1981 to mark 20 years since Yuri Gagarin’s achievement as the first person to orbit the earth.

The museum (also known as Memorial Museum of Astronautics) celebrates the history of Russia’s 20th-century space travel achievements, with around 85,000 items on space technology, astronomy, and space travel. There are also taxidermy space dogs, including Belka and Strelka. The museum is contained in the base of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space.