Blastoff!

Knowing that our time in the guesthouse was coming to an end, we decided to explore something very near the guest house:

The Moscow Memorial Museum of Cosmonauts (i.e. Space Museum)
http://www.space-museum.ru

(Russian Website you can copy & paste into translate.google.com and get a machine translation which probably would be hilarious) (For a very brief introduction in English, check here--)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Museum_of_Astronautics

They wanted to charge money to take photos inside, so we didn't, although we saw other people with cameras (so maybe next time).  But this is the approach up to it (the front of the monument):



Near the base of the monument, they have a model of the solar system.  What kid doesn't want to stand on Venus or Saturn?



This is the side of the monument, demonstrating the time period in which it was built, with Lenin in the background encouraging space exploration:



This is the front entrance of the museum, which is approached from the back of the monument:





Entrance price: 200 Rubles for adults (~ $6), children free (common theme at a lot of places).

One thing they don't mention in the wikipedia article:  This museum houses the taxidermy bodies of the first two dogs who came back from space--terriers named Strelka (arrow) and Belka (white).   Very cool.

It's very "international" -- not only with stuff about the International Space Station, but honoring achievements of "Women in Space",  and astronauts from US and other places, not only the Russian ones.

The kids loved it, despite being told all the time "don't touch."  Not much interactive, but very cool pieces of history, right in your face.