Sun Apr 28,11:07 AM ET
By Clara Ferreira-Marques
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Small clumps of steppe grass are the only reminder there was once a lush park in the center of the town of Baikonur, hub of the Soviet Union's pioneering space program.
Photos
Reuters Photo
A decade after the collapse of communism, the slow recovery of the Russian space program has brought no tenants back to the sand-colored apartment blocks stripped bare during the looting that followed Kazakh independence in 1991.
The trickle of people returning to the dusty town, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan under a 1994 agreement, has not restored the population to the 100,000 that lived here during the heyday of Soviet space exploration.
But Baikonur, built on the arid Kazakh steppe two years before the first sputnik, or satellite, was launched into orbit in 1957 and still Russia's main launch pad, is slowly on the mend, longtime residents say.
"There was a time after the fall of the Soviet Union when the town was rudderless. People in the city lived without gas, water, or electricity," said Vladimir Polvektov, head of the Baikonur cosmodrome's safety department, who has lived at the outpost since 1983.
"But things have begun to change. It is a tidy, clean town, and you can walk around safely, day or night."
TOUTING PROGRESS
The town's mayor since 1994, Gennady Dmitriyenko, is not shy about touting Baikonur's progress.
"Before, people came here because they had to," he said. "Those who come now are proud to do so."
Alexander Korchagin, a craft teacher at a Baikonur school, says the town is isolated from many problems plaguing Kazakhstan.
"Things are better here, the pay is better, and there is no nationalism," said Korchagin, an ethnic Russian who moved from southern Kazakhstan in the mid-1990s.
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