Documentary exhibition «Space is ours!»

On April 12, 2024, the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus presented a new exhibition project «Space is ours!»

Since ancient times, humanity has dreamed of conquering space and going beyond the Earth. This dream came true on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin entered Earth orbit on the Voskhod-1 spacecraft, spent 108 minutes in space and landed successfully. As a result, Gagarin essentially opened the space age in human history and conquered the whole world with his radiant smile.

Natives of Belarus also took part in the conquest of space.

Belarusian Pyotr Klimuk was in space three times. He made his first flight into space in December 1973 as commander of the Soyuz-13 spacecraft together with flight engineer Valentin Lebedev. During the flight, the astronauts spectrographed individual areas of the starry sky and photographed individual areas of the Sun.

In 1977, Vladimir Kovalenko’s first space flight took place as commander of the Soyuz-25 spacecraft, the second in 1978 and the third in 1981. In total, he spent 216.38 days in space, including two hours in outer space.

On July 22, 2012, the Belarusian space satellite BelKA was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which became a huge success for domestic science and industry. In the same year, on October 23, the flight of cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky took place, who spent more than 140 days on board the station, after which he returned safely to Earth on March 16, 2013. Then there were the second and third flights. As a result, he spent more than 531 days in space, three spacewalks – over 22 hours.

In 2024, for the first time in the history of the sovereign Belarusian state, a citizen of the Republic of Belarus visited the orbital station.

In 2023, at the Cosmonaut Training Center named after. Yu.A.Gagarin, out of 6 candidates from Belarus, 2 people were selected for the flight. The main crew of the 21st ISS visiting expedition included Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, Belarusian Marina Vasilevskaya (flight attendant-instructor for Belavia airlines) and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, who on March 23, 2024, were part of the international crew of the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. went on a space flight. Thanks to this, Belarus confidently secures its status as a modern space power.

At the exhibition you can see: Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the BSSR dated June 23, 1967 on the ratification of the Treaty on the principles of activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, Decree of the Council of Ministers of the Belarusian SSR dated June 23, 1975 on the signing Byelorussian SSR Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, as well as the Resolution of the Board of the State Television and Radio of the BSSR, the Board of the Ministry of Education of the BSSR, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the LKSMB, the Board of the Belarusian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries on holding television meetings of school pioneers in 1979, in which studied by the cosmonauts who took part in the longest space flight in the history of mankind, periodicals from the newspaper collection dedicated to the dates of the flights, photographs of the Yu.Gagarin house-museum, meetings of the cosmonauts with the public, etc.

The first guests of the exhibition were the participants of the Round Table with youth public associations.

1. Head of the Department for the Use of Documents and Information M.A.Starostenko introduces the Round Table participants to the exhibition

2. Round table participants get acquainted with the exhibition

3. Round table participants get acquainted with the exhibition