Baikonur

Baikonur (Kazakh: Байқоңыр, Bayqoñır; Russian: Байконур, Baykonur), formerly known as Leninsk (also, see Tyuratam), is a city of republic significance in Kazakhstan on the right bank of the Syr Darya river, rented and administered by the Russian Federation. It was constructed to service the Baikonur Cosmodrome and was officially renamed Baikonur by Russian president Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995. During the Soviet period it was sometimes referred to as Zvezdograd (Star City).

In 2009 the population of Baikonur was 36,175 (2009 Census results), while in 1999 it was 28,776 (1999 Census results).

The rented area is an ellipse measuring 90 km east to west by 85 km north to south, with the cosmodrome situated at the area's centre.

History

The original Baikonur (Kazakh for "wealthy brown", i.e. "fertile land with many herbs") is a mining town a few hundred kilometres northeast of the present location, near Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan's Karagandy Region. Starting with Vostok 1 in April 1961, the launch site was given this name to cause confusion and keep the location secret. (The original Baikonur's residents took advantage of the confusion by ordering and receiving many scarce materials before government officials discovered the deception.) Baikonur's railroad station predates the base and retains the old name of Tyuratam. This was the original Soviet railway station (railhead) on the Moscow to Tashkent Railway that the Cosmodrome was initially named after.