Monument to the Conquerors of Space

This towering titanium-clad monument near VDNKh depicts a rocket climbing a stylised plume of exhaust, a soaring abstract tribute to Soviet achievements in space flight. Completed in the mid-1960s, it rises around a hundred metres and remains one of Moscow's boldest pieces of public sculpture. At its base a bronze figure of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the theorist of spaceflight, gazes upward, while an Alley of Cosmonauts leads toward it lined with busts of famous space pioneers. The Museum of Cosmonautics is built into its foundations.