Kazakhstan, a republic of the former Soviet Union, became a cradle of world cosmonautics in the 1960s. Cosmodrome “Baikonur,” a Soviet spaceport, opened there in 1955. All Soviet space missions of the 1960s -1980s had a beginning at “Baikonur.”
Yuri Gagarin, the first male-astronaut in the world, completed his legendary flight into outer space on April 12, 1961. The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, orbited the Earth 48 times on a spaceship, “Vostok-6,” on June 16, 1963.
Since then, Kazakhstan, a country in Central Asia, that was a part of the Great Silk Road in the 6th century, carefully preserves everything connected to the birth of the world cosmonautics. One of the exciting places to visit there is the Chaika hotel in Karaganda city.
Karaganda is situated in Central Kazakhstan. It is surrounded by steppes or plains, where the wind never stops blowing. Winters are harsh, and summers are dry in Karaganda. It is the city where I was born and raised.
From a young age, I heard that Karaganda was called a “space harbor.” My hometown got that nickname because it took care of multiple famous Soviet astronauts after they completed their heroic jobs in outer space. The cosmonauts stayed at the Chaika hotel (Chaika means “seagull” in Russian) in Karaganda. “Chaika” was Tereshkova’s call sign during her space journey.
Tereshkova spent her first hours after landing back on earth at the old building of the Chaika hotel. The building is half grey and half brown, with two floors. A memorial plaque on the exterior wall of the old building says that Tereshkova stayed there in 1963. Tereshkova’s husband, Soviet astronaut Andriyan Nikolayev, also spent some time at the hotel after his “Vostok-3” space mission in 1962. He set up a record by orbiting Earth 64 times.
The grandiose new building of the hotel was constructed in 1981. It reminds me of a seagull with its wings spread. Others see a spaceship in the architectural design. The combination of geometric and curved shapes of the building creates incredible balance, and it is a futuristic approach, which makes a human dream about future space exploration. A beautiful logo with a seagull is placed above the sign with the name of the hotel and the main entrance.
The interior of the new Chaika hotel is very comfortable. Huge mirrors, a marble floor, decorative circles on the ceiling, and a large, elegant sitting area with brown furniture and tall orange curtains on the first floor create an illusion of a vast space like our universe. There is a nice banquet hall upstairs.
On the wall behind the hotel’s reception counter, there are photos of the Soviet astronauts who stayed there. Besides Tereshkova and Nikolayev, two other legendary cosmonauts, Pavel Popovich, and Georgy Beregovoy, spent some time at the hotel. Popovich was the pilot of the spaceship “Vostok-4” and the commander of the spaceship “Soyuz-14.” Popovich lived in the Chaika hotel in 1962. Beregovoy commanded the space mission, “Soyuz-3,” in 1968. He stayed at the hotel in 1968.
The first man in space, Gagarin, never lived in the hotel, but he wrote a “thank you” letter to the employees of the hotel for providing good service to his fellow astronauts. The USSR Federation of Cosmonautics awarded the administration and employees of the famed hotel with diplomas for active participation in procuring the execution of space programs in the USSR.
When I was in Karaganda in the summer of 2023, the old and new buildings of the Chaika hotel were under restoration. The new building was functioning and accepting guests. The hotel rooms can be booked online, and the starting price is $54 per night.
Kazakhstanian authorities gave the Chaika hotel the status of a historical and cultural heritage object; the building is protected by the government.
