2023-10-21 14:10:00
An inhabited island in a desert and a vestige of a bygone golden age, the city of Baikonur, administered by Russia and adjoining the cosmodrome rented by Moscow in Kazakhstan, is slowly emptying of its Russian inhabitants.
Since the end of the USSR in 1991, Russia has rented to the Kazakh state this mythical and historic launch pad from which the first man to reach space, Yuri Gagarin, left.
The current lease runs until 2050, and it is still from here that the Russian space agency Roscosmos continues to carry out its manned flights, sending Russian and foreign crews to the International Space Station (ISS).
But in the city, there are fewer and fewer Russians and their families.
“More and more Kazakhs are settling and the Russians are leaving,” observes Artour Faleïev, 22, born in Baikonur.
He is a computer scientist by training but, in this city focused solely on the space industry, the young man has not found a corresponding job and works as a security agent on one of the Roscosmos sites.
“Generally, young people who are born and go to school here then go elsewhere in Russia, to Moscow, to Saint-Pét’, there are no prospects here,” notes this rock fan who also dreams of be a professional musician.
He has a Russian passport and plans to settle with his mother in the Russian region of Chelyabinsk, which borders Kazakhstan.
His best friend, Alexander Ognev, 22, born in Baikonur, is also ethnically Russian, but only has a Kazakh passport.
He launched a long and costly procedure, given his limited means, to become a citizen of the Russian Federation.
“My grandparents arrived here during the ‘Virgin Lands Campaign’,” he says, referring to the agricultural program for cultivating large spaces launched in the 1950s by Nikita Khrushchev.
Alexandre currently works in an animal shelter for a paltry monthly salary of 20,000 rubles (around 200 euros).
Repatriation program
According to the town hall, Baikonur still has 15,783 Russian citizens, for an official population of 57,000 people.
“The one who has a job is the one who stays,” comments Sarsenbek Abechev, 65, ethnic Kazakh and fruit seller.
The city itself is one of those concrete Soviet cities with its partly abandoned buildings and dilapidated monuments to the glory of a vanished USSR.
His poor health has several reasons.
First, there is competition from the Russian Vostochny cosmodrome. Inaugurated in 2016 in the Russian Far East to eventually replace Baikonur, this site is already hosting more and more satellite launches.
Added to this is the challenge of Space
Russia’s offensive against Ukraine has made matters even worse, with the conflict having significantly hampered Russian-Western space collaboration.
International sanctions targeting Russian industry could also, according to the independent press, compromise Russian-Kazakh space projects at the cosmodrome.
In this context, Moscow is proposing a repatriation program for Russian citizens living in Baikonur.
At the end of 2021, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to make it easier to obtain housing in Russia for those wishing to leave.
Since then, according to the town hall, at least 1,141 households, including large families, have requested to be repatriated to Russia, a significant number at the municipal level.
“The goal (of the program) is that Russian citizens do not find themselves without anything,” the mayor of Baikonur, Konstantin Boussygin, 57, a robust man with a thick mustache, told AFP.
That day, under a blue sky, the councilor attended a ceremony on the central square. Members of various local ethnic groups parade in traditional costumes to celebrate, as under the USSR, the ideal of “Friendship of Peoples”.
Contrasting with this festive atmosphere, the mayor believes that the city would “probably” not be able to survive for long if the cosmodrome closed. “We don’t have any factories here. When Roscosmos leaves, there will be 7,500 fewer jobs.”
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21/10/2023 14:09:02 – Baikonur (Kazakhstan) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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