“Every time there’s a rocket launch at Baikonur, you can’t see for days. The sand comes up off the ground, and doesn’t shift for a good while,” a waiter in Aralsk, a one-time fishing town on what was once the shore of the shriveled Aral Sea told The Times of Central Asia.

Upon entering Baikonur, Russia’s gateway to outer space on the Kazakh steppe, the first thing you see is a billboard proudly displaying Vladimir Putin shaking hands with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Beneath the façade, however, Russia’s presence here has spurred major economic inequalities and environmental degradation.

Backwater to the Cosmos

“Here on January 12, 1955, the first group of military engineers arrived, who laid the foundation for the creation of Baikonur Cosmodrome;” image: Thomas Hodgson

Stepping off the train at Töretam, the closest town to Baikonur proper, there is very little sense of occasion to be found.

The only reference to the existence of rockets in the immediate vicinity is a tucked-away, red-starred plaque on the platform bearing the inscription: “Here on January 12, 1955, the first group of military engineers arrived, who laid the foundation for the creation of Baikonur Cosmodrome.”

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin launched from Baikonur to become the first human being in outer space, propelling the complex’s status in history from an obscure backwater to a legendary, top-secret star city.

​In reality, “Baikonur” was a decoy name given by the Soviets to a town 300 kilometers away from the real launch site at Leninsk. Western newspapers reinforced the false story, and Baikonur entered the global popular consciousness. Kazakhstan’s government chose to sell the myth, finally renaming the actual cosmodrome settlement from Leninsk to Baikonur in 1995.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia found overnight that its primary spaceport was in a foreign power’s possession. By 1994, Moscow struck a deal with the nascent Kazakh Republic to lease Baikonur at a rate of 7 billion rubles per year ($110 million).

As of 2024, the Kazakh state has pulled in over $3 billion in revenue from the scheme.

Living in the Shadow of Russia

Image: Thomas Hodgson

The extent of Russia’s grip over the area, even outside of the “ring,” is clear in all aspects of daily life.

In nearly every shop in Töretam, the ruble is accepted alongside the Kazakh tenge. This poses problems for the local economy, with the circulation of rubles effectively pricing out anyone who doesn’t receive a ruble salary from jobs in Baikonur itself.

The Russian language is likewise used in tandem with Kazakh, even though the surrounding Kyzylorda region is less than 2% ethnically Russian and, by all appearances, overwhelmingly favors Kazakh.

Poverty is widespread here, juxtaposed markedly with the hordes of affluent “space tourists” from around the world who head through Töretam into the “ring” every day. Tour agencies charge upwards of $1,000 per day for access to Baikonur, yet reinvestment in communities surrounding the “ring” seems non-existent, with the average salary in this part of Kazakhstan being less than $330 per month.

For those living on the edge of Baikonur, the necessity of a permit to work inside the complex cannot be understated. This boils down to pure economics – a ruble wage massively outstrips that of a tenge one. There is, likewise, skilled work to be found within Baikonur. In Töretam, prospects are broadly limited to casual employment, with much of the town dependent upon remittances sent from family members working elsewhere – predominantly in Russia or the oilfields of the west.

This does not mean that said permits are easy to come across. One woman described the process of getting permission to work in the “ring” as “next to impossible.” It is “easier for foreign tourists to get in than locals,” she remarked bitterly.

Of all the Russian tourist and military convoys from Töretam to Baikonur that seemed to run on an almost constant basis, it was difficult to identify a single ethnic Kazakh employed in any capacity. Russians also appeared to be exclusively entrusted to check permits at checkpoints, even though approximately 70% of Baikonur’s permanent residents are ethnic Kazakhs.

Two Kazakh men TCA spoke to in a Töretam cafeteria described Kazakhs’ position in Baikonur as “second-class citizens” who are only afforded “menial,” “rough” work, while Russians enjoy better conditions and salaries. In their view, Moscow imports Russians here to take up positions of authority, while Kazakhs are seen as an expendable workforce.

Toxic Fallout

Separate Spheres – the Mosque on the Wall at Toretam; image: Thomas Hodgson

Beyond the economic strain on local Kazakhs, Russia’s cosmodrome wreaks environmental havoc on the steppe. Scientists often refer to UDMH — the fuel used to launch rockets — as “devil’s venom” on account of its toxicity. Locals claim that the soil beneath the flightpaths of Proton rockets has been permanently poisoned by fuel spills from their first and second stages.

Some critics say that these chemicals are carcinogenic and therefore play a part in the unusually high cancer rates in Kazakhstan’s Baikonur and Kyzylorda regions.

An elderly man in a train compartment between Aralsk and Töretam described his brother’s passing from cancer, which he ascribed in no uncertain terms to the “heavy metals” emitted by Baikonur rockets, which get kicked up into the air during the regular dust storms on the steppe.

Children in Baikonur are even warned against playing in the nearby Syr Darya River.

“In the days of the [Soviet] Union, when I was young, we used to play in the river all the time, but now it is full of rubbish and too dangerous,” an elderly local recalled.

Baikonur has also been linked to mass animal deaths. In 1999, a Russian veterinarian established that bird deaths in Russia’s Far Eastern Republic of Sakha were abnormally high due to the disposal of discarded Baikonur rocket parts there. As recently as 2015, Kazakh ecologist Musagali Duambekov suggested that the mass deaths of endangered saiga antelope on the steppe could be linked to toxic fuels used at Baikonur.

Some people are even forced to make a living by scavenging scrap metal from fallen rocket debris.

While Roscosmos claims that it provides 24 hours’ notice for people living in the flight paths to “get to safety” during a rocket launch, they do not accept liability for damage caused by debris within the flight path itself. Compensation is only awarded for damage caused outside of their designated fall zones.

TCA asked a few Töretam locals what they thought about individuals living in more isolated areas of the steppe under the flight paths, but all they offered in response was a vague indication of sympathy for their woes.

While the rocket “falloff” presents an economic opportunity for scrap dealers, their work is uniquely dangerous. Rocket debris, still burning when it hits the ground, emits toxic fumes harmful to both wildlife and humans. The traders typically have little more than a welding mask and a T-shirt to protect themselves against these harmful compounds.

Behind the Wall

The wall separating Baikonur and Toretam; image: Thomas Hodgson

The cosmodrome’s social license is further threatened by its emergent status as a “smuggling” hub to further Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. While Roscosmos is sanctioned by the West, it can continue to operate out of Baikonur relatively unscathed due to the facility’s special status on Kazakh soil.

This comes despite polling suggesting that 44% of Kazakhs view Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as either “somewhat or completely unjustified.”

While this may point to the conclusion that life inside Baikonur is markedly better than outside, the closed city itself is beleaguered with social problems.

According to a barman in Töretam who was born and lives inside the “ring” but commutes daily from Baikonur into the satellite town due to a lack of opportunities, Baikonur’s days are numbered. He described the “constant propaganda,” “lack of work” and “invasive security” that plague the complex. The crumbling housing stock is “from the Soviet days” — dilapidated and not fit for purpose.

“Corruption is everywhere,” he told TCA, accusing everyone from Roscosmos higher-ups to checkpoint employees of taking backhanders to make ends meet.

This is not just barroom conjecture – in 2019, the first deputy head of the city administration was found guilty of embezzling over 7.5 million rubles ($80,900 at today’s exchange rate).

Distorted Histories

Monument to cosmonauts at the entrance to Baikonur; image: Thomas Hodgson

One can trace Russia’s use of Kazakhstan as a dumping ground for both human and scientific “waste” as far back as Fyodor Dostoevsky, who famously spent a period of exile in Semipalatinsk. This ‘tradition’ continued throughout the Soviet period, as Stalin deported over a million of the Union’s ethnic minority population to the Kazakh SSR.

In allowing Kazakhs to be exposed to potentially life-threatening toxins and keeping them poor through economic hegemony, modern Russia, by all appearances, continues to demonstrate a lack of concern for the local population.

Baikonur occupies a bipolar position in the Kazakh psyche. In Almaty and Astana, the country’s two largest cities, metro stations and suburbs are named after the cosmodrome. It is not uncommon to see Baikonur magnets adorning the fridges of Kazakh households. Bus stops across the country display posters reading “Baikonur — the unity of the nation — the umbilical cord of the earth” in the Kazakh language.

At the same time, memories of the trauma caused by the Russians and their rockets are still fresh. There is no better illustration of this than the memorials to Semipalatinsk, the Soviets’ testing site for nuclear weapons that exposed as many as 1.5 million people to fallout, present in every city in the country.

It is entirely natural that Baikonur is a source of pride for the Kazakh people. Their nation has played host to two earth-shaping developments in the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite and the first manned spacecraft. However, as Russia veers ever deeper into rogue state territory, Kazakhstan finds itself in the impossible position of toeing the line between its notional allyship with its former master, and existing as an independent, sovereign state with the right to shape its own future.

“Baikonur is a city out of time,” a student born in the “ring” who had since left to study in Astana told TCA. “Everything is crumbling. The buildings are all falling down. There is no money or work to be had. All of my friends want out.”

The Russian Federation is due to hand over the oldest and most famous launch pad in the Baikonur complex – Gagarin’s Start – on June 1. Decommissioned in 2019, Kazakhstan plans to turn the site of the world’s first crewed space launch into a museum, with the intention of acquiring UNESCO World Heritage recognition. Symbolically, the handover marks the closure of a historic chapter in space exploration and offers independent Kazakhstan an opportunity to renegotiate its uneasy relationship with the cosmodrome.