The Titanium Monument

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(following Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman)

Sergei Korolev 1906-1966

    On a sun-singed steppe, Sergei stood, said -

    here we shall found our cities
    to cut a window through to space,
    to stand on sky.


ZVEZDNY GORODOK

    Sergei -
    born in Odessa, beaten in Kolyma
    zek of the First Circle, reached for the stars
    thought -

    from here we explore where none dared before;
    with guess & guts
    we train for things yet unknown:
    navigators & navvies
    cargoes & cosmonauts -
    all who will spring

    through our window to the sky.

TsUP

    Korolev commanded:
      "here shall rise our Admiralty -
      Pilyugin - chart and navigate;
      from this shore, Sputniks & spacecraft
      shall sail solar wind & plasma wave."

TYURATAM

    The Ministry for Exciting Machines decreed -

        Engineers: let our renaissance begin.
        secret Rastrellis and Zakharovs drew,
        an army of workers dug; construct
        steel masts to conduct lightning down,
        concrete launch-pads to guide thunder up.
        Quays of the cosmos, Sergei's creations, departure halls
        for Mars' fields, the mountains of the Moon,
        the majesty of orbit:
        Tyuratam, camouflaged as Baikonur,
        where semyorka, roaring fire,
        presents a sputnik to our planet.

Titanium Monument - Faidysh-Krandievskiy's Cosmonaut memorial on Prospekt Mira, Moscow.
Ministry for Exciting Machines - a play on the code name "Ministry of General Machines" (Rockets)
Rastrelli, Zakharov - major architects of St Petersburg.
zek (Rus) -     Gulag slang for a political prisoner.
semyorka (Rus) - nickname of R-7 rocket that launched the world's first satellite.

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© Mark Wade, 1997 - 2008 except where otherwise noted.