Stars over the city: Planetarium in Kostroma

The stars in Kostroma have been watched for a long time. “Kostromskaya Kulibin”, merchant Alexander Krasilnikov back in the 1820s in his own house on Pyatnitskaya Street arranged a small observatory.

At the beginning of the XX century, the telescope was installed in the house of the provincial Zemstvo in Rusina, now Soviet Street. Until recently, there was a forest-mechanical college.

In the pre-revolutionary years, a telescope on the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral is also mentioned. During the day, in good weather, the heads of the Yaroslavl churches were visible through it, and at night the stars over Kostroma were visible.

However, it soon became not to the heavenly bodies. Revolutionary whirlwinds demolished not only the cathedral bell tower. Kostroma lost most of the temples. After the war, in 1949, the bell tower of the recently closed Church of John the Theologian on Mountain Street was destroyed, and it itself was rebuilt into a planetarium.

On February 18, 1951, a planetarium was opened in Kostroma.

The main task of the new inhabitants of the disfigured building was atheist propaganda through the dissemination of scientific knowledge about the world. The country aspired to space. In 1957, our satellite flew there, in 1961 - a man. “And I did not see God there,” the staff of the planetariums of the country and Kostroma in particular repeated maliciously.

This is later admitted by Alexei Leonov, after the spacewalk:

“Without faith in our business it is difficult, almost impossible. An astronaut going into orbit should know that everything will be fine. It is now possible to receive a blessing from a priest, to go to church, as many people do. This has not been done before.”

Today in the planetarium you can see stars not only at night. Special machines help to simulate the universe at any time. The impression will be full, the feeling is even brighter than in the open air. But there's an old telescope. He's over a hundred years old, but he works!

You can see the planetarium, located in the rebuilt Church of John the Theologian, on the blue route of the daily tour."Kostroma at 15:15.".

According to the materials of the scientific consultant of the project “Kostroma at 15:15” candidate of cultural studies Larisa Sizintseva.