USSR. Zvezchny Gorodok (Star Town). Star City. Founded in 1960. 310 hectares of birch trees were cleared to make way for the secret city. Closed to the public until the fall of the USSR. It is now reached by getting off at Tsiolkovsky stop, 17 stations northeast of Moscow, on the Monino line. It is now crowded with foreign visitors. Some New England-style houses built by NASA for American astronauts are a bit out of place. Russia has the second-largest group of astronauts in the world. The first female cosmonaut was a Soviet woman, but since then only three other compatriots have followed her. (There are 45 Americans.)
