Every three months a space rocket carrying three astronauts and cosmonauts to the International Space Station launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. At around the same time, to the north-east in remote grasslands, three other astronauts fall back to earth. document these comings and goings of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the local community whose lives are accidentally intertwined with this portal to space.
Karaganda, Kazakhstan. The shepherd Aten stands on the snow covered steppe.
‘I became interested in theSoyuz landing after seeing the event in a documentary in 2014. It was deep winter and the spacecraft descended under parachute into an ice world. A ground team battled the harsh conditions to open the capsule and when eventually three humans emerged my heart skipped a beat…I had just returned from covering a war and had witnessed the very worst of humanity, yet here were humans working together and achieving the seemingly impossible. In my jaded state it was profoundly moving and I resolved to go and see it for myself.’
Baikonur, Kazakhstan. A Soyuz parachute cap lies on the frozen ground in the Soyuz landing zone.
Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Thick snow piled up alongside a road.
Kazakhstan. A rocket on Launch Pad One at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Two elderly women, Ms Tukenova and Ms Metzhanova.
During Andrew McConnell’s first visit in 2015, as the astronauts and cosmonauts were taking part in the landing ceremony, he saw a group of locals from the village of Kenjebai-Samai who had come to witness the strange event taking place in their own back yard. Although he had initially been drawn to record the space travellers, it was the local community residing in the isolated grasslands who compelled him to return.
Saran, Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Horses walk through snow outside an abandoned building.
Baikonur, Kazakhstan. A clutch of eggs in a bird's nest within the Soyuz landing zone.
Kazakhstan. The Soyuz MS-06 landing capsule comes to rest in the shadow of 300 year old nomadic burial tombs.
Kazakhstan. Bekzat standing on the frozen Aral Sea.
‘On each visit I would stay in Kenjebai-Samai or explore further afield. The steppe, which at first appeared as a boundless void, would over time reveal unexpected details. I found a people largely uninterested in the space travellers and yet somehow bound up in this strange ritual. These descendants of nomads once again on the edge of a new horizon.’
Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Soyuz rocket TMA-19M launches to the International Space station carrying astronauts & cosmonauts Tim Peake, Timothy Kopra and Yuri Malenchenko.
Steppe, Kazakhstan. NASA astronuat Scott Kelly returns to Earth on Soyuz TMA-18M after spending one year on board the International Space Station.
The Soyuz spacecraft has been in operation since the late 1960s and due to its length of service is considered the safest and most cost-effective space vehicle. The capsule of the spacecraft, which are not reusable, measure just 2,2 metres long and 2.1 metres wide. They can carry up to three people, take just six hours to reach the space station and the descent module, just three and a half hours to return. For aperiod after the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle in 2011 the Russian Soyuz rocket launches in Kazakhstan were the sole working portal to the International Space Station. The word ‘soyuz’ means ‘union’ in Russian.
Bagnur, rests upside down on a sofa at home.
Kazakhstan. Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti smelling a flower after returning to Earth from the International Space Station.
Priozersk, Kazakhstan. Ice and snow covers a park in the former closed city of Priozersk.
Temirtau, Kazakhstan. Dogs chasing each other across pipes at a steelworks plant.
Kazakhstan. Serik at home in Baran.
Kazakhstan. A press conference at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The crew of Soyuz TMA-19M, Yuri Malenchenko, Timothy Kopra, and Tim Peake, are behind glass because they must stay in quarantine before launch to avoid infections.
Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Children swimming in a small river.
Zhezqazghan, Kazakshtan. Children gathered on an artificial football pitch which is beneath a dome to protect it from the cold.
Baikonor, Kazakhstan. Tim Peake, Timothy Kopra and Yuri Malenchenko prepare to leave from Baikonur cosmodrome to launch on Soyuz rocket TMA-19M.
Kazakhstan. A ground team awaits visual confirmation of Soyuz Descent Module TMA-15M on the Kazakh steppe.
Kazakhstan. An old, abandoned Soyuz Descent Module TMA-19M.
Kazakhstan. Soyuz explosive charges are destroyed.
Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. A diorama showing an imagined scene from pre-history in the Arkalyk Regional Museum.
Kazakhstan. Sorched steppe in the Ulytau region of Kazakhstan.
Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan. Excavator at an open cast coal mine.
Saran,Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Masha and Masha standing outside an abandoned building.
Kenjabai-Samai, Kazakhstan. A table laid with food for the Dastarkhan (traditionally a Kazakh dining area or tablewear).
Tamgaly, Kazakhstan. Petrogylphs on a rock that has split in two.
Karaganda, Kazakhstan. A flock of small birds fly up from a tree outside a building.
Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Dust rises as a technician approaches a Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, and US astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, lands on the scorched steppe.
Baikonor, Kazakhstan. Technicians assist Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and British astronaut Tim Peake, during spacesuit testing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Kazakhstan. A Soyuz TMA-17M landing craft is removed from the steppe by Russian ground crew.
Karaganda, Kazakhstan. A display board indicating the location of trains along tracks in a railway station control room.
Tumbleweed in an abandoned home.
Kazakhstan. A cloud of smoke emitted from a Soyuz rocket TMA-19M during first stage separation.
This series has just been published by Gost books – Some Worlds Have Two Suns https://gostbooks.com/products/some-worlds-have-two-suns