Prime Minister Vladimir Putin began his tour of Star City (Zvyozdny Gorodok), a space research and training facility north-east of Moscow, by laying flowers at the memorial to the first human in space, Yury Gagarin. He was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Federal Space Agency Director Anatoly Perminov, and several renowned Russian cosmonauts, including Valentina Tereshkova, Alexei Leonov, Valery Bykovsky and Viktor Savinykh, all of whom also laid flowers at the foot of the monument. 

The prime minister visited the Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre's International Space Station simulator, which incorporates mockups of the Russian modules Zvezda and Zarya. Cosmonauts use the mockups to train for how to use the station's systems and research equipment in regular and emergency situations, as well as how to ensure crew safety and the station's viability.

Gagarin Training Centre Director Sergei Krikalyov told the prime minister that the facility would soon have more simulators due to increased Russian involvement in the International Space Station programme.

An American shuttle will deliver an exploration module, MIM-1, to the International Space Station in mid-May, he said.

Mr Putin was then shown the Star City hydrolab, one of the most important training facilities cosmonauts use to prepare for work in outer space. Commissioned in 1980, the hyrdolab is a complex facility that includes a 5,000-cubic-metre pool with a depth of 12 metres and a diameter of 23 metres.

As Gagarin Training Centre personnel explained to the prime minister, cosmonauts use the pool to train for various operations in outer space, including installing and testing equipment, as well as testing modules to be installed later. While observing a cosmonaut working in the pool through a special portal, Mr Putin inquired as to whether he was wearing a conventional spacesuit. The guide explained that he was using a special suit for working underwater, with oxygen tubes that a conventional spacesuit does not have.

Mr Putin put on a headset and spoke with the cosmonaut in the pool, asking him how long today's training session was. The cosmonaut answered that it was long enough, and that he was training how to work in outer space as part of the preparation for the future space mission in the autumn of 2010.

Gagarin Training Centre personnel also showed the prime minister an International Space Station mockup and explained the plans for its improvement. In particular, Federal Space Agency Director Perminov said that there were plans to add two more energy supply modules to the station.

Finally, the prime minister inspected a computer simulator cosmonauts use for training, and was asked if he wanted to steer. "Steer what?" he asked. His guides explained that the computer simulates docking procedures for the Soyuz spacecraft. Mr Putin sat down and used the wheel to manage the docking process, remarking on the computer's faithful simulation of the spacecraft's high inertia.