Also Baykonur. A giant, sprawling spaceport in Kazakhstan. Constructed deep in the Kazakh steppe by the USSR in the mid 50s, with over 80 active launch pads at its peak. The Baikonur Cosmodrome handles manned launches and equatorial orbit shots. Its placement allowed test shots to be tracked while entirely over Soviet territory. Most military related work is not done here, but at the Plesetsk cosmodrome north of Moscow.
After the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia found that its major spaceport was now effectively in another country. Russia arranged to lease Baikonur from Kazakhstan for $115M per year under the terms of a 20-year lease that started in 1994. The two governments are negotiating to extend the lease to 50 years.
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