Yevgeny Kuchnir, chief of the Federal Space Center of Baikonur, at the VIP Proton launch site

"Almost all the cosmodrome is under the [civilian] authority of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviacosmos," said Kuchnir. "Only a fraction of the facilities are still military, but by the end of this year they will be mostly transferred to Rosaviacosmos".

The main change of status for Baikonur came in 1998, when most of the military personnel changed status to civilian or left. The Russian Space Agency (RKA -- renamed last year Rosaviacosmos) took over most of the facilities from the Russian Military Space Forces. Many general support facilities, like telemetry and tracking stations, remain operated by the military.

Kuchnir said the changes from military to civilian authority have progressed at such a pace in the last several years that tracking the actual number of personnel working at the cosmodrome was impossible.

~

It's quite a change from the Soviet era when Baikonur was one of the U.S.S.R.'s most secret military sites. Until a few years ago, the city of Baikonur -- a dusty and depressing town without private transportation located 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the cosmodrome -- was formerly known as Leninsk by Russian and Kazakh authorities.

New foreign influences are clearly visible, thanks to Western aerospace joint ventures and the business they bring. Firms like Starsem, a French-led company that commercializes the Soyuz rocket, and International Launch Services (ILS), a U.S.-led joint venture, "are welcome because they have a strong economic impact on the cosmodrome and on the city of Baikonur," says Kuchnir, who first came to town 32 years ago.

In the post-Soviet economy, lack of money in Russia to fund space exploration programs had turned the largest cosmodrome in the world into a shambles. By the early '90s, space facilities were falling apart. Infectious diseases like hepatitis were epidemic. In 1994 riots among military personnel assigned to manage the rundown facility ended in the violent deaths of some soldiers.

Free camels a few miles down the road of the Proton launch pads

Baikonur's population, which peaked at more than 100.000 in the 1980s, fell to a record low in the mid 90s -- to 60,000 inhabitants. After declaring independence, Kazakhstan entered tense negotiations with Russia over the status of this Russian enclave in its territory. An agreement was signed in 1994 based on a yearly lease. However, this year -- following the crash of two Proton rockets over Kazakhstan -- Russian space companies have been required to pay a fee on each commercial launch from Baikonur.

The sight of buildings falling apart and the dilapidated condition of others, with problems such as damaged heat pipes, could give a visitor the impression of abandonment. But some facilities, including those used for commercial space applications and the International Space Station, have been refurbished and kept in remarkably good shape.

Even if space activities have been drastically reduced since the Soviet era, Baikonur remains the most active spaceport in the world. There are still a dozen of operational launch pads where numerous liftoffs of piloted and pilotless Soyuz, Proton and Zenith boosters, along with other smaller rockets, take place.

Last year, Starsem and ILS invested separately in new installations. The Paris-based Starsem, which has conducted eight commercial launches since early 99, tossed in $35 million to build state-of-the-art clean rooms to process Western satellites, fund upgrades of the Soyuz launch pads and to build a new luxury hotel.

ILS, which also built its own clean room and satellite processing facility here, has already launched 14 Protons since formation of the joint venture. Proton rockets will be used to loft several upcoming segments of the International Space Station into orbit.