Outerspace

The bumpy road to Vostochny, Russia's new multibillion-dollar spaceport

The desolate area six time zones from Moscow provides ample space away from most communities to launch rockets carrying small cargo such as satellites and, eventually, larger rockets and manned missions.

The facility also is expected to help ease Russia's dependence on the historic Baikonur cosmodrome, which is in formerly Soviet Kazakhstan and costs Moscow $115 million a year to lease. The Baikonur complex is where the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and the rocket that carried Yuri Gagarin, the first human in orbit, were launched during the Cold War.

But the road to Vostochny, which means Eastern, has not been smooth since Putin signed a 2007 decree to build the multibillion-dollar spaceport. The construction turned into a public relations nightmare and a symbol of Russia's post-Soviet space failures caused in part by brain drain, erosion of scientific and technological standards and corruption.

Unpaid construction workers started hunger strikes, held rallies and painted gigantic cries for help on the roofs of their barracks before a Putin inspection visit last year. More than 80 audits identified 1,651 violations of the labor code and triggered 20 investigations into several subcontractors and hundreds of officials. Almost 180 of them were demoted and reprimanded, three were sentenced to jail and four more have been arrested.