A closer look
To convince the deeply rural population that space travel was glorious, the USSR literally copy-pasted their cosmonauts into ancient Russian fairy tale aesthetics. The government commissioned master artisans from the village of Palekh, who previously spent centuries painting religious Orthodox icons. These artists simply swapped out angels and saints for glowing, heavily stylized depictions of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, creating a bizarrely beautiful fusion of cutting-edge rocketry and medieval folklore.
