The main entrance is a triumphal archway surmounted by towering statues of a tractor driver and a farm girl brandishing sheaves of wheat, which sets the scale for the avenue of fountains that leads to a Lenin statue and the Central Pavilion.

 Main Entrance 

Beyond lies an octagonal square centred on the Fountain of the Friendship of Peoples, whose gilded statues of maidens in the national costumes of the sixteen Soviet republics demurely encircle a golden wheat sheaf.

 Fountain of the Friendship of Peoples 

Atomic Energy is sanctified by a Classical temple bearing a fresco of women and babes picking fruit. It originally held a small working atomic pile, whose rods glowed underwater.

 Atomic Energy Pavilion 

Flanked by water-spouting geese and fish, the Soviet taste for mineral extravagance runs riot with the mosaic-encrusted Stone Flower Fountain.

 Stone Flower Fountain 

Although most visitors nowadays come for shopping, it still has its amusement-park attractions.

 Ferris Wheel 

At the far end of the avenue on Industry Square, a copy of the Vostok rocket Yuri Gagarin circled the world in - on April 12, 1961 - is suspended from an enormous gantry. In the background the Ostankino TV-Tower can be seen.

 Vostok Rocket 

Inside the Space Pavilion, most of the original exhibits have been replaced by vendors of consumer electronics, with some of the former huddled in the back.

 Space Pavilion 

At the back of the Space Pavilion stands the Meat Pavilion. Beyond that, the Livestock Centre still has some of its prize animals.

 Meat Pavilion 

Flanked by statues of grinning Yakut hunters, the Hunting and Trapping pavilion lies at the far side of the perimeter track. Attached to it are pens holding reindeer and elks.

 Pavilion of Hunting & Game Management 

Just outside the VDNKh grounds, the 100m high Space Obelisk was unveiled in 1964, three years after Yuri Alekseevitch Gagarin circled the earth. It is undoubtedly one of the most memorable Soviet-era monuments.

 Space Obelisk