country soyuz-u
Syzran is the third largest city in Samara Oblast , ___MASK12___ , located on the right bank of Saratov Reservoir of the Volga River . Population : Samara , known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev , is the sixth largest city in ___MASK12___ and the administrative center of Samara Oblast . It is situated in the southeastern part of European ___MASK12___ at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers on the east bank of the Volga . The Volga acts as the city ' s western boundary ; across the river are the Zhiguli Mountains , after which the local beer (" Zhigulyovskoye ") is named . The northern boundary is formed by the Sokolyi Hills and by the steppes in the south and east . The land within the city boundaries covers . Population : The metropolitan area of Samara - Tolyatti - Syzran within Samara Oblast contains a population of over three million . Sputnik 1 (" Satellite - 1 ", or  - 1 [" PS - 1 ", i . e ., , " Prosteyshiy Sputnik - 1 ", " Elementary Satellite 1 "]) was the first artificial Earth satellite . The ___MASK9___ launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957 . It was a diameter polished metal sphere , with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses . It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable . This surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race , a part of the larger Cold War . The launch ushered in new political , military , technological , and scientific developments . Samara Oblast is a federal subject of ___MASK12___ ( an oblast ). Its administrative center is the city of Samara . As of the 2010 Census , the population of the oblast was 3 , 215 , 532 . The R - 7 was a Soviet missile developed during the Cold War , and the ___MASK73___ ' s first intercontinental ballistic missile . The R - 7 made 28 launches between 1957 and 1961 , but was never deployed operationally . A derivative , the R - 7A , was deployed from 1959 to 1968 . To the West it was known by the NATO reporting name SS - 6 Sapwood and within the ___MASK9___ by the GRAU index 8K71 . In modified form , it launched Sputnik 1 , the first artificial satellite , into orbit , and became the basis for the R7 family which includes Sputnik , Luna , Molniya , Vostok , and Voskhod space launchers , as well as later Soyuz variants . Tolyatti , also known in English as Togliatti , is a city in Samara Oblast , ___MASK12___ . Population : It is the largest city in ___MASK12___ which does not serve as the administrative center of a federal subject . Internationally , the city is best known as the home of ___MASK12___ ' s largest car manufacturer AvtoVAZ ( Lada ), which was founded in the late 1960s . ___MASK12___ ( from the  Rus '), also officially known as the Russian Federation , is a country in Eurasia . At , ___MASK12___ is the largest country in the ___MASK73___ by surface area , covering more than one - eighth of the Earth ' s inhabited land area , and the ninth most populous , with over 140 million people at the end of March 2016 . The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the eastern , about 77 % of the population live in European ___MASK12___ . ___MASK12___ ' s capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the ___MASK73___ , other major urban centers include Saint Petersburg , Novosibirsk , Yekaterinburg , Nizhny Novgorod and Samara . The Zhiguli Mountains ([" Zhigulyovskiye gory "]) or simply Zhiguli , sometimes called The Zhiguli Heights - ë  [" Zhigulyovskaya vozvyshennost "], are a range of wooded mountains located in ___MASK12___ on the right bank of the Volga River , in the Samara bend . The mountains are an important source of limestone and oil ( extracted since the Great Patriotic War ( ___MASK73___ War II )) and are also popular as a scenic area for local and regional tourism . Their altitude reaches a maximum of c . 1 , 240 ft ( 380 m ). The range is named for a nearby town Zhigulyovka ( no longer extant ), itself probably named for an early inhabitant , Zhegul . Formerly , the range was known as the Lada , after the river pirates who used to hide out in its wooded valleys , a name which is still in popular local usage today . ___MASK12___ is not proportionately populated between the smaller western portion ( almost 25 %) of the country that is considered part of Europe , and the larger eastern portion ( more than 75 %) that is part of Asia . European ___MASK12___ contains about 77 % of the country ' s population ( 110 , 000 , 000 people out of about 144 , 000 , 000 ) in an area comprising almost 4 million km ( 1 . 54 million mi ); an average of 27 . 5 persons per km ( 70 per mi ). This territory makes up 38 % of Europe . Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south , it is defined by the border with ___MASK78___ . This area includes Moscow and Saint Petersburg , the two largest cities in ___MASK12___ . The Soyuz - U launch vehicle ( LV ) is an improved version of the original Soyuz LV . Soyuz - U is part of the R - 7 family of rockets based on the R - 7 Semyorka missile . Members of this rocket family were designed by the TsSKB design bureau and constructed at the Progress Factory in Samara , ___MASK12___ . ( These two are now a united company , TsSKB - Progress ) . The first Soyuz - U flight took place on 18 May 1973 , carrying as its payload Kosmos 559 , a Zenit military surveillance satellite . The earlier Soyuz 11A511 was the first attempt at creating a standardized R - 7 core in place of the numerous variations that had been used up to 1966 and starting that year , the 11A511 Blok I and strap - on boosters were added to the Voskhod ( 11A57 ) , Vostok - 2 ( 8A92 ) , and Molniya - M ( 8K78M ) vehicles as well as minor R - 7 variants flown once or twice for specialized payloads . Beginning in 1973 , the uprated 11A511U core was introduced for the R - 7 family although adoption across the board was not complete until 1977 when the existing stock of 11A511 - derived boosters was used up . Soyuz - U is still in use today , making several launches a year . Production of R - 7 derived launch vehicles peaked in the late 1970s - early 1980 at 55 - 60 a year . Soyuz - U holds the ___MASK73___ record of highest launch rate in a year in 1979 with 47 flights . The Samara is a river in ___MASK12___ that runs into the Volga at the city of Samara . NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment of ___MASK12___ , ___MASK39___ , and , historically , the former Eastern Bloc ( ___MASK9___ and other nations of the Warsaw Pact ). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manner in place of the original designations , which either may have been unknown to the Western world at the time or easily confused codes . The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after ___MASK73___ War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the ___MASK9___ and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ). Historians do not fully agree on the dates , but a common timeframe is the period ( the second half of the 20th century ) between 1947 , the year the Truman Doctrine ( a U . S . policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism ) was announced , and 1991 , the year the ___MASK9___ collapsed .