Science Museum Director wins Pushkin Medal 7 Jan 2016

Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded the Pushkin Medal to Science Museum Director Ian Blatchford following the successful Cosmonauts exhibition.  One of Russia's top honours, it is rarely awarded to a UK citizen.  It reflects the five years of work and diplomacy that went into forging the relationships which made Cosmonauts possible.  Blatchford says "we started travelling to all these space-related research institutes, located in the middle of large Russian forests - mysterious places. We saw objects and we wanted to collect them but we were dealing with people who had been trained to be secretive. It was like: 'Well, who are you?'"  Some objects such as the lunar lander had to be declassified as state secrets before they could be displayed.  ICOM