Russians shed a tear for Mir

For many Russians, the demise of Mir is a sad day, its crash into the Pacific a symbol of Russia's own decline from hi-tech superpower to a poverty-stricken exporter of raw materials.

In Russian, the word "Mir" means both "peace" and "world", and some Russians have reacted as though both will now come to an end with the death of the space station.

BBC correspondent Paul Moss, who watched one of the numerous demonstrations appealing to the government for a last-minute reprieve, got a hostile reaction from the mainly elderly people braving Moscow's sub-zero temperatures.

"If we lose this station we just lose our position in the world - many other countries don't treat us as a big power," one said.

Another shrieked: "You want we don't have our Mir, and we hate you for this!"

Mir nostalgia

There have also been many reflective column inches in the nation's press, and probably a few private tears. Mir nostalgia comes in different forms.

One is the kind that might come with the loss of a much-loved, though decrepit, family car - or the death of a family friend, as one cosmonaut's wife put it.

Another is the memory of a more idealistic age when cosmonauts were heroes, Soviet space technology was a world leader and duty and patriotism meant more than money.

There is also the nostalgia for a lost fortune - because when Mir was made, even if citizens were not rich, the state had money. And everyone now knows that money determines everything.

One of the last cosmonauts on Mir, Alexander Kaleri, said recently: "If it all depended on us, those of us in the space industry would do everything we could to save the station. But we can't do anything without money."

American diktat

He conceded that Russia had called the shots on Mir, and that the Americans may well dictate the rules of the game on the International Space Station.

In the media, other cosmonauts have been remembering the pranks they used to play, and their superstitions.

Journalists, too, appear to have been affected by the sombre mood, and are perhaps feeling remorse about all the reports they have filed about Mir's decline.

"Over the last few years, much of the Western press coverage of Mir has had a distinctly uncharitable, almost juvenile flavour. The world has, almost gleefully at times, reported the station's dotage, allowing its glory days to fade virtually to oblivion," wrote the English-language Moscow Times, in an editorial this week.

Descending firebird

"And the simple fact is that Mir is a tremendous accomplishment, a milestone in the history of exploration and science, as well as a laudable start to truly international space exploration."

On Friday, most Russian papers featured the ditching of the Mir space station on their front pages.

"At eight in the morning, after switching on its engines for the last time, the Mir station will enter the Earth's atmosphere and descend like a firebird, losing its wings in flight," said Moskovsky Komsomolets.

But some found something positive to report.

"It's a paradox, but even the ditching of Mir has strengthened the reputation of Russian space exploration," said Vremya Novostey. "Because this is the first case where a 137-tonne station has been brought down from orbit in a civilised manner."