even though the Russians never landed on the moon there are two very special Soviet medals laying on the lunar surface and how they got here is quite fascinating after the Americans succeeded in landing the first man on the moon the Soviet Union eventually abandoned their plans for a crude Mission though they had landed on the moon with robotic probes some of which even drilled into the surface collecting samples and then returned back to Earth but these metals on the surface of the Moon were actually not placed by any of these missions instead they were placed
by the crew of Apollo 11 the first landing on the moon the medals showed the Soviet cosmonauts Yori Gagarin and Vladimir komarov two space Pioneers that died in different tragic accidents and placing them was a symbolic gesture showing respect for those who whisked their lives for the exploration of space quite significant considering that this was amidst the Cold War and the space race between both Nations and that's why