British travel YouTuber jailed at Russian space centre

A British travel YouTuber known for his recordings investigating post-Soviet states has been kept at a spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Benjamin Rich, whose Bald and Bankrupt channel has 3.53 million supporters, affirmed police addressed him after visiting the Baikonur Cosmodrome yet denied reports he had been captured.

In an internet-based post, Dmitry Rogozin, the top of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said that Rich and a lady named Alina Tseliupa had been confined to almost one of the platforms at Baikonur, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan.

Neighbourhood specialists were deciding “the specific degree of investment in criminal operations” by the pair, said Rogozin, who posted photographs of Rich’s visa and Tseliupa’s identification.

A lady named Alina is highlighted in some of Rich’s recordings; however, it was not quickly certain if she and Tseliupa were similar individuals.

Posting later in his Instagram story, Rich denied he was captured, asserting instead he was fined for not having a consent slip to see a Buran rocket – a Soviet-period orbiter like the US space transport.

He said: “I’ve awakened to a heap of messages inquiring whether I’m alright. Individuals believe I’m in a Gulag due to some Twitter post.

“Essentially I was addressed by Russian police for a couple of hours for going to see the Buran rocket without the extraordinary persmission and given a £60 regulatory fine very much like many unfamiliar globe-trotters before me.”

Rich said he was not captured as it was a criminal offence not to have the consent slip, ” simply a managerial offense meaning a fine and told to avoid it again very much like smoking in some unacceptable spot or jay strolling”.

The latest video on Rich’s divert was shot in Syria and posted on 24 April.

An Instagram present keep going week alluded to a “Syrian suntan and [being] back in a country with Soviet mosaics” yet didn’t indicate where he was.

When a shut Soviet city, Baikonur, is presently open to sightseers who apply for authorization from Roscosmos, it lies in the steppe around 1,100 km (680 miles) southwest of the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan.