Soyuz User Manual

To elaborate, this manual refers to the Soyuz rocket, not the spacecraft which is flown to the ISS. Specifically, it's the interface documentation for attaching your payload to it. (The Russians/Soviets have a long history of naming their rockets and spacecraft identically.)

The ESA are collaborating with the Russians to build a Soyuz launch site at Kourou in Guiana. It's pretty much a complete clone of the site at Baikonur:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SBynwXjyxKI/TZiECQqNtGI/AAAAAAAACS...

This gives commercial customers an increase in payload capacity compared to launching from Baikonur because Kourou is nearer the equator (especially relevant for geosynchronous orbits). Plus you get the legendary Soyuz reliability.

I believe they're planning on the first launch from Kourou before the end of 2011.

It has some great historical details of the Soyuz launcher at the end:

"Vehicles in this family have followed a conservative evolutionary path of development, and have been in continuous and uninterrupted production and flight for more than 45 years."

The chart on page 3-2 gives you a good idea of the G forces you'd experience on a launch. Imagine the feeling of instantly taking away 3.5 Gs as each stage blows away. Also notice how the Gs increase as the mass of fuel volume is reduced during stage firing.