Gizmodo: soviet

Soviet Atomic Lighthouses Are Both Spooky and Deadly

Jesus Diaz — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:51:00 EST

Once upon a time, back when people in Russia used big moustaches and sent other people to Siberia, there were no GPS or tacky cellphones. But they had atomic lighthouses to light the Artic shores.

Since there was no easy way to travel by ship across the Northern coast of the Soviet Union, the smartypants of the Communist regime decided that they needed a chain of autonomous lighthouses that could run 24/7/365. The answer: light-weight nuclear reactors and a generation of lighthouse guards with four hands and six eyes.

Right now, these structures can be visited, if you don't care about you or your future kids growing up extra members—the lighthouses are, obviously, contaminated with radiation. [English Russia]

Steampunk Soviet Gas Mask Looks Like That Nazi From Hellboy 1

Jason Chen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

This specially-created one-off steampunk gas mask was made from leather, brass, and a Soviet-era gas mask. What's special about this isn't that it looks incredibly creepy and incredibly cool, it's that it looks kinda similar to that Nazi villain from the first Hellboy movie. Maybe it's just us and our excitement for Hellboy II that we're even thinking of buying this on eBay for $650 to use in our "LARPing". Yeah, that's the ticket. [ebay via Livejournal via Steampunk Workshop via Wired]

Update: It also looks like Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid.

Soviet T-72 Tank vs Incrudo USB Flash Drive

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Incrudo makes water-proof, shock-proof, scratch-proof, and apparently T-72B tank-proof USB flash drives out of pure titanium. And to prove it, the crazy Ivans pitted the key—which also has a special metal-ceramics composite on the front and back panels, as well as a real ruby that illuminates from the inside—against the legendary tank. Sure, the test is on the mud, but that's 49.1 tonnes of tank. A Soviet tank. If there's something cooler than that, I don't know what is. [Incrudo]

Buran Space Shuttle Floats Along the Rhine

Haroon Malik — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:30:00 EDT

The Buran space shuttle was once the apple of the Soviet space fleet's eye. Unfortunately, it has now been reduced to floating peacefully down the river Rhine, where it will eventually come to rest at the Technik Museum Speyer in Mannheim, Germany. The great shuttle took to the skies only once during an unmanned test flight, but two decades later, the modern relic has gone the way of a crushed Buzz Lightyear—it's realized it can't fly, but at least it can put on one hell of an exhibition. Good on you, Buran. The images of the final float look stunning, and the video of the event, which is set against some seriously melancholic music, makes the whole event look like a sad and dignified funeral procession. Check out the pictures in the gallery below, then jump in to see the clip. Warning: have your hankies ready.

[Siberian Light]

Industrial Designer Gives Old Soviet-Era Handset Just What It Was Missing—Bluetooth

AddyDugdale — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:43:25 EST

Industrial designer Brano Meres updated an old telephone handset dating from the Soviet era and brought it into the Noughties as a headset to use with his cellphones. As well as an on/off button, the Cold War-era monstrosity rocks a pair of LED indicator lights and a connector for charging the battery. There was one surprising item used in the mod, however:

Titanium wires taken from Scud missiles (I can't work out if he's joking or not, but he's got a very stern face and, frankly, I'm scared.) [BME - Brano Meres via SOURCE]

Soviet Outpost In Kazakhstan Slated To Be America's Spaceport For Four Years Or More

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:00:00 EDT

Baikonur is the former Soviet spaceport that put Yuri Gagarin into space and—despite regime change and an uncomfortable proximity to Borat—is still active. This year it provided the launch pad for American billionaire Charles Simonyi and the first Malaysian cosmonaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. According to the AP, once the US space shuttle program ends in 2010, we're going to run all of our missions through the former enemy territory, a town that hasn't changed a whole lot since 1961. Here's a gallery of the quirky spacetown, plus some more wacky fun facts:

• The town of 70,000 suffers extra-hot summers and freezing winters, constantly covered in dust from the surrounding hundreds of miles of scrubland, the weather extremes due to poorly planned Soviet irrigation projects of the early 20th century.

• In 1991, the Soviet collapse stranded Baikonur in the newly independent country of Kazakhstan. A local says: "We did not know what country we belonged to, but we kept on launching rockets." Russia now "rents" the cosmodrome from the Kazakhs for $105 million a year.

• Thanks to increased Russian oil money, Baikonur has seen new investment. It's a "magnet" for job-seekers, and there's a socialist system in place, with free healthcare and housing reserved for employees of the city or launch complex.

• Launch crews are a paragon of efficiency and ability, even today, to the amazement of outsiders. Mark Bowman, deputy director of the NASA Human Space Flight Program at Baikonur, told AP: "Rain or shine or sleet or snow don't matter."

We'll see you in Baikonur! (At least, we will when we score a spare $25 million for some good old-fashioned space tourism.) [AP]

Photo credits: Wikipedia, Space-Travellers.com, GlobalSecurity.org, Leuband.de, FAS, WDR 2, Space.Huerz.ch, US Centennial of Flight Commission

Soviet Arcade Machines Fully Explain Russians' Vodka Addiction

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 06:22:28 EDT

While Russian president, former KGB agent and failed comedian Vladimir Putin polishes his ICBMs, a group of friends at Moscow State Technical University has decided to do the same with a whole bunch of video game machines from the Soviet Era. And like the USSR's old missiles, these primitive Japanese arcade crude knockoffs look to be just as fun. I know this is all about nostalgia, but someone should tell them that some things are better left in the graveyard. At least the ICBMs. – Jesus Diaz

Soviet-Era Arcade Games Crawl Out of Their Cold War Graves [Wired]

Collection of Soviet Era Calculators

Gizloco — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:05:01 EST

When they weren't busy hating freedom and plotting the destruction of sweet, sweet capitalism, the Soviets made some pretty decent hardware, calculators included. Granted, they're all from the same company—Electronika—but what else would you expect from a command economy? There's a few more choice shots after the jump.

There's a total of 72 different calculators in this collection. I wonder if anyone out there has a comparable collection of Texas Instrument calculators so we can compare and contrast 'em. I mean, I know ours are better in every way, but I'd like to see just how much better. – Nicholas Deleon

72 Old Soviet Calculators [English Russia via Digg]