Big Molecular Toys
This team from Moscow, Russia is into making large scale molecular biology stuff as real world object toys, mainly made of plastic, but sometimes they are soft too.
It’s so geeky these days to go and buy yourself a 20 inch highly-detailed swine flu virus molecule or DNA helix made of plush for Valentine’s day or some other date like that instead the boring plush puppy and stuff.
Oil Stones: A Soviet City in the Middle of the Sea
In 1940s and 1950s, right after the World War 2 Russia had to recover from the consequences of the Nazi invasion. Lots had to be done and as we know to complete something you need to have enough energy. And energy at that times as well as it is much likely now meant oil.
At that times the known oil reserves differed from what people in Russia know about it now. The main places to drill for oil was Southern Russia on contrary to frozen Northern Siberian regions as it’s for now. And the gemstone of the Soviet Oil production was Caspian sea region, mainly the territories that are an independent state of Aizerbajan now.
So after a massive attack of oil thirsty state the lands of this previously oil-saturated region little by little got exhausted of the black mineral treasure and the need for new sources of it arouse. Now it’s not clear who was that this genius who first came up with an idea of getting the oil right from the sea bottom where it was still plenty of it and for this purpose to build a real city 42 km (25 miles) off the coast right in the middle of the sea, but what we know is that this idea came into play and by some crazy chance it got support from that times Soviet leaders who leveraged it with the all support the biggest (by the territory) state could offer at that time. What this meant is that in a matter of just a few month a real town was built right in the middle of the nowhere on giant steel blocks coming from the sea bottom, from as deep as hundreds of feet down. And they called it “Oil Stones”.
Looking Into the Skies
Nowadays many people believe that the Soviet Union was the first in the field of space exploration. However, only few know that USSR also had great achievements in another close field – astronomy. During a long time the world’s biggest telescope called The Big Azimuth Telescope or the BAT was located in this country. Moreover, it was constructed exclusively using Soviet technologies and developments, which demonstrated the country’s leadership in the field of optical instruments.
Photo credits:1
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Perfrostology Institute’s Underground
There is a cave (smaller than Igarskiy’s one) under the perfrostology institute, located in Yakutsk’s suburb. Mainly it is used as a storehouse — you can find cores there which were made by drilling, different devices and even mountain cranberry supplies.
The World’s First Nuclear Power Plant
We all got used to the nuclear power plants, even if having some precautions of the phenomena itself they look like have been here for quite a while. But when did this nuclear energy extraction thing has started?
The first nuclear power plant has been built in Russia or Soviet Union as it was called at that times. It has been built in high hush-hush mode, even the construction workers on site didn’t know what exactly they were doing there.
Then on June 27th, 1954 Russian radio stations knocked over their listeners across the vast country and worldwide when they broadcasted the news like “In Soviet Union, thanks to the joint effort of scientists and engineers the construction of the world’s first nuclear power plant with an output power of 5000 kW. The power plant construction has been completed and already produced electricity for the local Soviet agricultural objects”.
Today let’s see how this shrine of nuclear power looks in our days.
Soviet Radio Telescopes
Somewhere between Ventspils and Kolka cape in Latvia (ex-Soviet country) is located two radio telescopes (also known as “zvjozdachka” - the star), that in those days were one of most secret elements in soviet army. There are two antennas left – RT-32 (main dish is 32 meters in diameter) and RT-16 (16 meters). The smallest one – RT-10 – was taken away when soviet soldiers left Latvia in 90-ies. With those antennas Russian forces were able to spy phone calls everywhere they wanted.
The Russian Space Museum
How about paying a visit to Russian Space exploration museum? If it seems like a good idea then come inside for it.
The Yuri Gagarin greats your in the hall and invites to see seventy more photos of what inside.
This is the world’s first biological satellite, in which Russian dog “Laika” has made its first flight in 1957. It’s of actual size on display.
And here her colleague “Belka”.
And Belka’s partner “Strelka”.
Russian Wooden Collider
When the rest of the world waits, holding its breath, for the start of the large hadron collider in Europe, those Russian people decided not to wait, but to built a prototype of the collider by themselves. As for the choice of the material there was not a big choice, they decided to follow local traditions and make it out of wood, why not?
Russian Wireless Phone from 1958
This is and excerpt from the article of Russian newspaper back from 1958. It tells that:
“Young Soviet engineer has assembled a wireless phone that can be connected to the city phone line via ‘electro-magnetic’ waves. The new model of his phone has a size not more than two cigarette boxes and weights 500g (together with the battery), thanks to this the device can be widely used not only for organizations but also for the personal use. Using this pocket radio phone anyone can call landline number from wherever he is and also he can be called by any landline user.”
It sounds bit naive these days, but if back in 1958 it could be really innovative and advanced, especially for a Soviet Russian citizen who was not got used to a gadget abundance.
Russian authorities didn’t let this happen, the device was not in mass production, and was not available for general public, probably for security and censorship reasons states had in mind, so Russian people had a chance to get the personal mobile phone only after Soviet Union collapsed - just 20 years ago first cell phones and other modification of mobile devices appeared on sale in Russia.
On photo there is that “Young Soviet engineer together with his phone”.
Russian Mobile Nuclear Power Plants
Not many know, but Russian engineers have constructed the mobile nuclear power plants that were sucessfully used in distant parts of Russia. Those were small sized self moving fully functional atomic power plants with a small reactor inside. Just imagine, small nuclear power plants that could reach the destination points by themselves.
There were two basic models - tracked and on regular wheels.
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