Russia from Satelite 5
From time to time we publish shots of Russia made from satelites gathered from different places. Today just a few.
The first one is the Black Sea - the warmest sea in Russia also bordering Turkey and some other countries. You can see millions of tons of floating plankton.
There is an interesting detail about Black Sea. It is also sometimes was called Sea of the Dead in the history. It was so because of it’s bottom - there are no any life forms at its bottom because of the vast amounts of hydrogen sulphide coming out from the holes in the bottom and gathering in masses on the bottom thus not letting any plants or fish to grow there. This hydrogen sulphide is a very easy inflammable gas. So during some strongs storms, like back in 1927 it came out to the surface and was ignited and the sea surface was on fire!
Ford and Volga
Russian car Volga 21 was very popular among Communist elite of the Soviet Union. It was a real hit and many contemporary designers admit that it was good for its time. In many modern design books, Russian and foreign onee can meet it as an example of car design of that era.
But if to look bit closer there are a lot of details that remind foreign cars that were popular back then. Ford and Mercury have most similarities with Volga 21.
HDR Volga
One Russian guy has found an old Volga car, made photos and then heavily processed them so it now looks like Volga after the nuclear war.
New GAZ “Volga”
This is Chrysler Sebring, an American car from late 90s. And on the pictures below the new Russian GAZ “Volga” car which is going to be on Russian market from the next year:
Old New Car
Probably this shots can be used as an ad for VOLGA car make… Like an old good black Volga car tows some piece of modern day thin-metal car…
Volga Landrover
In USSR Gaz-24 (Volga) was a dream of every soviet citizen. This luxurious automobile was being produced in Gorkovsky car factory for the middle and upper classes in 70-s and 80-s. Also it was widely used as a taxi cab.
But almost nobody knows, that in 1973-74 was developed the experimental modification of Volga - Gaz-24-95, which had all-wheel drive and other elements, turned it into the real and unique landrover with good cross-country capacity. It is known, that there were produced only 5 copies and one of them was the property of Leonid Illich Brezhnev (old soviet leader).
Some photos after the jump.
Russian “Ecranoplanes”
An “ekranoplan” literally “screen plane” is a vehicle resembling an aircraft, but operating solely on the principle of ground effect. Ground effect vehicles (GEV) fly above any flat surface, with the height above ground dependent upon the size of the vehicle.
During the Cold War, ekranoplans were sighted for years on the Caspian Sea as huge, fast-moving objects. The name Caspian Sea Monster was given by U.S. intelligence operatives who had discovered the huge vehicle, which looked like an airplane with the outer halves of the wings removed. After the end of the Cold War, the “monster” was revealed to be one of several Russian military designs meant to fly only a few meters above water, saving energy and staying below enemy radar.
The KM, as the Caspian Sea Monster was known in the top secret Soviet military development program, was over 100 m long (330 ft), weighed 540 tonnes fully loaded, and could travel over 400 km/h (250 mi/h), mere meters above the surface of the water.
The important design principle is that wing lift is reduced as operating altitude of the ekranoplan is increased (see ground effect). Thus it is dynamically stable in the vertical dimension. Once moving at speed, the ekranoplan was no longer in contact with the water, and could move over ice, snow, or level land with equal ease.
These craft were originally developed by the Soviet Union as very high-speed (several hundred km/hour) military transports, and were mostly based on the shores of the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The largest could transport over 100 tonnes of cargo. The development of ekranoplans was supported by Dmitri Ustinov, Minister of Defence of USSR. About 120 ekranoplans (A-90 Orlyonok class) were initially planned to enter military service in the Soviet Navy. The figure was later reduced to less than thirty vehicles, planned to be deployed mainly for the Black and the Baltic Soviet navies. Marshal Ustinov died in 1985, and the new Minister of Defence Marshal Sokolov effectively ceased the funding for the program. The only three operational A-90 Orlyonok ekranoplans built (with renewed hull design) and one Lun-class ekranoplan remained at a naval base near Kaspiysk.
More Volga Stalin Edition
Now we’ve got more details about this Volga Stalin edition. It’s found to be only a from a Russian car Volga - 21. All other parts, suspension, engine, gearbox etc - all come from Porsche Cayenne Bi Turbo, with engine that has more than 770 hp. It has been told that it’s been assembled in Germany and the cost is around $1M. The owner, you can see him on the pics in a bright T-shirt and red boots he is the CEO of the Russian largest cellular phones retailer, known for his strange taste.
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Stalin Car
How should Russian car paintings look like? Vodka? Stalin? Yes Stalin. This oldtimer has a perfect Soviet Stalin connection on its exterior.
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Russian Art, Russian Peasants and Modern Day Compilation
Here is a little bit about classical Russian art. Ilya Repin is a well-known Russian artist. His paintings are highly valued all over the world and cost a lot.
I want to present you here two of his works and then a creative compilation of both in one painting.
This is his famous painting “Burlaks on Volga”. Who are Burlaks and what are they doing on Volga? As there was a slavery in United States there was another type of slavery in Russia till the middle of 19th century, but it was called “Castle law”. What does it mean? It means that people could not move away from a castle or from the landlord. All the peasants that lived in the territory of the landlord simply belonged to him, though they lived in their own houses, had their private money and could marry by their own choice.
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