Comments on: Bigger is Better: 7 Insane Soviet Projects.

By: Sergei

Sergei — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:57:17 +0000

Soviet technology would also be more advanced. It’s true. If Stalin would not kill so many of his own people, the USSR would still stand today. It was the greatest Empire that ever stood and its collapse was what shook the century.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:53:35 +0000

Russia/CCCP posses superior simplicity and the greatest environment of people. Their projects are simple yet effective and at low cost which makes their weapons the best. But Stalin’s reign was terrible…I would have worked on economical conditions instead and not execute 20 million Russians which included the best scientists, doctors, architects, etc in the USSR and those who would surely shorten the Second World War by maybe a year to my opinion.

By: Condurache

Condurache — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:38:32 +0000

so the russians detonate a smaller Tsar bomb…
that means they still have the 100 megatons Tsar bomb?

By: akb427

akb427 — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:43:29 +0000

The nuclear-powered icebreaker Yamal has never been the world’s only nuke icebreaker; it’s one of six Arktika class ships, though several of them are inactive. It’s pretty dumb to say “none compare” when the previous four have pretty much the same design. The last Arktika class ship built (completed in 2006 after a 13-year stall for funding) is even bigger.

Besides that, even the Arktikas aren’t the only nuke icebreakers; there are also two Russian river icebreakers, and a monster nuke-powered cargo ship with an icebreaking bow.

And I’m not sure the Arctic is the world’s largest piece of ice; I’d guess the Antarctic sheet is bigger.

By: Collin

Collin — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:49:59 +0000

Scratch that. Damn. It’s Monday and I must be more tired than I though. Millimeters, not meters. Now I feel quite a fool. It still sounds very thin for some reason.

By: Collin

Collin — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:48:02 +0000

Re: the Yamal icebreaker

“and an armored steel hull 4.8 centimeters thick.”

That sounds mighty thin. According to the Wikipedia article linked:

“The Yamal is equipped with a double hull. The outer hull is 48 mm thick where ice is met and 25 mm elsewhere and has a polymer coating to reduce friction.”

Big difference. If that’s verbatim from the book, that’s quite an error.

By: K

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:13:59 +0000

kevin -

You’re right. I didn’t know we made the Chicago river run backwards. Weird.

http://www.apwa.net/About/Awards/TopTenCentury/chica.htm

And, of course, there’s always wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_river

By: E.T.Cook

E.T.Cook — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:57:58 +0000

My favorite is one of the largest economic crashes of all time. Boy they sure showed us.

By: kevin

kevin — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:32:23 +0000

uh doesn’t the Chicago river run backwards ?

By: jenix

jenix — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:20:26 +0000

Alex
Then the book itself should be republished!)) I live 400 km away from Magnitogorsk and I know this city pretty well!

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 08:23:53 +0000

Jenix, the article was republished verbatim from the mental_floss book.

By: jenix

jenix — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 07:37:58 +0000

The author of the article must cross out the last sentence about Magnitogorsk, because it is absolutely false! It’s true that the iron ore in the mountain Magnitnaya finished, but up to these days they use Kazakhstan’s ore and coal. Kazakhstan is about 100 km away from Magnitogorsk, and this country is extremely rich in minerals. That’s why the sentence about the “collapse” of Magnitogorsk’s economy is absolutely irrelevant!
PS One of the most insane projects of the Soviets was to turn the river Angara backwards, so that it could supply whole Kazakhstan with water. Of course this crazy plan failed, because it is impossible to turn the stream of one of the biggest rivers in the world backwards.

By: Krii

Krii — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:29:35 +0000

How about the plan they had to reverse the direction the Volga river flow that surly qualifies as a completely insane idea

By: r-dubs

r-dubs — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:56:19 +0000

No, sorry. it was an illustration in the 50th anniversery edition of the book. it is “the windmill”.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:40:08 +0000

…and SEE what…

sorry, my keyboard is manned by a team of only 1 slave laborer…

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:37:20 +0000

Well, give me any 100,000 slave laborers and what “I” can achieve…

By: Ovidiu

Ovidiu — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:23:19 +0000

I never knew the Soviets invented the Dental Floss… I thought they don’t brush their teeth

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:22:30 +0000

Thanks andrewTee - it’s corrected now.

By: andrewTee

andrewTee — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:15:24 +0000

Book listed as source doesn’t match book shown. Interesting article though.

By: r-dubs

r-dubs — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:02:55 +0000

the parliament building is parodied in animal farm.

By: Kriss

Kriss — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:58:58 +0000

Other more successful examples of BIG soviet realisations:

The An-225 Mryia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225
“currently the world’s largest flying airplane”

Antonov An-124 Ruslan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124
” is the largest aircraft ever mass produced (until production of the Airbus A380 starts)”

By: Link Saturation Hacks

Link Saturation Hacks — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:09:49 +0000

They sooo should have went for the funky Parliament, and with all the good looking soviet women, i could have learned to love the bomb too

fun read, dugg and reddit++

By: James Schend

James Schend — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:50:40 +0000

Oh and don’t forget this little beauty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-40

A flying tank!! And they actually got it to work, by removing most of the tank’s armor and ammo.

By: James Schend

James Schend — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:46:11 +0000

The ground-effect vehicle and the ice breaker don’t really seem all that insane. The Soviets had far more insane projects…

For instance, their version of our space shuttle which was a close duplicate in every way except it lacked any sort of life-support systems whatsoever. They took it off and landed it on remote control anyway to show it off, before giving up on the whole concept. (Turns out they might have been right in the long run, considering how much trouble our shuttles have and how reliable Russian Soyuz capsules are!)

BTW, the US space shuttle can be piloted on remote control also. I don’t think NASA’s ever used this capability.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:17:27 +0000

It’s amazing that the most powerful bomb ever created is that small.