r/SovietUnion

In Esst Germany some cities still have Lenin statues and other communist statues and memorials still after 1990.

May 15th, 1987. Baikonur. A 100-ton black cylinder sits bolted to the side of the largest rocket the Soviet Union ever built. Painted on it by hand: Polyus.

The West is watching. American sensors are locked on the pad. The Pentagon has spent two years bracing for exactly this — Moscow's answer to Reagan's Star Wars, a directed-energy weapon riding up on the USSR's heaviest lifter. Their threat assessment is already being written around it.

And the rocket's chief designer, Boris Gubanov, is standing right there — knowing something about that cylinder the entire Western intelligence community does not. He's known for months. He says nothing.

He'd stay silent for years. Only after the Soviet Union collapsed, when no one was left to punish him for it, did he finally write the truth down — in a memoir that almost nobody in the West ever read. One word. Buried in one chapter. It quietly ended the whole story.

The launch itself? It went catastrophically wrong in a way you couldn't script — a single line of code, a spin that wouldn't stop, and the most feared weapon of the Cold War falling out of the sky.

But the real twist isn't the failure. It's what Gubanov knew was inside it the whole time.

Just wanted to show these cool tanks I saw going to and in panjshir Afghanistan, there was at one point on the side of the road a couple hundred wrecked Soviet tanks, crazy sight to see, a lot more in panjshir, in the water, on hills, some being used as a place to dry clothes

55 years ago today. RIP all Cosmonaut Viktor Patsayev, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov.

On This Day, June 27, 1954, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union became the world's first nuclear power station to generate electricity for a public power grid.

Located in Obninsk, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Moscow, the plant marked the beginning of the peaceful use of nuclear energy for electricity generation.

The reactor, known as AM-1 ("Atom Mirny," meaning Peaceful Atom), produced approximately 5 megawatts of electrical power, enough to demonstrate that nuclear energy could be used to supply electricity beyond scientific research.

Although modest by modern standards, the Obninsk plant proved that electricity generated from nuclear fission could be delivered to homes, businesses, and industries, opening the door to a new era of energy production.

The success of Obninsk inspired countries around the world to invest in nuclear power. Today, hundreds of nuclear reactors operate across dozens of countries, providing approximately 10% of the world's electricity and nearly one-quarter of global low-carbon electricity.

The Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant continued operating for nearly 48 years before being permanently shut down on April 29, 2002. It has since been preserved as a historic site, recognizing its importance in the history of science and engineering.

While nuclear power remains a subject of global debate due to concerns about radioactive waste, safety, and accidents, it also plays a significant role in reducing carbon emissions and meeting the world's growing energy demands.

LARPERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

Another group of bolt action Soviet soldiers are now finished

We have "Fascism fighter" with it's T-28 tank platform, Armoured trains No.1 and No.2 'Kolomensky Rabochiy' and 'Poldova Worker' of the 55th Div. Leningrad/Finnish front 1941.

All made use of whatever was laying around and had ammunition for their armaments in 1941. Broken/old/obsolete tanks had their turrets used, Bp No.1 Kolomensky Worker had truly ancient M1877 fortress guns found at a local artillery school in it's massive turrets that look like turbolaser turrets from star wars!