Only In Russia
A couple months ago, I talked to an elderly guard at Kaiser about his former life in Russia (he'd emigrated 15 years prior), and he explained it by holding up a sheet of white typing paper. "See this paper? They tell you eet ees black, eet ees black..."
Well, I heard a few of his stories of the absurdity of life there, and a few of my pal Roman Genn, and now, another Russian-born friend has just sent me a few pictures. I particularly loved the door built around the radiator.
The door in the middle of the second floor, stairs up into a wall and the over filled cars I see here all the time. The radiator thing is new, haven't seen that before. Those pictures do make me miss home though a little.
vlad
at March 13, 2008 8:07 AM
I have always loved the way I see them simply make things work... as individuals. The stuff that is pushed down by the government, well yeah, what a waste. Sometimes we require the overly complex expensive solution, that can't be afforded, and thus is never done.
SwissArmyD at March 13, 2008 9:28 AM
Reagan needed to build a 600 ship Navy to defeat those shmucks?!
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 13, 2008 9:09 PM
mmmm, gog_magog, one underlying idea that they have is to keep things simple, if simplicity works. They can be frighteningly creative when they need to be. Most MiG jets met or exceeded anything we made, for half the cost. They were also designed to be very tough and landable on virtually any kind of runway, even a dirt road. Think you can land an F-15 on a drit road without tearing the landing gear off? They still use The Bear [TU-95] bomber which has a max speed of 575mph, vs. 650 for a B-52... except the Bear is a turboprop, and has an unrefueled range of 9400miles... And the Tu's were made until the 1990's and could be made again easily, while the NEWEST B-52 was made in 1962. Even cost for cost in 1962 the Bear was less than 1/3 what the B-52 cost, and their operational costs are far lower.
These design tnedancies have always run through the Russian programs... their stuff isn't as fancy unless it needs to be, and gets the job done. Underestimating what they can do is what allows a Tu-160 Blackjack [kinda like a B-1B but better] to slip into US airspace undetected in 2006...
What is really more true now that the USSR has broken up, is that things are not well maintained, and operational readiness of especially the Navy is compromised. The thing is, they have come to the point where they may leapfrog. The current Russian mission profiles have changed, allowing them to cast off a lot of the cold-war era ideas. The new ships and planes they come up with will reflect that. What they do is going to be practical, not necessarily pretty. but that doesn't make it any less deadly...
SwissArmyD at March 14, 2008 4:35 AM
Hey, you can see scantily-clad women pulling farm equipment here but you have to know where to look.
Paul Hrissikopoulos at March 16, 2008 9:33 AM
tttt
test at April 1, 2008 9:19 AM
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