The Ingush Towers of North Caucasia
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 17, 2024
The rugged terrains of North Caucasia, nestled within the Russian Federation, is dotted with ancient towers that stand as silent sentinels t...
Showing posts with the label Russia
5 Times Weather Played Foul For An Invading Army
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 1, 2024
Throughout history, weather has played a significant role in military campaigns, sometimes altering its course and reshaping the destiny of ...
The Osoaviakhim-1 Disaster
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 13, 2024
Between 1930 and 1932, Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard made more than two dozen trips to the upper atmosphere using a balloon of his design...
Nedelin Catastrophe: The Worst Space-Related Disaster
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 19, 2023
The Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan is one of the busiest and the most important spaceport on earth with over a thousand satellit...
The Ice Palace of Anna Ioannovna
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 28, 2023
The winter of 1739-40 was incredibly harsh all over Europe and especially brutal in Russia. Temperatures plummeted to forty degrees below ze...
Why Soviet Cosmonauts Carried a Gun to Space
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 27, 2022
For decades, the standard survival kit carried by Russian cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz spacecraft included a specially built gun and a few do...
Luna 9: The First Soft Landing on Another Planetary Body
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 2, 2022
The first spacecraft to achieve a survivable soft-landing on the moon was the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna 9. It was an exceedingly diffi...
Why The Soviet Union Advertised Products That Didn’t Exist
Kaushik Patowary
May 4, 2022
The purpose of commercials is to advertise products and drive sales, but in Soviet Russia under communism they served an altogether differen...
How The Soviet Union Tried to Abolish Weekends
Anonymous
Apr 8, 2022
About a hundred years ago in August 1929, the Soviet Union moved to alter the most fundamental tool of daily functioning: the calendar. An i...
Belyana: Russia’s Giant Wooden Boats
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 22, 2021
The Belyana were some of the largest wooden ships ever built. Yet, they were only meant for a single journey. They were built to transport...
Belka and Strelka: Soviet Space Dogs
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 17, 2021
In August 1960, two dogs named Belka and Strelka completed went to space aboard a Soviet spacecraft, stayed for a full day orbiting, and ret...
The Bronze Horseman And The Thunder Stone
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 16, 2021
At the Senate Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia, stands a magnificent equestrian statue of the founder of St Petersburg, Peter the Great. K...
Venera 7, The First Craft to Make Controlled Landing on Another Planet And Send Data From its Surface
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 9, 2021
By 1961 the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union had been going on for six years. The Soviets had the upper hand, havin...
Vladimir Komarov: The Cosmonaut Who Fell From Space
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 9, 2021
The year 1967 held special significance for Soviet Union—it was the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, as well as the 10th annivers...
The Soviet Moon Prank
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 24, 2021
In December 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, became the first men to fly around the moon and return to earth. But they ...
Viktor Belenko: The Pilot Who Stole a Secret Soviet Aircraft
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 22, 2021
Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko woke up early in the morning as he had done everyday for the past four weeks, to watch the approaching d...
The First Mars Rover
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 26, 2021
In May 1971, the Soviet Union sent to Mars two robotic space probes launched within nine days of each other—Mars 2 and Mars 3. Neither space...
Zheltuga: The Illegal Russian Gold Mining Town That Sprang Up in China
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 10, 2021
In the spring of 1883, gold was discovered on a branch of the river Albazikha, in northern Heilongjiang province in China near the border wi...
The Tiara of Saitapharnes
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 2, 2021
For the better part of a decade, the widely celebrated and esteemed Louvre Museum of Paris proudly displayed a supposedly ancient tiara made...
The Exiled Bell of Uglich
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 7, 2021
When Ivan the Terrible died in 1584, he left behind two sons, neither of whom was suitable to carry forward their father’s heirloom. One was...
