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Then there's a good chance it would resemble Sirocco Research Labs' Red Moon, a charming 14-minute film that chronicles "the life and times of famed Soviet submarine commander, and hapless werewolf, Captain Alexei Ovechkin." More »
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Space, the final frontier...of warfare? Science fiction tales often center around the militarization of space, with lasers and torpedoes made of light racing past (and through) battleships and star destroyers. More »
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Should you ever find yourself in the environs of Vilnius, Lithuania, you can sign up for 1984: The Survival Drama, a three-hour faux Soviet military interrogation, complete with former KGB guards looking to recapture the magic of the old days. 25€ will get you a three-hour regimen of belt-whippings, verbal abuse, and a sham trial. What a bargain! Here's the sales pitch:

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This is the Kiev, currently anchored in the Chinese port of Tianjin. Once she was the flagship of the mighty Soviet navy's Pacific fleet. Now she's available for business retreats, intimate getaways or simple relaxation. More »
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Looking back on all of humanity's successes in space, it can be easy to forget that many of our accomplishments have been built on the sacrifices of other creatures. Here are ten animals who played an indispensable role in paving the inter-planetary way to space. More »
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Now that the Mars Science Laboratory has begun its journey, let's step back and remember those depictions of Martian living from years gone by. According to certain past dreamers, Mars is occasionally occupied by nefarious sentient automobiles. More »
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We've seen some awesomely abstract Soviet science fiction cartoons before, including adaptations of the works of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. More »
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On the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen you can find Pyramiden, an abandoned mining town that's been almost entirely uninhabited since 1998. Founded in 1910, his town of 1,000 was a model Soviet outpost. That is, until the fall of Communism made it a less desirable place to live. Here's a recent news report from Russia Today, and you can see tourist footage of the town here. More »
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The selling point of Yakov Protazanov's 1924 silent film Aelita: Queen of Mars isn't its plot, but its elaborate Constructivist sets and costuming that were highly experimental for the 1920s and predated the futurist aesthetic of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. More »
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Yuri Gagarin's historic flight was just one of many Soviet victories in the Space Race, but the United States still won the big victory when they landed on the Moon. But what if the Russians had gotten there first? More »
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Lunnaya Raduga ("Moon Rainbow") is a 1984 Russian science fiction melodrama directed by Andrei Yermash and based on the novel by Sergei Pavlov. More »
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The Soviet Union may be a thing of the past, but it still inhabits many an alternate future. A group of artists entered their futuristic visions for a Soviet Republic in "CCCP-2061," which envisions a USSR that has colonized Mars. More »
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In the twilight days of the Cold War, the Soviets began building UNK, a proton accelerator in the town of Provtino that would have been the biggest in the world. It was never completed...but its ghostly remains are still there. More »
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The United States won the Space Race decisively when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969, but nobody ever really knew just how close the Soviet Union got to putting cosmonauts on the lunar surface. Now, forty years later, researcher Charles Vick says the Soviets really could have reached the Moon by the mid-seventies...if they just could have gotten their rockets under control. Check out Space.com for the full story. More »
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In 1947, the Catechetical Guild Educational published Is This Tomorrow: America Under Communism, a propaganda comic classic about the impending Sovietification of America. According to the comic, Communist saboteurs would maintain dissident camps in Alaska and North Dakota. More »
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I've never had the pleasure of visiting a Soviet-era mental hospital, but if these placards are any indicator, the interior decorations wouldn't be conducive to one's mental salubriousness. You don't need to understand Russian to be wigged out by these. More »
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In late 2009, two intrepid bloggers visited a museum of Soviet arcade games outside of Moscow. What did they find? A subterranean den of gaming classics from behind the Iron Curtain. More »
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Russian photographer Slesarev Oleg Victorovitch took these photos of Gagra, a once-thriving resort town on the coast of Black Sea. Gagra was a palatial tourist destination until 1992, when the area was at the forefront of the War in Abkhazia. More »
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Straight from the halls of the Moscow Aviation Institute, these images of looming machines and intricate wiring are sure to stir up a longing for retro Russian rocketry. [victorprofessor via English Russia] More »
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Summer's finally here! Yay! Who's ready for swimming, archery, and smashing the corrupt edifice of Western capitalism? Here are photos and posters from the halcyon days of Red summer camps. Canoe trips! Puppy love! Marxist dialectics! Woo! [English Russia]. More »
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Soviet space dogs had their mugs plastered on stamps, cigarettes, matchbooks, and other baubles. Here's ephemera featuring Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to survive a space flight, and Laika, the first animal to live (and sadly die) in orbit. More »
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In this 1946 Soviet animation sequence, a miniature robot sailor prances on a piano with a human piano player. Everything's cute and wholesome...until the lil' mechanical Gene Kelly's skin begins to fall off. Then the weirdness begins. More »
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We recently posted Soviet adaptations of American scifi tales. But what happens when Americans rework Soviet toons? The English dubbing of this Russian cartoon is so damn bad your gray matter will begin oozing out your ears. More »
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Ever wonder what sort of galactic visions brewed in the Eastern Bloc? These vintage illustrations from Soviet science and technology publication Teknika Molodezhi give an awesome look at (fictional) Reds in space. Also, behold the incredible Soviet corkscrew-wheeled truck! More »
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After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Soviet bases and monuments were left to crumble, never repurposed or reused. These memorials to the USSR stretch across Eastern Europe and Asia, a more global view of a modern nation's ruins. More »
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Imagine spending months locked in this Latvian bomb shelter. The banner reads "Without Communciations, There Is No Authority. Without Authority, There Is No Victory!" The shelter, now a museum, has a nuclear-blast-absorbing wall and a huge facility for filtering radiation. More »
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In the heady days before Sputnik, the Soviet Union was bursting with enthusiasm for space travel and the conquest of big-headed aliens with tentacles coming off their faces. Dark Roasted Blend has posted a gallery of pulpy Soviet scifi art that's full of speed lines, light rays, spaceships, giant robots and killer aliens. Click through for our favorite Soviet futuristic art blasts. More »
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Three cartoon cosmonauts (one of them a woman) celebrate their lunar landing in this Soviet-era postcard. The fact that the Russkis have yet to walk on the moon makes it all the more adorable. Click through for a closer look. More »
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Russians prepare to parade nuclear missiles through Red Square as part of the annual Victory Day celebrations. The procession of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, a scary Cold War tradition, ended after the Soviet Union fell, but now Russia is reviving it. Call it apocalyptic retro-futurist nostalgia. Or maybe just overcompensation. Either way, Russians will be screaming and maybe throwing their underwear at these shiny gray WMDs. A gallery of weapon-porn, after the jump. More »
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