Creepy Russian high-voltage towers

These beautiful high-voltage towers in Istra, Russia, near Moscow are the Experimental Grounds for High-Voltage Generation. They still light up and fire streaks of lightning into the night.

Creepy High Voltage Installations (Thanks, Bill!)

(Image: Master Z Great)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Happy Mutants • High Energy • International • Science

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autark

That’s Ted Stevens’ internet!
technogeek

Oooh. Pretty.

(I like epic-size artwork. If it’s functional, so much the better.)
bjacques

WANT!

And a hydroelectric dam to power it…
Anonymous

“You fools! Those are Tesla coils!”

Wrong!!! Those are not Tesla Coils but Transformer Units high above ground to power a Marx Generator.

The Marx Generator is not in this picture but inside a big tower. Also on site there is a Cockcroftâ€“Walton generator with it’s own Transformer Units.
freeyourcrt

#18 I must be a Slavic Russian at heart because I completely relate your sentiment. Maybe I’m just a malcontent,
schmod

Looks like a Marx generator.

There are a few similar structures used for particle physics experiments in the US — 36 Marx generators power Sandia’s Z Machine, while a pair of similar-looking Cockcroft-Walton generators serve as one of Fermilab’s particle sources.
ackpht

Every time it rained they probably had to wait a week for the thing to dry out before using it.
GuidoDavid

#5:
You beat me to it. It was exactly what I thought, damn!
Anonymous

its like a giant waterslide, only with electricity! fun times!
Daemon

They’re also quite effective against armor but are entirely susceptable to air strikes.
cszostek

Damn. At first glance that looked like a really great tube water slide.
jfrancis

Frankenpunk
Anonymous

viva russia
adonai

Sure that’s not just my old “pipes” screensaver?
Anonymous

As a Slavic Russian let me chime in: Russian cultural products seem creepy to North Americans and Europeans because Russians openly and persistently ruminate on our mortality, which comes across in our literature, art, playground equipment, and the like.

The weirdness is reciprocal, however: How in the hell can you be so enamored by Obama, who is a fragile mortal leading a short, brutish life? … Dick Cheney, now, that is a soul to relate to…
eti

Creepy? What are these located in Russia’s Uncanny Valley?
Anonymous

You fools! Those are Tesla coils!
chris

Looks like a MegaMan level.
johnlancia

Why is this considered creepy?
Anonymous

Where are the wires?
TEKNA2007

The vertical parts remind me of tarantula legs.

More trippy Russian design aesthetic. (Is that a series of tubes?)
mdh

Unless the one in Baghdad is online, nobody can control the weather.
Anonymous

It’s a futuristic jail. The inmates are in the black pods.
PaulR

You see ‘creepy high-voltage tower’.

I see ‘awesome sci-fi movie set’!