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Soviet anti-drunkenness posters


Here's a gallery of Soviet-era anti-drunkenness posters. Some of the illustrations are really fabulous, almost Boschean in their depiction of besotted debasement

Антиалкогольные плакаты из СССР (Note: users report that the linked site triggers malware warnings) (via How to Be a Retronaut)

Icebound, long-abandoned Communist flying saucer in the cliffs of Bulgaria


Timothy sez, "This is a link to some photos I have took of Buzludzha (pronounced Buz'ol'ja) a very remote building in the Balkan Mountains. It is Bulgaria's largest monument to Communism which was left to ruin after the revolution in 1989. An incredible 70 metre tall, 1970's 'flying saucer' perched precariously in the snow on a ridge at 1500m. Full of beautiful communist mosaic frescos and an amazing central atrium complete with giant golden hammer and sickle. It took 6000 workers 7 years to build. I managed to fly over it in a microlight in mid winter to get some interesting pictures too. Such an amazing place."

Forget Your Past (Thanks, Timothy!)

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Lego Russian ray-gun


Avi sez, "AFOL Shannon Sproule built this charming Raygun entirely from LEGO parts." Shannon calls it the Russian Tokarev TT-34 Atomiser and notes, "Every mechanonaut was issued with a Tokarev laser pistol. They were small, lightweight and proved very reliable on the lunar battlefield." As this implies, there's a whole contrafactual mythology that this belongs to, called Battle for the Moon.

Russian Tokarev TT-34 Atomiser (Thanks, Avi!)

Soviet space propaganda posters


RussiaTrek's DeIntegro has assembled a marvelous gallery of mid-century Soviet space-program propaganda posters, showing brave and noble Russians ascending to the heavens on the back of sound socialist rockets.

Propaganda posters of Soviet space program 1958-1963 (via How to Be a Retronaut)

Soviet pistol door handle


The "Bang Bang Handle" is a door-handle made from a 9 mm Makarov semi-automatic pistol ("the personal weapon of the Soviet and post-Soviet armed forces and law enforcement"). It was designed by Nikita Kovalev, who included a lot of detail about the Marakov in his documentation. Available in many colorful metallic platings.

bang-bang handle (via Geekologie)