Thread: Examples of The Russian Way

I saw a TV doco on the Russian manned lunar landing attempt, which was surprisingly similar to the USA plan, but with 2 cosmonauts instead of 3.
I was impressed when one of the Russian cosmonauts in training for it was asked for his opinion on watching the images of the American landing. He said he was so worried, because so many many things could have gone wrong - evidently it was a pretty dangerous operation!

Jordan

Let's not forget the Berlin wall.
That'll keep 'em out...or in??

In the early 80s the concrete outfit I worked for had a fleet of elderly International trucks and the agitators were driven by Holden or Chrysler motors.
One of our drivers was from Yugoslavia and couldn't believe how we could produce concrete day after day with minimal mechanical problems.
He told us that back home all their concrete agis were Russian and major breakdowns were a normal daily occurrence.

Regards,
Geoff.

My 2c worth is:

I have 5" Russian bench vice. It is cast steel ,not cast iron and can swivel through 90 degrees and is used and abused daily.

It does not get regular maintenance - cleaned and oiled maybe every 10 yrs if its lucky. I would not swap it for anything.

I have had a Russian socket set - ugly and agricultural as the vice.- tough as nails and despite the best efforts of son and friends could not break it,though they did lose half of them.

On the other hand my friend had a Lada. nuff said!

Grahame

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

My 2c worth is:

I have 5" Russian bench vice. It is cast steel ,not cast iron and can swivel through 90 degrees and is used and abused daily.

It does not get regular maintenance - cleaned and oiled maybe every 10 yrs if its lucky. I would not swap it for anything.

I have had a Russian socket set - ugly and agricultural as the vice.- tough as nails and despite the best efforts of son and friends could not break it,though they did lose half of them.

On the other hand my friend had a Lada. nuff said!

Grahame

Yep.
My son is an auto-electrician. If a Lada came into the yard they all ran and hid.
Apparently the only way to remove the starter motor was to actually raise the entire engine, as the starter motor sat on a crossmember of the chassis.
Luclily there are few Ladas around these days.

My uncle once owned two Lada's. I once had the pleasure of helping change a starter motor. Yes, the (front?) motor mounts must be unbolted, the engine jacked up and about 4 feet worth of extensions and several uni joints had to be used with a socket and ratchet just to get at the bolts. Not something i'd like to do again. I think when assembling the engine they start with the starter motor and work outwards....

Having said that they did have some clever engineering ideas on board, they were just terribly executed.

Other cars that got the Russian treatment had disk brakes removed and drums put back on. I believe they even tried aluminum brakes on some cars.....
Ewan

I have a Chevrolet S-10 baby truck. To remove the starter the inner fender well has to come out, along with a couple of feet of socket extensions used. with the fender well removed you can only SEE just 1/2 of it. Some one posted on a welding forum that a newer car had the started mounted under the intake manifoud between the cylender heads. Stupidity still reigns.

The thing about the Lada is that it was a Soviet version of the Fiat 124 from the 70's....the low water mark in engineering indifference. By the time the Sov's added their own brand of work ethic to it* it was a true piece of carp. In Canada the dealers would only offer 15% of retail for trade-ins less than a year old.

* a quote from some anonymous comrade years ago: "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us"

Russian jet fighters are an example of affordable air power....they used to laugh at the American's 40 million dollar airplanes that were like jewels. The Soviet strategy was to build four times the planes at 1/10 th the price...since fighters last only days in a war why all the fancy stuff? A MiG or Sukhoi will have an enourmous engine, tractor landing gear, and a great wing. The radome and other components will show the fibergqlas weave, and the paint will be horrible.

(The Russians used alcohol as a brake fluid in most pf their military hardware. I read a strategic assesment in the 80's that claimed the air force always had at least 75% unserviceable due to the brake fluid having been stolen and drunk by the ground crews.)

Someone mentioned AK-47? Ahh, yes, that ubiquitous euphemism for a shooting weapon..Every news service on the planet must have shares in the company that makes them. Must add that it was an AK-47...Watch out someone's shooting at us!! Oh, must be an AK-47 then!

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Anyone for Tea, Toilets, Homes? Da?

I believe that we can apply the human values and ideas from the underlying concepts of this thread to almost any sector (not just "Russian") of the human race at some time in their social and technical evolution and development.

I still have old Russian ball bearings from Australian made 60's mowers in my workshop that I show interested visitors. I shudder at the repair rate.
You would not believe the amount of slop in the bearings.
Unfair comment? Due to failed seals and lack of maintenance? Maybe.

And ...

Had a trip across Russia in a train just a few years ago, and found that most carriages had a hot water heater at the end of the carriage. Everyone uses it to make tea and noodles etc.
Looks ancient and like one of Watt's lab experiments, but ...
The carriage assistant or Provodnitsa, tends the heater every now and then, as it uses ...coal!
Works a treat.
Bare bones engineering, cheap to run, and failure independent of most external influences; a FMECA minimal experience.

At the end of one day, we were told that the carriage toilet would be closed for cleaning.
It was opened again about one minute after closing.
They had designed the toilet to be completely hosed out then wiped down.
Now that is impressive in a way; so simple an idea.
In the photo, ( I've seen worse I hear you say, yes, but ...) note the dripping water from dodgy tap, garish tap handles, well used fittings, dirty surroundings, and oh not so solely Russian - no toilet paper (or stolen).
And ... notice the foot pedals so you dont have to touch ....
And, ... dont ask.

My observations of Russian "things" are that of paradox.
You see it everywhere, and lingers more in the country than say in more modern Moscow and bigger towns.
I saw it earlier in 1977.
Now it is changing, but more so in big towns.
I walked around St Petersburg and saw the whole range of stunning architecture and art. utilitarian military hardware, and an absolutely appallingly cruel and untidy zoo.
Seemed to apply across most of the republics, an interesting mix of old and new, inertia and innovation, and now visually oppressive commercialism, especially in Moscow.

Homes in the country are mostly made from wood, and they paint only the windows, painting the rest is not regarded as worthwhile, even after many years.
The country house are built from pine, in thick slabs, use housing joints and corner pins, have mud or modern gapfiller, and dressed inside walls. Cheap, quick and easy to build with few tools, reasonably good insulation value (brrr!) , and they last hundreds of years.
Some old houses use an interlocking corner "log cabin" construction style.

If you want to see a T34, the Army Museum at Bandiana has one.
A bit rough, works well, but had its problems too.
Seems its a "curate's egg", good in parts, but their army had overwhelming production capabilities to replace field failures, which proved a major influence.
A very good museum of international standard.

AK47. Last year I handled one up close and was surprised how rough but "utilitarian" it was. The rifle and cartridge are effective for purpose.
The Russians did this copying and developing thing well, even down to copying radio communications receivers from USA. I have seen them, rough and ugly, but work.
I have also seen some early Russian industrial and desktop computers, and I live in amazement that they even worked at all.

I wonder at times if It is just that some peoples did not have the Maslow motivators to improve things beyond the needs of subsistence living, war and survival.
We need higher motivators, and that magical additive, time, to add the 'pretties".

Photos.
The house being built, is from Vistvyanka, Siberia, along with the other house (in the same street),
And the samovar is in a Skoda made carriage on the Rossiya No2 Moscow to Irkutsk and beyond.
Toilet shown is at the other end of the same carriage.

cheerio, mike

Did you know, all Lada Nevas had a heated rear window as standard?













Keeps your hands warm when you push to start them!!!

A mate of mine had a lada niva we called it the salada bite size
a mongrel to work on poorly finished
but it would go further than most landcrusers when it came to 4 wheel driving

cheers

Harty

ps stuwart at least the russians didnt have to rent a movie studio to film the fake moon landing
Fake Moon Landings The moon landings are fake!

Since the dissolving of the Soviet Union, things in engineering just aren't as much fun anymore. I can distinctly recall the first rumours of the Antonov AN-225, an aircraft the Americans said was "impossible" as it was simply "too large" for available materials. So the Russians flew it to an airshow, complete with Buran on it's back and said well is this then? About the same era came a fighter that had the ability to flick itself so it was temporarily flying "backwards", then fly back out the correct way. Very spectacular to watch. The Americans said it was "impossible" as it defied the laws of aerodynamics. So the Russians flew it to an airshow and said sooo ... is this then? To which the yanks "ok, fine, nice party trick, but what's the point?" When it was pointed out that in a dogfight it could then fire missiles in the opposite direction ie at the pursuing aircraft, the Americans thought it wasn't such a bad idea after all and have spend the last 20 years screwing around with sophisticated thrust vectoring systems to try to do the same thing. Spectacularly unsuccessfully.

I have a lot of time for much of the Soviet approach to engineering, they very often simply produce "$ hit that works". The Americans on the other hand so often seem to overcomplicate things to the point where the whole point is simply lost in the process. It would be easy to produce a sister thread to this of examples of where Americans have over-complicated projects to the point of absurdity, in the process screwing them up by forgetting what was the whole goal in the first place. At uni I recall having to do a case study on the F-111 project. The initial brief was for a carrier based aircraft, but in the end it was too big and wouldn't even fit on a carrier. Mind you I think you can look at virtually any military based project, and you wouldn't need to dig too deep to find an epic fail! NASA is barely outdone however, I can think of at least two of their missions, one recently, and another a while back that screwed up completely because one contractor was working in imperial while everyone else was working in SI. You'd think they would have sorted that one out pretty early in the game

Not having a go at the American BTW, all good fun, but sometimes it just makes me wonder if any of the engineers who were designing each of the "widgets" actually knew what they assembled to become. It sure as heck sometimes feels as if somebody had no idea of what they were trying to achieve anyway!

Pete