The Soviet Union determine the good way to show up the West was to build the handsome rendering of any given object . The follow are just seven of the largest example .
1. A Palace for the People
In 1931 , Joseph Stalin put that the largest Orthodox Christian cathedral in the domain — 335 feet mellow , the product of 44 year of back - breaking confinement by Russian peasants — be dynamited so he could build an enormous " Palace of the People,“ to celebrate the Communist Party . Stalin care to replace the church building with a newfangled structure taller than the Empire State Building , and cap with a gilded statue of Lenin tall than the Statue of Liberty . But the " Man of Steel’s" mad dodging never came to realization . Although the first phase was completed ( the dynamiting was the easy flake ) , the grammatical construction never contain place as necessary resourcefulness were diverted to defend World War II . After Stalin die , his successor — Nikita Khrushchev — order a large swimming syndicate built where the cathedral had stand . erstwhile women who remember the original duomo could be visit place upright at the edge of the swimming pool , praying to forgotten icons . of late Yury Luzhkov , Moscow ’s tyrannical mayor , adjudicate to make up for Stalin ’s mess by ordering the twist of a tatty reproduction of the original duomo using precast concrete . [ Photo courtesy ofWikipedia . ]
2. Avant-garde Design for a Funkier Parliament
design by Vladimir Tatlin ( 1885”“1953 ) in 1920 , the Monument to the Third International was a mammoth spiral iron structure intended to domiciliate the new Soviet governing . improbable than the Eiffel Tower ( and the yet - to - be constructed Empire State Building ) at more than 1,300 invertebrate foot , this curving , funnel - mould structure was meant to encase three in turn smaller fabrication areas rotate on industrial bearings at different speeds , quicker or dull consort to their grandness . Rotating once a year in the lowest level was a giant cube for delegate attending the Communist International from all over the reality . A smaller pyramid , rotating once a month above it , would put up the Communist Party ’s executive . The third tier — a sphere rotating once daily — would put up communication technology to propagate propaganda , including a telegraph office , radio station , and movie sieve . unluckily the giant social organisation would have ask more iron than the intact Soviet Union bring out in a year , and was never built . [ Photo courtesy ofWikipedia . ]
3. Magnitogorsk
Whether it was for guns , tank , ship , railway system , or bridges , Stalin , whose name means " Man of Steel,“ knew he needed one thing above all else for his 1920s Soviet Union : steel . He also knew that to the eastern United States , in the southerly Ural Mountains , there was a unparalleled geologic curiosity named Magnitka — an entire mountain of pure iron ore , the key ingredient for blade . In 1929 , Stalin decreed that a urban center , " Magnitogorsk" ( see what he did there ? ) , be built from scratch line around said mountain to mine the ore and change state it into blade . So began one of the largest mental synthesis undertaking ever undertaken . With expertise put up by communistic sympathiser from the West , a ready - made urban center for 450,000 inhabitants was manufacture in about five years . Of course , Stalin keep on labor costs by having the heavy lifting done by political prisoner . In fact , 30,000 citizenry died in the travail . brand production begin in 1934 , but before long after World War II the city ’s economy collapsed . [ Photo courtesy ofKatardat.org . ]
4. The Baltic”“White Sea Canal
Ever the optimist , this metre Stalin wanted to connect the Baltic Sea , with its primal port wine of Leningrad , to the White Sea ’s port of Archangelsk . The musical theme was that he could move the Soviet USN fleet back and forth . So Stalin had more political prisoners sent to solve on the canal — there was a seemingly dateless supply from the gulag — and after a few unrelenting years it was complete in 1933 . Disease , poor nutrition , and fell condition take on a huge toll , though , with as many as 250,000 of the striver labourer dead by the death of it . The icing on the patty ? The duct was completely useless when finished . For most of its length it was too shallow to admit anything larger than a small barge . Later a book of propaganda detail the life of " heroic" workers and engineers , designate for statistical distribution in capitalist countries , had to be recall because in the downtime Stalin had ordered all the main character shot . [ exposure courtesy ofOpen Society Archives . ]
5. The World’s Largest Hydrofoil
The world ’s largest foil was n’t really a foil at all . In fact , it was one of a series of singular machines called " ground effect" fomite build by the Soviet Union beginning in the 1960s . The Soviets had a monopoly on this bewitching technology , bank on a little - know rule of physics — the " ground effect"—in which a dense cushion of air hugging the land can provide more lift to a vehicle than airwave at higher altitudes . hover about 3"“12 feet above the priming , these vehicle resemble Luke Skywalker ’s levitating slyness fromStar Wars , and are far more fuel - effective than airplanes , whirlybird , hydrofoils , or cars . And at 58 foot , the big of these , the " Caspian Sea Monster" was give its distinctive name after CIA analysts visualise it at the Caspian port wine of Baku in photos claim by undercover agent satellite . The craft traveled at speeds of up to 240 mph , had a swivel olfactory organ cone for loading loading , and could carry up to as many as 150 passengers . [ pic courtesy ofWikipedia . ]
6. The World’s Largest Hydrogen Bomb
trueness is always strange than fiction , so it ’s no wonder that Stanley Kubrick ’s absurd comedyDr . Strangeloveis in reality premised on fact . The unknown accuracy here was that Nikita Khrushchev and company had actually been plot to build a " doomsday" gimmick . The plan called for a heavy load ship anchored off the Soviet Union ’s east slide to be loaded with 100 of hydrogen bomb . If at any stop the radiation detectors aboard the ship measured a sure amount of atmospherical radioactivity , show that the Soviet Union had been attacked , the bombs would detonate . Soviet scientists persuaded Khrushchev to drop this harebrained schema . He did , however , arrange the twist of the world ’s large nuclear turkey in 1961 , the so - shout out " Czar Bomba" ( " King of Bombs" ) , which weigh in at about 100 megatons — equivalent to 100 million tons of TNT . The largest nuclear mental test involved a modest version of " Czar Bomba" that mensurate somewhere between 50 and 57 megaton — the Soviets were n’t sure themselves .
7. World’s Largest Icebreaker, the Yamal
Confronted with the worldly concern ’s largest piece of ice — the Arctic Ocean — the Soviets had no purpose of letting nature stand in their way . So , they came up with a round-eyed solvent : the world ’s with child iceboat . The first included the Lenin and Arktika class of nuclear - power icebreakers , introduce in 1959 and 1975 , respectively . The Arktika ice - breakers had not one but two nuclear reactor , power 75,000 - horsepower engines . None equate with the new vessel , however — the Yamal — launched in 1993 . Also power by two atomic reactor , it measure out in at 490 feet farsighted , fire 23,000 stacks of water , with a bunch of 150 and an armoured brand Isaac Hull 4.8 cm buddy-buddy . Recently reoutfitted for tourist mental process , it has 50 luxury cabin , a program library , lounge , theater , bar , volleyball game courtroom , gymnasium , heat indoor swimming consortium , and sauna . A helicopter is stationed on the ship to conduct reconnaissance of icing formations . [ Photo courtesy ofikzm-d.de . ]
This list was excerpt from Mental Floss Presents : Forbidden Knowledge .
