In 1977 the Soviets began construction of a fleet of nuclear submarines that were to hold the title of “World’s Largest Submarine” for nearly 30 years (and counting!) – the Typhoon class.

The fictional “Red October” that was hunted in the movie was a Typhoon class sub but in reality there were only six completed (construction of a seventh was aborted half way through).

Despite their age we can see three Typhoon Submarines in reserve service at Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base. However, it was reported in 2004 that these last three were to be decommissioned, so they may have since been finally dismantled.

If you scroll further up the river you’ll also find Oscar-II & Victor-III class submarines and there’s a ton more info on the Typhoons at Global Security.

Thanks: Eddie

These spiky looking red things are “anti-tank hedghogs” just outside of Moscow. They are designed to be placed in roads or along defensive lines to stop mobile armour zooming about. These hedghogs are a memorial that marks the closest point to Moscow reached by the German armour in the winter of 1941.

That huge car park and building to the south-west is bizzarely an Ikea store. There is some concern about future construction and its proximity to the monument.

This is the worlds biggest open cast diamond mine in Mirny, north eastern Siberia. It’s more than 1 km in diameter and half a km deep! Wow, that’s a big hole. The Google Maps imagery isn’t super high-res but there are some good photos about.

Thanks: Mihaly Homonnai, alvus, Adam Hauner, targon, Yuri, Dustin, sz, Troels, Peter Berenyi, Marcin & Josh Brandt.

This orange crescent shaped blur is ground zero of the Tunguska Event. Way out in the Tunguska region of Russia it is where the Tunguska meteor impact is said to have taken place on the morning of June 30th 1908. The size of the blast was estimated to be 10-15 megatons. It felled an estimated 60 million trees over 2,150 square kilometers, that’s a lot of trees. Of course, there are various other tin-foil-hat theories out there as to the cause of the explosion. Some of my favourites are:

• A black hole
• An anti-matter explosion (like in star trek)
• A UFO crash
• The result of an experiment by Nikola Tesla, on the other side of the world in New York.

Thanks: Matt, morinox, Tesla_HV, Timo V Tikansalo & Rob

Founded in 1755, Lomonosov Moscow State University is the oldest and largest university in Russia. The main building was built in 1953 and stands at 240 metres, making it… (can you see what’s coming yet?), the tallest educational establishment in the world.

This place is huge in every sense of the word. For starters, just look at the scale of the grounds, then consider that the university has over 50,000 students* and employs around 24,000 people** and finally… well, just look at it! It’s bloody enormous!

More info (as always) at Wikipedia, and there’s a tour with some fantastic images at the official site.

P.S. The Moscow State University tower is the tallest of a set of seven towers which Stalin had built in Moscow…

Note:
* Students are based at several different campuses
** Figure includes auxiliary staff

Thanks to Sergei Vavinov, Loc, PihTa and Matthew Kehrt.