Fifty years ago, a Russian man of humble origins was the first human to ever travel into space. Yuri Gagarin quickly became a household name and a celebrated hero in the Soviet Union pulled ahead of the United States in the Space Race. Though he would never fly to space again, Gagarin offered humanity its first glimpse of the endless universe from his own perspective.

Four days after his flight, Gagarin told the world about the Earth as seen form space.

I would like to tell you a little bit about what I observed.

The view of the Earth from an altitude of 175-300 km is very sharp. The Earth’s surface looks approximately the same as seen from a high-flying jet plane. Clearly distinctive are large mountain ranges, large rivers, large forest areas, shorelines and islands.

The clouds which cover the Earths’ surface are very visible, and their shadow on the Earth can be seen distinctly. The color of the sky is completely black. The stars on this black background seem to be somewhat brighter and clearer. The Earth is surrounded by a characteristic blue halo. This halo is particularly visible at the horizon. From a light-blue coloring, the sky blends into a beautiful deep blue, then dark blue, violet, and finally complete black.

When I left the Earth’s shadow, the Sun’s rays penetrated the Earth’s atmosphere. At this point, the Earth’s horizon was dark blue, violet and finally black.

The transition into the Earth’s shadow took place very rapidly. Darkness comes instantly and nothing can be seen. Obviously, the spaceship passed over the ocean during this period of time. If the spaceship would have passed over large cities, then I would have probably been able to see the lights of those cities. The stars were well visible.

Gagarin goes on to say that flying to Venus and Mars is his greatest dream, but Gagarin would die in 1969 just months before men would land on the moon. A lifelong pilot, Gagarin died when the plane he was flying — his first flight since 1961 — crashed. He was honored by his country and  the crew of Apollo 11, when astronauts left one of Gagarin’s medals on the moon.

Read on below to see a short video of Gagarin’s liftoff on that historical flight.

Due to a new Kremlin-backed bill that looks to pass Russian parliament, beer will now be classified as an alcohol in Russia. Yes, that means beer wasn’t previously classified as such; it was classified as food. This classification is a step in Russia’s new anti-alcohol campaign, with a goal of better regulating the belly-inducing drink.

Ministry of Health’s chief alcohol and and drug abuse specialist Yevgeny Bryun:

“Normalising the beer production market and classifying it as alcohol is totally the right thing to do and will boost the health of our population.”

The bill would limit beer sales at night, the proximity of sales in relation to public places, and lower the sizes of cans and bottles to 0.33 litres. Also, it’ll stop beer from being food.

(The Telegraph via Nothing To Do With Arbroath via Neatorama)

Mind blowing whole episode here.  From the YouTube Description, Google Translated:

The protagonist – Stepa is a guinea pig at the Institute of Brain. His mind processes the old movies the villain Professor Zamyshlyavkin. But friends – talking dog ketchup and cynical penguin Fidel always ready to joke in the most dangerous places for the psyche! Watch movies with the steppe, ketchup and Fidel – the best entertainment for fans of black humor!

The premise, the globe spinning mad scientist, the red robot and the yellow beaked robot, the robot roll call, the shot in the theater where one of the robots looks directly into the camera… it’s all there.  That guy even looks kind of like Mike.  For comparison.

We don’t doubt that Russia has some amazingly bad films to give the MST3K treatment, but do they have Rifftrax?

(via io9.)

Thank your lucky stars for those dumb text messages sent out by wireless companies, because one of them accidentally detonated a suicide bomber in Russia. With the country still reeling after the deadly attacks on the Domodedovo airport, a female suicide bomber was preparing to enter Red Square with explosives strapped to her body, but before she even made it out the door, her phone received a text message from her service provider wishing her a happy new year. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for Moscovites, the phone had been wired up as the detonator for her bomb.

Using cellphones as detonators is a fairly widespread practice. Many IEDs in Afghanistan are detonated in this manner, but it affords the handlers of suicide bombers added insurance against “cold feet.” The Leader-Post also suggests that in addition to preventing the bomber from backing out, detonating remotely gives terrorists the added advantage of having a handler at a distance judge when the most amount of damage could be inflicted by a blast.

As viciously ironic, sad, and scary as this story is, one wonders if Russia may have stumbled upon a new deterrent against these insidious remote bombs.

(via Geek.com; image via blond avenger)

The tit-for-tat competition between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world is already the stuff of legend. The space race was one of the most public examples, the Concordski one of the more confusing, and the Buran reusable spaceplane program is probably the least well-known. A response to the American space shuttle program, the Buran was a reusable spacecraft designed for use with the Energia rocket that would have flown into space and landed like a glider. Though a single unmanned flight of the Buran was completed in 1988, the craft never flew again and the project completely canceled in 1993.

After nearly two decades of quiet decay, this is how the Buran complex looks today. As NASA’s space shuttle program comes to a close this June, it’s humbling to look at this other ambitious project that is now reduced to rusting wreckage. And besides, everyone loves Soviet ruin-porn.

More pictures after the break.

Russia is the world’s largest importer of used Japanese cars, with 269,000 brought in in 2005; as the picture above illustrates, the results can be ugly when importers get too greedy:

Gadget Hackwrench. Animated mouse from the Disney animated series Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers. Pilot. Mechanic. Inventor. Central figure of worship in a Russian cult.

Wait, what?

Yes, apparently their love for Gadget burns with such unbridled passion, a group of people in Russia have built an entire religion around her likeness. They pray to posters of Gadget, write songs about her, and places stickers of her anywhere they can. But really, we’ll let their (dubiously translated) words speak for themselves:

This video looks like something straight out of an action movie, but it’s deadly serious: For more than a week wildfires have continued to sweep through Russia, leaving thousands homeless and killing at least 40 people. The men in this video volunteered to help the residents of Tamboles Village fight the fire; by the time they realized that the village couldn’t be saved, the main road out of town was blocked by flames, and, surrounded on all sides, they plowed through it to escape.

Warning: Lots of (totally understandable given the situation) Russian swearing in the video below.

Over at Russian retro-hardware forum phantom.sannata.ru, one man recently showed off his astounding private collection of more than one thousand CPUs, virtually all of which are in working condition. In addition to having piles of Intel processors and some vintage items, he has a number of processors made in the USSR, many of which are actually clones of Western CPUs.

Um, so did you know this? Apparently ICQ‘s heyday didn’t end millions of years ago. According to an article from CY.TALK, senior U.S. officials are alarmed over the sale of the instant messaging service to a Russian company, fearing they will lose tabs on the criminal underworld.

ICQ, which is one of the largest IM services of its kind, is especially popular in Russia and Eastern Europe. The implications are clear: If we don’t do something about it, our world will soon be overrun by guys straight out of Eastern Promises.