Collection of Insane and Fun Facts
In 1975, a Soviet naval officer led a mutiny onboard a frigate with the aim of toppling the government of Brezhnev. It failed after a standoff with half of the Soviet Baltic fleet, but an article about it inspired an insurance salesman named Tom Clancy to write his book, The Hunt for Red October.
The first Soviet probe sent to Mars’ moon Phobos failed due to user error. While the probe was still on its way to Mars, an impatient technician who didn’t want to wait for his code to be proofread unintentionally sent a command to the probe to shut down and there was no way to turn it back on.
After the incident, an investigation was immediately ordered to determine who was responsible for the failure. Nevertheless, disciplinary action was postponed until the completion of the Phobos 2 mission. This was to prevent the demoralization of the Phobos 2 team. Any penalization of the Phobos 1 team would create anxiety among the Phobos 2 team and reduce the chances of mission success.
This postponement of punitive measures was urged by IKI director Roald Sagdeev. He quoted the former secret service chief under Stalin, Lavrenti Beria, who said “Let’s make them work for now. We can shoot them all later.”
When USSR premier Nikita Khrushchev visited IBM’s Silicon Valley research facility in 1959 he showed indifference to computing technology, but he was so impressed by their buffet style cafeteria that he instructed factories across the Soviet Union to implement the self service dining concept.
In the Soviet Union you would have to take your window wipers with you when you parked your car or they would be stolen due to a shortage of auto parts.
The US Govt. used shell companies to import Titanium from the Soviet Union, to build the Blackbird SR-71, so they could spy on the Soviet Union.
Pre-dissolution Soviet comedians had to have all their jokes approved by the Department of Humor. Jokes about politics, religion, and sex were banned, which left mostly jokes about animals.
A Soviet soccer player was so popular that when he was sent to the Siberian gulags during Stalin’s Great Purge in the 1930s, he was treated rather well as the gulag commanders were also his fans, who gave him better quarters and food rations, and was even asked to coach the local teams.
The Soviet Union had a water computer created in 1928 that was used until the 1980s.
In Soviet Russia, due to strict censorship of music, there was a black market for Beatles records that had been etched onto used x-ray film. Some would sell for an entire month’s salary. The records earned the name “music on the bones.”