Comments on: "Kharkovchanka" - The Colossal Soviet Antarctic Cruisers

"Kharkovchanka" - The Colossal Soviet Antarctic Cruisers

rongorongo — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 08:27:08 -0800

"Kharkovchanka" were giant snow tracked vehicles built by the soviets for use in Antarctic exploration from the 1950s onwards. They were designed and assembled (in 3 months) to act in the manner of a giant tracked spaceships - housing crew and towing supplies. Following a successful initial overland journey to the South Pole they have been in successful deployment for decades since. Youtuber Calum tells their story.

He also made a video about the gigantic American Snow Cruiser, designed way back in 1939, abandoned at the start of WW2 and which acted as an inspiration for the Russians.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 09:04:13 -0800

This is fascinating and I'm looking forward to watching these vids after my workday ends. If anyone else can't quite get to these yet, I found this cross-section illustration and I can't wait to learn more.

By: acb

acb — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 10:23:12 -0800

I dig the institutional wood-panel decor in the cross-section. At that scale, it no longer looks like you're on a vehicle such as a bus or aeroplane, but rather in a prefabricated regional office of some sort.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 11:54:12 -0800

That was awesome. Hopefully his video gets some traction and he is able to contact primary sources who can can verify current disposition.

By: lon_star

lon_star — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 12:05:42 -0800

How does one say Snowpiercer in Russian? Google translate says "Сквозь снег" but I'm sure that basically means "I don't understand Russian" to a native speaker.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:13:41 -0800

Calum mentions the 1976 Russian film "72 Celsius degrees below zero" (IMDB and also available on Youtube) - which appears to feature a lot of footage of the Kharkovchanka vehicles in Antarctica. I'm sure the film has a fascinating "making of" story - but it would take an informed Russian speaker to tell it, I think.

By: Artifice_Eternity

Artifice_Eternity — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 15:48:38 -0800

This sounds like something Hubertus Bigend would buy, after he got tired of playing with his Ekranoplan.

By: carter

carter — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 16:09:35 -0800

This was fascinating, thank you!

By: technodelic

technodelic — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 17:16:37 -0800

After spending most of our time in our tiny apartment these past few months, my family kinda feels like we've been living in something like one of these.

By: rum-soaked space hobo

rum-soaked space hobo — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 05:07:49 -0800

This is a great video, but it's rather jarring to hear the narrator consistently pronounce "Kharkov" as "Charkov". He does address this at the end!

By: uberchet

uberchet — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 09:39:48 -0800

I saw this on BoingBoing first thing this morning and really loved it. One aspect he touches on I could've used a deeper dive on was the degree to which 1940s-1950s Soviet tech was more reliable than cutting edge in a global sense, and how this led to absurd longevity. You see this in other famous bits of mid-century Soviet tech, most notably the AK-47, which looks and feels like something anybody with a simple machine shop could cobble together (and that's not entirely wrong). But it works, and it keeps working, which is why it's ubiquitous in Eurasia now. The American counterpart was the M-16, which required a number of iterations before it reached the reliable and stable version in use today — and even then, it's nowhere nearly the "bury it in the sand and it'll still work" level of robustness the AK has. The AK is less accurate, but it seems like a reasonable trade off.

By: doctornemo

doctornemo — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 13:31:19 -0800

What a fun video! And what an ambitious design. Kinda reminds me of the land cruiser in Lost in Space.

By: box

box — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 14:04:09 -0800

Jalopnik has a sort of writeup of this video.

By: Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon

Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 14:17:53 -0800

this is now my second-favorite soviet vehicle (the trabant holds and will forever hold the #1 place in my heart, and the minute i'm living somewhere where parking is feasible i'm going to buy and restore one. i hear it is possible to make liberal modifications — i.e. replacing the 2-stroke engine with something that doesn't plume filthy smoke — without damaging its true bolshevik soul.)

By: cstross

cstross — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:45:24 -0800

RNTP: ahem, the Trabant isn't Soviet. (That'd be like calling the Morris Minor "American".)

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Sun, 05 Jul 2020 00:13:06 -0800

RNTP: ahem, the Trabant isn't Soviet. On the other hand, an electric Trabant might be more practical than an Ekranoplan - or a ... whatever this thing is.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Sun, 05 Jul 2020 09:08:45 -0800

It's a knockoff Armstead Snow Motor [vimeo] (CW: animal abuse 3:12-3:55)

By: acb

acb — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 12:21:15 -0800

In terms of odd Communist motor vehicles, there were also Hungarian microcars. The COMECON treaty partitioned manufacturing industries between countries to reduce duplication, and Poland and Czechoslovakia ended up with the role of car manufacturers, with Hungary left out. So Hungary bent the rules by manufacturing a car so diminutive that they could claim that it can be classified as a motorscooter, which they were entitled to manufacture.