What's Russia FAMOUS FOR? 10 inventions you didn't know were Russian

What inventions do you know made by Russians or in Russia? If you find it difficult to answer this question, this article is for you. Spoiler: there are quite a lot of them, including some that are very significant for the world community.

SATELLITE

The launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union on 1957 marked the beginning of the space age and the start of the space race. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth - a metal sphere with radio antennas that transmitted beeping signals heard around the world.

Developed under the leadership of great scientist Sergei Korolev, it was launched aboard an R-7 rocket. Though it operated for only a few weeks, its impact was massive, shocking the West and prompting the United States to accelerate its own space program.

PERIODIC TABLE

The periodic table was invented by a leading Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. He organized the known chemical elements into a table based on their atomic mass and different chemical properties. The scientist noticed that elements with similar properties appeared at regular intervals, or periods. In Russian this table is still known as «table of Mendeleev».

What made this invention remarkable was that he left gaps for elements that hadn't been discovered yet - and correctly predicted their properties. His work laid the foundation for the modern periodic table and helped scientists understand the relationships between elements in a systematic way.

By the way, Mendeleev is also credited with inventing vodka in the form we know it today. But despite his research into the interaction of water and alcohol, this is a myth.

HELICOPTER

An engineer Igor Sikorsky designed the first successful modern helicopter. In 1939, he built and flew the VS 300, a single-rotor helicopter with a tail rotor to counterbalance the torque - a design still used today. Sikorsky's helicopter could take off and land vertically, hover, and fly in all directions, making it far more versatile than airplanes.

The Russian engineer has many other outstanding developments to his credit too.

KNAPSACK PARACHUTE / DROGUE PARACHUTE

Early in the 20th century, professor Gleb Kotelnikov witnessed the death of a Russian pilot Lev Matsivich which shocked him so much that he got obsessed with the idea of creating a special rescue system for safe landing, and did it in 1911. A year later, Kotelnikov accelerated the car to a breakneck speed, and then open a parachute attached to the back seat of the automobile, which caused the car to slow down. That was the first test of a drogue parachute. Now, such constructions are used in aviation.

VODKA

Yes, you were waiting for this. Although the Poles and Russians have long been hotly debating which of them invented this alcoholic drink, there is no doubt that vodka as we know it today was certainly shaped and popularized in Russia, especially during the imperial and Soviet eras.

In our country, vodka has been produced since at least the late 15th century, with one of the earliest known references to it dating to around 1430. Russian monk Isidore of the Chudov Monastery is often credited with creating an early version using distillation techniques.

TETRIS

This classic game was invented in 1984 by Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov while he was working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Inspired by a traditional puzzle game involving fitting shapes together, Pajitnov created a game where players rotate and arrange falling blocks to complete lines. Tetris quickly became a worldwide sensation.

SYNTHETIC RUBBER

Rubber is used in wheels of cars, bicycles and planes, etc. This is an irreplaceable thing in our everyday life. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian chemist Sergei Lebedev successfully developed the first synthetic rubber.

RADIO

Alexander Popov, a Russian physicist, demonstrated a wireless communication device in 1895, around the same time as Guglielmo Marconi in Italy. On May 7, Popov presented his wireless receiver, which could detect electromagnetic waves, and by 1896, he transmitted a message using Morse code. That is, radio was invented in two places at the same time independently, but Marconi was the first to receive a patent for it.

FABERGÉ EGGS

These masterpiece jewelries were originally made by the House of Fabergé, a jewelry firm founded by Peter Carl Fabergé in Russia. The eggs were crafted from the end of the 19th century till the Revolution in Saint Petersburg, mainly as luxurious Easter gifts for the Russian Imperial family.

Today, the original House of Fabergé no longer exists, but its brand has been revived and is owned by various companies that produce exquisite jewelry and collectibles inspired by the original eggs.

LOMONOSOV'S CONTRIBUTION

We would like to mention separately not an invention, but an inventor and, first of all, discoverer - Mikhail Lomonosov. This undoubtedly brilliant polymath, who stands on par with such luminaries of science as Nicolaus Copernicus, Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton, influenced global knowledge in chemistry, physics, and beyond. His key contributions are:

1) Lomonosov discovered the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions, stating that mass is neither created nor destroyed;
2) he also found out Venus has an atmosphere.
3) He theorized about continental drift, Arctic exploration, and the formation of icebergs and sea ice.
4) He proposed that heat is a form of motion of particles, anticipating later developments in kinetic theory.

The scientist's achievements are not limited to this - he was known as an optician (improved the telescope), a reformer of the Russian language, a poet, and so on. In Russia he is considered one of the iconic figures.

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