Future Visions of Soviet Transportation (1930-1980)

When it comes to envisioning future transportation, the Soviets want it on a much bigger scale. Their view is so gargantuan that their ...

When it comes to envisioning future transportation, the Soviets want it on a much bigger scale. Their view is so gargantuan that their wundercrafts look like robotic monsters that prowl on the streets. We may only wonder how these vehicles would do and look like. Fortunately, rare Soviet and Russian magazines have opened us to what Soviet futurology is all about.

Just like "Popular Science" in the U.S. and "Le Petite Journal" from France, the Soviet "Tekhnika Molodezhi," which ran issues since 1933, publishes spectacular covers that depict fantastic scenes from the possible future.

In a 1937 issue, the publisher featured an Arctic icebreaker ship that also runs on the ice like a tank. Talk about a hybrid monster that can bulldoze its way to an American research station in the North Pole.

Just a year before the Germans invaded Poland, the 1938 issue featured a Zeppelin airship with 12 propellers powering its flight. It would be impractical by this time for this airship to be a reliable form of air transportation.

The war is over by then but a looming division between the Soviets and its Western allies is looming and it shows the mood in this 1945 cover. A large wheel-less bus-like locomotive transporting passengers with an odd red octopus-like vehicle running on its side in a gloomy, stormy day. A man has an over-sized battery-powered roller blades is in the foreground. A mechanic fixing a large spherical device that eerily looks like the Sputnik that the Soviets launched a few years later.

An amazing teardrop-shaped vehicle graced the cover of the 1946 issue. Perhaps it is envisioned to beat the land speed record based on the picture.

We all know that a tank is a formidable land "battleship" but how about combining a submarine and a tank? The 1948 issue shows a lumbering, slow-moving tracked submarine providing support to scientists performing undersea exploration.

The 1949 cover shows an experimental high-altitude reconnaissance plane flying over a vast expanse of a river valley. It looks like the American-made Bell X-1.

While another issue of the same year also presents a huge flying boat that transports people and vehicles like a flying HMS Titanic. It's ironic that only a certain few are allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union at this time.

Although we are still far away from achieving manned space flight at this time, the 1952 issue already showed us spaceports in the middle of the city. The Soviets envisioned a future where space travel for ordinary people is already attainable. Interestingly, the space launch platform is similar to the ramps used for the dreaded V-1 rockets launched by the Germans to hit London a decade earlier.

In another cover for the same year, they featured a port that literally turns the ship upside down to unload its cargo, probably coal.

Another underwater vehicle graced the cover of the 1953 issue is a cumbersome-looking submarine that explores the deep for exotic flora and fauna.

Commercial space travel before manned space flight was achieved? Well, the 1954 cover says it so even before Space Ship One was even conceptualized.

The 1955 cover shows the artist's fascination for glass tubes as a structural element mass commuter pedestrian overpass. Nowadays, it is already a common sight for most major cities.

In 1956, they believed that an increasing demand for high-speed sea transport would mean the need for streamlined airfoil ships that reduces drag and turbulence.

The Soviets were also fascinated with flying cars and it's just a matter of time before this wundercrafts become real as portrayed in their 1960 issue.

Not contented with novelty cars, they also featured a two-wheeled car that looks like a page taken from the Jetsons as shown in this 1963 cover page.

A weird-looking platform ship appeared in another 1963 issue looks like an oil-drilling platform and an enemy lair from one of the many Japanese anime robot shows.

As science fiction movies became the staple shows on the sixties, the Russians may have been influenced by it and made their own impression of a high-altitude saucer winged airplane flying over a city at night.

The year man landed on the moon but the Russians envisioned space sailboats in this 1969 issue? How does it work in the vacuumed space?

In 1973, the magazine showcased an artist impression of a vertical-takeoff transport plane that resembles the current American VTOL Osprey.

The 1974 issue featured yet another hybrid air-land ekranoplan and personal mini submarine.

Resembling the Miura prototype car, another issue of that same year showed a wing-bodied car that is so futuristic for its time that its like some vehicle from the "Tron" movie.