
This Girl Snuck Into a Russian Military Rocket Factory - shahed
http://lana-sator.livejournal.com/160176.html
======
huhtenberg
> _This Girl Snuck Into a Russian Military Rocket Factory_

It is neither _military_ nor is it a _factory_. It is a rocket engine test
facility. Interesting stuff nonetheless. Looks like a great source of grunge
textures :)

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xxqs
this is a testing ground for rocket engines. It's not abandoned, but simply
the photos were made at night when nobody is around. They perform engine tests
quite regularly there.

the girl is lucky that she didn't get poisoned.

the nasty thing is that it's in the middle of a populated area.

UPD: here's the illustration of an actual engine test [http://img-
fotki.yandex.ru/get/2/33213654.df/0_71e83_5dfd0bf...](http://img-
fotki.yandex.ru/get/2/33213654.df/0_71e83_5dfd0bfb_XXL.jpg)

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ChuckMcM
Translation into english:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Flana-
sator.livejournal.com%2F160176.html)

I was thinking the same thing (vis-a-vis the hoax) like the girl who rode
through Chernobyl on her motorcycle which turned out to be a hoax.

Then I thought about places where thieves are stealing cable to the street
lights to resell as scrap copper and it makes me wonder if this place would be
picked apart like that.

~~~
klausa
I think I saw that Chernobyl one, how that turned out to be a hoax?

I was planning driving with friends there one summer, and whole idea of this
trip was inspired by those photos.

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eCa
You will not be able to drive to Chernobyl by yourself. The only way to visit
the restricted zone (~30km out from the plant) is by going with a tour
company. Which is why the motorcycle thing is either a hoax or she is "highly
connected".

~~~
klausa
Do you happen to know how much tour company bills for such trip?

~~~
ThaddeusQuay2
$600: [http://rt.com/news/prime-time/chernobyl-tourist-
destination-...](http://rt.com/news/prime-time/chernobyl-tourist-destination-
ban-227) (Legal fallout bans Chernobyl zone tourism)(2011-NOV-25)

~~~
sanjiallblue
I really hope they re-open the grounds. That's one of those reminders that
needs to stay fresh in the memory of humanity.

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karolisd
This looks familiar because it looks like a lot of video game levels.

~~~
trobertson
Specifically, STALKER. That's all I could think about when looking at those
images. They look nearly identical.

~~~
enjo
Black Ops has pretty much that entire thing perfectly reproduced.

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jes5199
I love photos of crazy, giant machinery. It's easy to forget that mankind
builds things that are way, way larger than human scale that you just don't
see in your comfortable city life.

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powertower
Today I learned that Moscow has a giant exhaust pipe sticking out of it that
discharges combusted rocket fuel mixture ... which is then combined with water
vapor, turned into a giant toxic fume cloud, and spread through-out the city.

I would love to know the reason for its placement there.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
TIL == Today I learned? (Edit) I must be older than I thought. I take from the
downvoting this is a well-known acronym I should know.

~~~
frou_dh
It's a redditism

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eapen
For a second, I thought I spotted a Dalek in there. [http://img-
fotki.yandex.ru/get/5/33213654.df/0_71e64_c0b3a07...](http://img-
fotki.yandex.ru/get/5/33213654.df/0_71e64_c0b3a07c_XXL.jpg)

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DanBC
I love the images and it's a great story. But I'm cautious because of the
"Russian Motorcycling girl sneaks into Chernobyl and takes photos" thing,
which was part fake / hoax.

~~~
silvertab
I immediately thought of that story too! I still think it was an interesting
read even after knowing it was part hoax! Here's the link for those (few?) who
haven't read it yet: <http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html>

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zalew
I remember the site, but what was the hoax part exactly?

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vl
She got in with the official guide and then reported it and published photos
as if she rode her bike there by herself.

People go there completely legally for sightseeing for many years now for a
small fee.

~~~
zalew
oh, right <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Filatova>

_'Chernobyl tour guide Yuri Tatarchuk claimed that Filatova "booked a tour,
wore a leather biker jacket and posed for pictures.'_ LOL

Yeah, there are legal trips to Czarnobyl and lots of photos from the place
(although you can't enter with vehicles), that's why I was curious what is the
_hoax_ about.

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olegious
It seems she is an expert in this type of exploration- her whole blog is
devoted to it, here's her entry of military finds- <http://lana-
sator.livejournal.com/tag/military>

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sakopov
This is not a hoax. It was on Russian national news network at about the same
time when one of their satellites came down.

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carlsednaoui
If these pics are real (and not a hoax), this is amazing!

Well, even if it's a hoax, this is amazing!

Im surprised she shows her face though...

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nilchameleons
I'd love to see a translation of this. There's a few shots with her in them
that seem like they'd be tough to do with a tripod & timer (though to be fair
I am no photographer) so I'm curious who, if anyone, she went in there with
and what brought them there in the first place.

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Empedocles99
Reminded me of this, a WWII/Cold War missile test site in San Diego:

<http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2008/apr/02/--/>

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makhanko
If this were an active military facility there would have been a portrait of
Vladimir Putin hanging in every room. But obviously this factory has long been
abandoned.

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fedd
she states that the russian administrative code lets you visit the site if it
is not surrounded by a fence (which had beed partially ruined before by
someone).

i am not sure that that will help her against the prosecution, she must have
revealed some secrets of a rocket engine factory.

check the wikileaks case, the guy published the information he didn't steal
himself, he had the right to do so but it didn't help much.

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bmj
Reminds me of the Sleepy City (<http://sleepycity.net/>) folks.

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jcfrei
wow - just a reminder of the vast machinery required to produce rockets with
chemical based propellants

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myth_drannon
And in this type of collapsing facility they test the engines that never reach
the orbit.

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Tichy
Alyx, is that you?

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ck2
Even if it's abandoned, isn't she going to wind up in the Russian version of
gitmo? (Siberia?)

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viraptor
Not really. Of course meeting a guard would be a pretty stressful experience,
but it's not like Russia is filled with slave camps. Unless you're a vocal
activist, you should be ok ;)

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eroded
Sorry, but what is the relevance of this to Hacker News? Please don't let this
turn into Reddit.

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justinhj
From the site faq: What to Submit... On-Topic: Anything that good hackers
would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you
had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies
one's intellectual curiosity.

