They were also quite good at processing Titanium, for example the monument to Yuri Gagarin in Moscow is made out of a Titanium alloy (the monument looks like superman, if you ask me).
They had to melt and cast titanium ingots in a vacuum oven, then assemble the components into the statue. This technique wasn't repeated very often, as far as i know.
> They were also quite good at processing Titanium
Yep, and they had a revolutionary (arguably too early for it's time) submarine, Project 705 Lira NATO codename Alfa, that used a titanium hull and a lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor, making it significantly faster than US submarines and even faster than US torpedoes, scaring the US in the process (who bought the propaganda that this sub will be the backbone of the Soviet attack submarine fleet, instead of just a proof of concept that did work, but was expensive and hard to maintain and thus scrapped).
They had to melt and cast titanium ingots in a vacuum oven, then assemble the components into the statue. This technique wasn't repeated very often, as far as i know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Yuri_Gagarin
Also see the Russian wikipedia article for a better picture of the monument:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B0%D0%BC%D1%8F%D1%82...