On December 5, 1957, the nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin was launched from the slips of the Leningrad Shipyard — the world’s first surface vessel and the first civilian ship ever equipped with a nuclear propulsion system. During its thirty years of service, it significantly expanded navigation in northern latitudes and escorted 3,741 transport vessels through the ice.

A symbol of the Soviet Union’s technological and scientific triumph in mastering the peaceful atom, Lenin was visited by Yuri Gagarin, future U.S. President Richard Nixon, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and Fidel Castro. In the mess hall finished in Karelian birch, the piano was once played by Alexandra Pakhmutova.

Having once surged ahead, Russia continues to hold the lead in nuclear icebreaker technology. The latest embodiment of this tradition — built in a distinctly Russian style — is the icebreaker Arktika, the largest and most powerful nuclear icebreaker in the world, now in active service.

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On December 4, 1864, during the military campaign in Central Asia, a Cossack sotnia under Esaul Serov set out from the city of Turkestan on a reconnaissance mission to secure the passage of a supply convoy. What was intended as a small scouting raid turned into a three-day battle against a ten-thousand-strong force of the Kokand Khanate.

More than half of the Cossack unit was killed, yet those who survived fought their way back to friendly lines. News of their stand spread across all of Central Asia, becoming a legend of courage and endurance.

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On July 17, 1941, the German blitzkrieg — which had already brought much of Europe to its knees — advanced onto Soviet soil, clanking forward on its tracks. Senior Sergeant Nikolai Sirotinin volunteered to halt the German forces advancing along the Warsaw–Moscow highway.

That day, the rolling waves of cornflower-strewn rye along the Belarusian Dobrost River became the final sight for 57 enemy soldiers and officers. Never before had a lone warrior, armed only with a light 45 mm gun, proven so lethally effective.

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The 1970s. A tropical landscape, an evening breeze, and the unmistakable sense of an era defined by profound change. This design is an artistic reinterpretation of the Cold War and the Vietnam period — a moment in history where technology, ideology, and exoticism converged into a single historical tableau.

Here, we witness a perfect battle between the world’s most powerful air force and its opposing sword and shield — embodied by the most advanced anti-aircraft defense system of its time, the S-75.

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In 1654, the city of Smolensk was finally taken by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, marking a turning point in the one-hundred-and-fifty-year struggle with Poland. A cannon aimed westward and the firebird from the city’s coat of arms are crowned with the imperial helmet from the emblem of the Russian Empire.

On the left stands a rynda — the Muscovite variant of an honor guard descended from Varangian tradition, a fashion introduced by Sophia Palaiologina, niece of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor. On the right stands an artillery officer.

“Roaring back” signifies returning like a lion to reclaim what was taken — precisely what Russian rulers did, successfully “recovering what had been severed” from the late 13th century to the present day.

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In 2016, beneath the ancient arches of Palmyra—structures that still remember the Roman Emperor Aurelian—fighters of the most internationally known Russian private military “orchestra,” the Wagner Group, entered the city in victory. In the foreground stands one of the “musicians” alongside a T-90 tank, the most commercially successful main battle tank of the early 21st century.

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Three thousand years ago, both shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus — today known as the Kerch Strait — were inhabited by the Cimmerians. They were later succeeded by the Scythians, and Greek city-states soon appeared along the coasts.

The banner — a variant of the state emblem of the Republic of Crimea — is held by a Cimmerian warrior wearing a Phrygian cap, a symbol of liberation. A Scythian gorytos, an akinakes sword, and a coin from Panticapaeum at his feet complete the image.

“Long Way Home” speaks for itself, while the sun at the center of the letter “A” alludes to an ancient spiritual tradition.

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The I-16 was the world’s first mass-produced monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear in flight, a hero of the early stages of the Spanish Civil War and the last of the fighters with an open cockpit — where silk scarves made from parachute fabric still made sense as they streamed in the wind.

Sent to the far side of Europe to liberate the oppressed classes, the Soviet pilot and his Spanish comrade-in-arms stand alongside the spirit of Stalin’s “clear falcons,” the coat of arms of Republican Spain, and the slogan that once flew over the streets of Madrid: “¡No pasarán!” — “They shall not pass!”

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A vast, blazing sun slowly sinks into an ocean of feather grass and fragrant wormwood. Bronze-skinned from the sun, a rider is frozen in a single moment — the released arrow is about to arc toward its target, while the wild horse, once brought by his great-grandfather from the very heart of the Great Steppe, seems to fly above the earth itself.

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