January 21st, 2009 / 1:23 pm
 Random

hey, why don’t you write some historical fiction about THIS?

This link comes via my friend, David Gates, who retired not long ago from Newsweek. David got it from a friend of his who still works there.

[T]he Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided to build a chain of lighthouses to guide ships finding their way in the dark polar night across uninhabited shores of the Soviet Russian Empire. So it has been done and a series of such lighthouses has been erected. They had to be fully autonomous, because they were situated hundreds and hundreds miles aways from any populated areas. After reviewing different ideas on how to make them work for a years without service and any external power supply, Soviet engineers decided to implement atomic energy to power up those structures.

None of us are 100% sure it’s true–and if you scroll to the bottom of the page, there are many highly skeptical commenters–but the pictures are great, and I figure it’s either (a) a very cool, weird nugget of real history, or else (b) something that isn’t true but should be–ie a cool, weird nugget of alternative history.


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10 Comments

  1. January 21st, 2009 / 6:47 pm ryan—

      awesome. it looks like something out of steampunk.

  2. January 21st, 2009 / 2:47 pm ryan—

      awesome. it looks like something out of steampunk.

  3. January 21st, 2009 / 7:13 pm jackie corley—

      david gates rules. he was co-teaching a workshop i was in last week at bennington.

  4. January 21st, 2009 / 3:13 pm jackie corley—

      david gates rules. he was co-teaching a workshop i was in last week at bennington.

  5. January 21st, 2009 / 10:47 pm gcm—

      Leave it to Poe. Pioneered modern horror, the detective story, and that most neglected genre: lighthouse fiction (li-fi).

      “The basis on which the structure rests seems to me to be chalk . . . . . . ”

      http://eapoe.org/works/tales/lightha.htm

      Hats off. Happy 200th.

  6. January 21st, 2009 / 6:47 pm gcm—

      Leave it to Poe. Pioneered modern horror, the detective story, and that most neglected genre: lighthouse fiction (li-fi).

      “The basis on which the structure rests seems to me to be chalk . . . . . . ”

      http://eapoe.org/works/tales/lightha.htm

      Hats off. Happy 200th.

  7. January 22nd, 2009 / 1:47 am pr—

      This made me think of how I incorporated the Stasi’s use of “bottling smells” as part of their social, uh, policing. You can find images of th bottles- clear things, with a yellowish cloth in them – online. I have one character return the smell of a ladyfriend to her, after the wall came down, to be nice. Communism man- wierd stuff. Pol Pot was the wierdest.

  8. January 21st, 2009 / 9:47 pm pr—

      This made me think of how I incorporated the Stasi’s use of “bottling smells” as part of their social, uh, policing. You can find images of th bottles- clear things, with a yellowish cloth in them – online. I have one character return the smell of a ladyfriend to her, after the wall came down, to be nice. Communism man- wierd stuff. Pol Pot was the wierdest.

  9. January 22nd, 2009 / 1:57 am Justin Taylor—

      pr- weird weird weird

      Jackie- yes, David is the best there is.

      gcm- poe too

  10. January 21st, 2009 / 9:57 pm Justin Taylor—

      pr- weird weird weird

      Jackie- yes, David is the best there is.

      gcm- poe too