Until 1989, the USSR was a dominant world superpower, however their communist system kept tight reigns on what could go in and out of the country. Starting in 1957, the space race between the USA and Russia had the two countries competing for supremacy in space exploration. This competition led both countries to push innovation and science in education.
Because both countries helped foster innovations in science and technology at such a rapid rate, many inventions were created as spinoffs of the technologies originally meant for the space programs. While the Soviet Union was communist, they still had many of the same pieces of culture that the US did: like magazines for the science obsessed. Similar to the US based Popular Science magazine, the USSR had their own: These covers are from the Journal of Technology in Russia during the 1960s. See more at da-zdra-per-m.livejournal.com.
-via visualnews.com