A group of about 20 of us from the Embassy signed up for a tour of the Kubinka Tank Museum. Since it is still on an active military base we had to be cleared by the Russian government in advance. We left about 9:30am for the all day trip. It was a relatively cold day but mostly sunny. Renee did not go on this trip, being more of a "guy' thing. After about an hour and a half ride we arrived at a group of rather nondescript building housing all the tanks. Six hangers that were colder inside than out. A long winter of cold setting into all that steel created quite the cold sink. There was a small cafe and information center. Our tour guide was Russian so we had an interpreter but my Russian classes are starting to help as I could pick out a word here and there.
We spent extensive time in the German and Russian hanger and then had extra time to visit the others without a guide. It was definitely sensory overload. There we many experimental tanks of all different countries. The smallest being a remote control tank to the 2 story behemoth "Adam". I really liked the Motorcycle unit and would love to duplicate that someday.
We learned the origin of the name "Tank". It was the code word the English used when shipping the prototypes to Russian. They just labeled the crates "tanks" as in water or fuel.
Lots of photos here.....
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