Soviet and Russian spaceships in movies & TV (PHOTOS)

The new season of Apple+’s ‘For All Mankind’ sees the USSR and NASA engage in a race to reach Mars. The series depicts an alternate history of space exploration, in which the Soviets were the first to get to the moon and the Americans had to mount a new challenge. 

By the third season, the Soviet ‘Mars 95’ spaceship is ready to embark on its mission. That’s right, the Soviet Union still exists and Mikhail Gorbachev is still in power. A new race is heating up. 

Many Soviet cinematographers fantasized about where space exploration was going to go in the future. At times, the dreams were quite naive (the spaceships looked like children’s rides); others, however, could be way ahead of their time. We look at both kinds from Russian and Soviet cinematic history. 

Sirius - ‘Planet of Storms’ (1962)

It was a rather primitive view of travel to other planets. In the Soviet movie ‘Planet of Storms’ by Pavel Klushantsev, three ships of the same type are sent on an expedition to Venus - ‘Capella’, ‘Vega’ and ‘Sirius’. The last one succeeds in landing, but, to be honest, today it looks funny - the spaceship looks more like a rocket from a playground.

Tantra - ‘Andromeda Nebula’ (1967) 

The spaceship ‘Tantra’ (filmed aboard a passenger plane) was among the very early grand spaceships in Soviet history. It didn’t look like a trivial rocket either. The story saw the crew disembark on an unknown planet, where they have to fight hostile lifeforms to survive.

Zarya - ‘Moscow: Cassiopeia’ (1973) 

‘Zarya’ (Dawn) had school students engage in interplanetary travel as a fantasy of what the future could be like for humanity: at the time of filming, the ship’s design and onboard equipment were about two decades ahead of anything that existed in the Soviet space industry of the day. 

Astra - ‘To the Stars by Hard Ways’ (1981) 

This two-part movie from director Richard Viktorov revolves around the spaceship ‘Astra’, which traverses the universe in search of new civilizations and technological catastrophes. Interfering with another mission is the sudden discovery of a humanoid female alien. 

Pepelatz - ‘Kin Dza-Dza’ (1986) 

The spaceship from this surrealistic Soviet anti-utopian comedy looks more like an old tin can. Could it have something to do with the fact that it was this ship that received the most audience love? 

Pegasus - ‘Lilac Ball’ (1987)

This sci-fi movie from director Kira Bulychev sees fearless young girl Alisa and her friends travel space in a futuristic spaceship. 

Alexei Leonov - ‘2010: The Year We Make Contact’ (1984) 

In the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's legendary ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the spaceship ‘Alexei Leonov’ (named after the Soviet cosmonaut who carried out the first spacewalk in history) is headed for Jupiter with a mixed Soviet-American crew onboard. The ship looks like a full-fledged space station, much larger than its predecessor from the previous film - the Discovery.

The ship from ‘Project Gemini’ (2022) 

In the near future, a virus has overrun Earth and could well cause the end of all life as we know it. In order to save themselves, a space mission heads for a faraway planet using a ship that looks suspiciously like the Soviet shuttle ‘Buran’ (which, in reality, never traveled anywhere - let alone carry out interstellar travel).