Puzzle Series: What is this, or what do you want it to be?
(I have to hit the road, so this puzzle may require the consensus of the wisdom of crowds until I find an internet connection. Bonus points for deducing if it works or not)
Definitely some sort of roof structure. You are clearly looking up towards the sky as you took the picture. It is a tower of some sort with lots of mounted lighting. I don;t understand the glass wall bi-secting the corners and traversing the height of it.
Is it the top of a building or sky scraper?
Clearly, you’re inside of a tall structure, shooting straight up. You can see the bottoms of walkways through the center and top. The round things are just lights, facing up. The tilted faces don’t look like they can be opened or closed.
I’m having a hard time figuring out the reason for the unusual structure, though. I want to say it’s to gather light (like a bioreactor) or wind (CO2 scubber?), but nothing really seems to fit.
Looks like some sort of antenna feed. Relatively low frequency, maybe VHF, UHF, HF or even VLF? Judging from the corrosion, and near breaks in some of the rods, I would guess it is no longer in use. I’m guessing that is a brass or copper screen acting as either a director/reflector or ground plane. I think that what may look like a walkway is part of the antenna structure, sort of like a yagi.
at a guess, I’d say it looks like a tower mounted atop another building. It seems to be equipped with lots of light fittings that are designed to simply illuminate itself for display rather than functional.
This picture was taken during a period when my comrade intourist guide informs me that you visited the Moscow Great Circus, and The Russian Federal Space Agency (Lavochkin Association). (Also the tomb of Nikita Kruschev, but that is irrelevant for purposes of this excercise)
Ergo we have a choice of the central pole that holds up the big top at the circus, or some part of a launch gantry structure.
In an attempt to synthesize the comments above I have my mind stuck to the upper structure of one of the three parts forming the launch pad of a Soyouz 🙂 The one without the supporting rings. [I’m lacking tech terms to describe it]
The kind of places you would be happy to visit.
If so, I think it may be still functional.
Also, the structural framing appears to be wooden, lending support to the antenna idea. Yea, that’s what I want it to be. 😉 I’m leaning towards a TV antenna system, definitely in need of maintenance, or no longer in use. OTOH, maybe an RF sounder for ionospheric research- one of the Russian chirpers?
total shot in the dark. either a zeppelin mast, or a tower for ‘seeding’ the atmosphere to alter the weather (don’t ask me how they work I just know people keep trying it :o).
On second thoughts it looks like it’s meant to break up wind, like it’s one corner of a protective barrier around the central glass structure?
Summing up:
– it’s a tall structure
– some sort of antenna
– there’s something strange about it
– you have good connections to Tesla
Logical conclusion:
it’s Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower!
But I think that has been destroyed a long time ago. So either you know somebody who has a time machine, or Tesla has more plans now than "just" building cars (remote charging?), or it’s the Russian replica (considering the above comments about where and when the photo was taken)?
😉
I desperately want it to be the Ostankino Tower, for several years the world’s tallest freestanding structure and a symbol of mighty Soviet "we will crush you" engineering. I first saw it on a trip to Moscow in 1971 but we couldn’t visit it.
But that’s clearly not what this is. And I don’t think it’s an antenna because I don’t see anything that could be a feedline or any radiators. I would have guessed it’s just decorative but your "bonus points" comment indicates it’s at least partly functional.
And yes, if it can’t be the Ostankino Tower, then Wardenclyffe Tower would be nice too.
I want to say some kind of launch pad. Looks cool whatever it is.
Bingo to rocketmavericks, Steffe, AMagill for the opening guesses, which in selective aggregation capture most of it. And ChrisRudge is correct as well. And the Soyuz references speak to the space race era design influences.
It is the bowels of a roof structure on top of a skyscraper, looking up, and although I suspect much of it is ornamental, it was supposed to gather light for a solar powered clock. It is the HQ of the Russian Academy of Sciences
According to my guide, there were too many cloudy days in Moscow for the clock to work, so it was left as a modern rooftop sculpture, and regular clocks, with a similar design element, were added on another rooftop, to the left here:
The campus courtyard is surrounded with unique architecture that reminds me of some 70s space TV show.
I’ll upload a couple more shots.
Sooo… the Russian Academy of Sciences builds a massive structure on its HQ’s roof, in Moscow, to gather light for a solar powered clock(s)… but the RAS scientists failed to anticipate that there was too little sunlight in Moscow to power the clocks? Is THAT the story they’re telling? This, the country of Sputnik, Mir, Buran, Typhoon, the N1, The Caspian Sea Monster, caviar and vodka. Oh…. okay !;-)
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