During the Cold War, the Soviet Union flew nine space stations before Mir. In 1971, Salyut 1 was the first space station to orbit the Earth. Salyut 2 and 3 were actually military programs, which after some failures, were used to spy on U.S. military sites with this telescopic visor. They developed the analog film on station and deorbited the film cannisters to Earth to be caught mid-air as they descended.
Even more amazingly, the space station was armed with a modified Rikhter R-23 auto-canon capable of firing 32 rounds/second, and they fired it in space, destroying a target satellite in 1975. To aim the rapid-fire cannon fixed on the forward belly of the station, the entire station would be turned to face the threat.
The Almaz space stations are the only known armed, crewed military spacecraft ever flown. The fourth build was to feature two rockets instead of the cannon, but the program was cancelled before it flew.
Here is the Wikipedia entry and a longer treatise in Astronautix, with a number of photos at the bottom,
An artifact in the Future Ventures’ 🚀 Space Collection.
Each eye-piece has different magnification 
Left hand controls 
And inside
Right-hand controls 
and inside 
Almaz camera station:
The crew station for the reconnaissance cameras of the Almaz military space station. The eyepiece of the Sokol-1 PKO Circular Observing Periscope is at top, followed by the enormous 340 cm diameter view plate of the POU-11 Panoramic Survey Unit. The operator is looking into the sight of the OD-5 Telescope Optical System. Hand controls for pointing of the cameras and triggering of the cameras are at either side of the sight.
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