Creepy Russian high-voltage towers

These beautiful high-voltage towers in Istra, Russia, near Moscow are the Experimental Grounds for High-Voltage Generation. They still light up and fire streaks of lightning into the night.

Creepy High Voltage Installations (Thanks, Bill!)

(Image: Master Z Great)

[#1 posted by Daemon, August 1, 2009 12:19 AM]

They're also quite effective against armor but are entirely susceptable to air strikes.

[#2 posted by cszostek, August 1, 2009 12:21 AM]

Damn. At first glance that looked like a really great tube water slide.

[#3 posted by jfrancis, August 1, 2009 12:21 AM]

Frankenpunk

[#4 posted by adonai, August 1, 2009 1:56 AM]

Sure that's not just my old "pipes" screensaver?

[#5 posted by Anonymous, August 1, 2009 2:51 AM]

You fools! Those are Tesla coils!

[#6 posted by chris, August 1, 2009 4:26 AM]

Looks like a MegaMan level.

[#7 posted by johnlancia, August 1, 2009 5:01 AM]

Why is this considered creepy?

[#8 posted by Anonymous, August 1, 2009 5:16 AM]

Where are the wires?

[#9 posted by TEKNA2007, August 1, 2009 5:20 AM]

The vertical parts remind me of tarantula legs.

More trippy Russian design aesthetic. (Is that a series of tubes?)

[#10 posted by PaulR, August 1, 2009 5:45 AM]

You see 'creepy high-voltage tower'.

I see 'awesome sci-fi movie set'!

[#11 posted by autark, August 1, 2009 6:39 AM]

That's Ted Stevens' internet!

[#12 posted by technogeek, August 1, 2009 6:46 AM]

Oooh. Pretty.

(I like epic-size artwork. If it's functional, so much the better.)

[#13 posted by bjacques, August 1, 2009 7:28 AM]

WANT!

And a hydroelectric dam to power it...

[#14 posted by ackpht, August 1, 2009 8:24 AM]

Every time it rained they probably had to wait a week for the thing to dry out before using it.

[#15 posted by GuidoDavid, August 1, 2009 9:31 AM]

#5:
You beat me to it. It was exactly what I thought, damn!

[#16 posted by eti, August 1, 2009 1:20 PM]

Creepy? What are these located in Russia's Uncanny Valley?

[#17 posted by mdh, August 1, 2009 2:21 PM]

Unless the one in Baghdad is online, nobody can control the weather.

[#18 posted by Anonymous, August 2, 2009 3:49 PM]

As a Slavic Russian let me chime in: Russian cultural products seem creepy to North Americans and Europeans because Russians openly and persistently ruminate on our mortality, which comes across in our literature, art, playground equipment, and the like.

The weirdness is reciprocal, however: How in the hell can you be so enamored by Obama, who is a fragile mortal leading a short, brutish life? ... Dick Cheney, now, that is a soul to relate to...

[#19 posted by freeyourcrt, August 2, 2009 9:34 PM]

#18 I must be a Slavic Russian at heart because I completely relate your sentiment. Maybe I'm just a malcontent,

[#20 posted by Anonymous, August 3, 2009 3:30 AM]

its like a giant waterslide, only with electricity! fun times!

[#21 posted by Anonymous, August 3, 2009 3:51 PM]

It's a futuristic jail. The inmates are in the black pods.

[#22 posted by schmod, August 3, 2009 5:24 PM]

Looks like a Marx generator.

There are a few similar structures used for particle physics experiments in the US -- 36 Marx generators power Sandia's Z Machine, while a pair of similar-looking Cockcroft-Walton generators serve as one of Fermilab's particle sources.