Odessa's Optimus Prime Proclaims Eastern Europe's Giant Robot Fetish
Posted by Sam_Gellman on Friday, Feb 19, 2010
A robot that guards Odessa, Ukraine, is constructed mainly of old auto parts. Okay, it doesn’t have robot brains, and it doesn’t throw flames. But it’s always nice to see how old Soviet tech like Volgas and Zaporozhets might have been reused had we lost the Cold War.
Actually, the robot is a signpost for logistics company TIS (Transinvestservice), so people could find its warehouse. And as a symbol of the timeless Eastern European fondness for giant human-like battle robots.
When exactly neighboring Russia would get some of them robots was of course one of the most popular questions from Internet users in an interview of President Putin in 2006:
“Yes, we will use the latest technical devices. Already now they are being stationed, for example, in the southern parts of our country,” Putin said when reporters asked him after the conference whether Russia planned to use “gigantic, humanoid war robots” to defend itself.Asked to elaborate about what he meant, Putin said: “These are unmanned aerial vehicles. And maybe the time will come for gigantic robots."
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