P1220914.jpg
U
A
[Hide] (341.8KB, 1050x788) Reverse >>130781
Much like many other late Soviet creations, it had a dramatic story.
Five orbiters (the actual spaceplanes that were going to be conducting missions) were being built. But sadly only one (the eponymous Buran) was ever destined to go into space. It completed its maiden flight fully automated, passing with flying colors as it landed all on its own despite a severe crosswind. With the Soviets bleeding money (and admittedly the program itself being unreasonably expensive, much like the Shuttle), it was put into a hangar until better days. Over a decade later, the hangar, now on Borat Sagdiyevhstani soil, with the Union dissolved, collapsed during a storm, burying the spaceplane in the rubble. An ignominious end for something so advanced and beautiful.
-Two would-be orbiters were like 20% complete at the time the program was canned, so they were simply scrapped. Not much to say about them.
-Another orbiter, Baikal, was about halfway there. It spent decades languishing outdoors and looked the part, at least on the outside. Afaik it's somewhere in Central Russia still, getting a fresh coat of paint so that it does not look so depressing.
-The most promising orbiter, Burya was all but complete. It is still out there, in another hangar in Baikonur. Technically it is closed to public but the place is so remote that until recently one could hike there and take a peek, though maybe lately the security measures have been tightened up? Do not try this at home. Either way you can see it in the first picture. It has been vandalized a bit and looks dusty but is the best-preserved airframe of them all.
-In the same picture next to Burya one can see another spaceplane. It looks just like the real deal both inside and outside but was never intended to fly; being just a test stand for cosmonauts to run drills on.
Tldr one nearly complete spaceplane is still out there in KZ, there is a perfect replica parked next to it and another half-baked spaceplane that is probably more paint and plaster than metal somewhere near Moscow.
For what it's worth, that is still not all. In order to run their tests the Soviets had built even more test copies, including a wooden one in pic #2.
They are empty on the inside but some of them look like the real deal on the outside. They are put on display in Moscow, Sochi and Baikonur, but the most accessible is probably the one in a public museum in Speyer, southwestern Germany.