The Soviet Union was a miserable place of oppression, fear, and poverty. Unless you were at the top spreading the aforementioned oppression, fear and poverty, and then it was marvellous. However for all of its ills – and there were many – the Union did create some truly incredible feats of engineering. One of which is this, the amazing ekranoplan.

Well, not this one exactly, but Flickr’s General 尓àvarre has taken Rostislav Alexeyev‘s ingenious design to its ultimate conclusion, with his ‘MARK II Shiryokan Ekranoplan’ pictured here flying a test run over the waters in Bay 57.

Travelling just over the surface of the water below enemy radar, the General’s not-quite-a-plane-not-quite-a-boat is sure to surprise a few enemy mini-figures when they finally see it coming. We suspect their surprise will be brief though, looking at the various weaponry the MARK II is equipped with.

There’s much more to see of General 尓àvarre’s creation at his photostream – click the link above to head to the waters within an alternate Soviet Union.