The vintage beauty of Soviet control rooms (2018)
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
A photo gallery showcases analog-filled Soviet-era control rooms before computers.
A selection of vintage control room photos from the Soviet era, featuring large buttons, analog dials, and neon tubes emitting warm orange light. The collection includes the Chernobyl Reactor 4 control room. The rooms predate the widespread use of computers and screens, highlighting a dense, physical interface design.
What commenters are saying
Commenters note this style is not unique to the USSR, citing 1970s French nuclear plants (Bugey, Dampierre) and Sweden's Ågesta plant. A debate emerges over a distinct Soviet design sensibility, with references to seafoam green ("Go Away Green") and ISS telemetry color schemes. One commenter contrasts the dense physical UI with modern SCADA systems, where multiple control rooms coalesced into fewer screens with exponentially more information. Another highlights the UX disaster at Three Mile Island as a canonical example of bad UI design.