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bausk2 karma

Yes, Russian engineering is distinct, it's very different from the American one and lends a lot from German engineering (down to font symbols on drawings).

The main trait of engineering philosophy is basically "code is king". In Soviet Union, an enormous amount of work was made to codify best practices and safety/partial reliability factors into documents. When I look into American engineering textbooks, codes are referenced a lot less there. Also, limit state design was adopted earlier than in the USA and it has its implications too.

The building code is the SNiP/SP (building norms and regulations) system supplemented with GOST (state standards). It is very developed, intricate, ridden with a lot of legacy codes, and not compatible with Eurocodes, not to mention AISC/ACI. In many CIS countries efforts have been made to align core norms to their Eurocode counterparts but the quality of the resulting documents is often awful so these efforts have a spoiled reputation among engineers.

bausk0 karma

Having read some previous answers, who do you regard as being America's current and future enemies?