The boiling wand is pretty useful in developing countries. I used to use them myself back in the day and some folks used to cook food with it in dorms!
I sometimes use one when traveling, if I'm not sure there will be a kettle or coffee maker in the room. Tons of them available online, usually called "immersion heaters"
More like: "8 completely ordinary examples of late 70s, early 80s design". From what I remember stuff looked like that back then. There is nothing particularly "Soviet" about these examples. Doesn't mean that Soviet Design didn't have its idiosyncrasies, but the examples presented here are completely unsuitable to show that. For example the "Boiling Wand" was ubiquitous in Western Europe in the 80s. The "Aesthetics J…
Also "Russians abroad had a reputation for shorting out whole city blocks by plugging these babies into 110-volt sockets".
Since I assume this is a basic resistive heating element, with resistance determined by the wire gauge and length, wouldn't it draw quarter power in a 110v socket compared to a 220v one?
I don't get how it could cause overcurrent in the generally thicker US wiring.
The Radiotochka (Radiodot) is interesting in that Soviet and Soviet block governments installed radio where the signal was transmitted over mains wires. This was cheap to manufacture, regional or even municipal transmissions were easy to make (for example beekeepers could be informed when pesticides are going to be used) and you can only listen to approved radio stations (No Radio Free Europe for example). In workplaces messages from management could also be transmitted, similar utility was also found in barracks. This tech used in the West for sure, but totalitarian regimes found endless utility for it. Surely, it is also the inspiration for 1984s telescreens (in that they couldn't be turned off and they were always suspect of being surveillance devices)
It seems there is an interesting history behind that "Tembr 3" Radio (emergency broadcast? A telescreen without a screen?) but it is almost impossible to find detailed information about it, at least in English.