Hacker News Reader

Comment by xentronium | Hacker News Reader

These Meccano constructors are similar to what we had in post-soviet Russia, although I've never heard that name. Then about the end of 90-s LEGO gained popularity, and indeed, 'soviet constructor', as we called these sets, stopped being sold.

I always wondered whether they were really suitable for smaller kids, considering smaller parts et al.

This is what our constructors looked like:

* Constructor parts: http://blogarchive.ru/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/konstruktor...

* Photos of the manual: http://vasi.net/community/kartinki/2009/08/25/sovetskijj_kon...

View on HN

I was reminded of those too! I had the set in the 2nd photo, and remember building some of the things in the manual. Of course, as a kid, I quickly lost most of the bolts and nuts, so I can see the value of LEGO in the long run…

EDIT: Of course, in the spirit the typical ru-net, a lot of comments at that link are along the lines of "LEGO is for idiots, look at what we played with as kids".

But the beauty of things like Meccano is that if you lose bolts and nuts... you can just go down to the hardware store and pick up some replacements!

Although nowadays, it's trivial to order replacement Lego pieces online.

I am Russian and moved to the states when I was 1 year old. My parents would always talk about how our constructor here in the states compared to what they had in Russia. This is the first time I have seen a picture of it, now it all makes sense. It's really a bit funny for me because when I think about it, those sets are exactly what I expect from Russia.

I'm not sure if I am the only one, but some of the ads/banners/images on the second link did not appear to be completely worksafe; I didn't see anything really offensive, but you might caution people in case they don't want pictures of girls in swimsuits on their screen at work.

Here's a design suggestion you're not likely to see in any modern American toy: http://vasi.net/uploads/podbor/sovetskyi_konstruktor/thumbs/...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com