Early Soviet Computers

Early Soviet Computers are the first generation of digital computing machines built in the USSR, beginning with MESM, the Small Electronic Calculating Machine, which became operational in Kiev in 1950 as the Soviet Union's first working computer. Soviet computing spread quickly from that starting point: the BESM series built at the Lebedev Institute in Moscow pushed the country's computing speed and scale through the 1950s, and the Strela computer, commissioned in December 1956, was used for major state calculations including work supporting Yuri Gagarin's first crewed spaceflight. Built largely under Cold War secrecy and separated from open Western computing exchange, these machines were designed and constructed by Soviet engineering teams working from their own independent circuit and memory designs, establishing the domestic computing industry that later Soviet mainframe and minicomputer lines grew out of.