cover Story
By Chester Hopkins
By Steve Lundin
T
he year is 1992 and a young Lithuanian physicist
production of affordable watches and watch movements, Vostok
named Igor Zubovskij toils away at the Vilnius Radio-
was actually a labyrinth of departments during the Soviet era,
Measurement Equipment’s Research Institute with three
many of which are engaged in activities for the electronic equip-
colleagues. While most of the world look on from the outside in as
the Soviet Union rapidly collapses, Zubovskij and his team live the
increasing turmoil from the inside day after day.
Working under classified Soviet directives, the team feels the
ment needs for Soviet Military Aviation and Space Programs
As the conclusion of that fateful year arrives, the transceiver
is just becoming whole as the Soviet Union falls apart. Lithuania
and all of the former republics quickly fall into chaos. One of the
sense of urgency as their current project approaches comple-
lesser remembered impacts of this seismic change in the makeup
tion. It’s a microwave transceiver being built together with for the
of the Eastern world is the severing of all banking ties between the
Vostok Factory of Chisptopal Russia, and it’s a critical piece of a
former republics and its recent motherland.
Soviet government contract. While more publically known for the
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It’s an untenable situation for both Vostok and the institute