[ih] How the Soviet Union Sent Its First Man to the Internet

[Dmitry Burkov]

> On Jan 2, 2016, at 1:51 PM, Johan Helsingius <julf at julf.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Ian,
> 
>> I am not sure - but it connected via Nordnet in Sweden (at that stage it
>> might have been PNS Sweden)
> 
> Nordnet or nordUnet? If the latter, wouldn't they have connected
> through the Finnish part of Nordunet (FUNET) rather than SUNET?

No - it was connection to KTH.

All terrestrial digital connections used microwave system between Tallinn and  Helsinki.
I mentioned previously that we (Relcom) used this system for 64K to your premises later in 1992.

The problem was that there were no other digital lines from Tallinn to the East. Nordunet(KTH) also had very strict policy.

Jaak Lipmaa can tell the whole story.


Dima
> 
>> James Walch in his early book "In the Net" writes about this in detail and 
>> was personally involved- but apparently the 1990 END (European Nuclear 
>> Disarmament Conference) was held for the first time in the Soviet bloc, 
>> (jointly in Tallinn Estonia and Helsinki Finland).
> 
> I hope you aren't implying Finland was part of the Soviet bloc? :)
> 
>> Infrastructure was set up
>> for this from 1989 with modernisation of the Tallinn exchange. This made it 
>> easier to connect USSR and the west apparently, without needing a manual 
>> connection via an exchange operator. So all of USSR could connect to Tallinn 
>> apparently, and the new infrastructure there allowed setting up a link to 
>> the rest of the world without anyone knowing an overseas connection had been 
>> made. Others might know more.
> 
> Funny enough, in the 90's I came across an Estonian company that wanted
> a high-capacity Internet connection (and a large address space) to a point
> in the middle of nowhere on the Finnish south coast - to a peninsula that
> had briefly housed a Soviet naval base in the immediate post-war years,
> and that is pretty much straight across from Tallinn, 30 km away on the
> other side of the Gulf of Finland. They refused to tell what they needed
> the connectivity for... :)
> 
> 	Julf
> 
> 
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