A mysterious sphere in a Russian forest became a cult landmark. Years after its collapse, locals still can’t agree on where it came from.
In the mid-1980s, a giant fiberglass sphere appeared deep in the forests of Russia’s Tver region. No one could quite explain where it came from or what it was for. Over the next four decades, the abandoned dome became a pilgrimage site for off-road drivers, hikers, musicians, hippies, and conspiracy theorists. Then one day, in 2021, it finally collapsed, leaving only shards on the forest floor. The independent outlet Takie Dela spoke with locals to learn more about the mystique surrounding this cult landmark. Meduza shares an abridged English translation of their reporting.
If you’re heading toward Dubna, one of Russia’s “science cities,” and turn off toward the village of Fedorovka, go past Lartsevo and Ignatovo, then push through overgrown forest paths — you’ll eventually reach a remote clearing. Today, almost nothing remains there except for massive shards of fiberglass scattered across the ground.
A few years ago, that clearing held something else: an 18-meter-wide (nearly 60 feet) hollow dome known simply as the Sphere. It stood alone in the woods and became a magnet for lovers of regional oddities. Families made pilgrimages. Musicians staged concerts inside. Artists covered it with graffiti.
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No one could quite agree on where the Sphere came from. Conspiracy theories flourished. In 2009, a user on a local forum claimed that the site had been intended as a testing ground for anti-satellite weapons in the 1980s, but was abandoned during Perestroika. “And my granddad said that when he and his son were fishing there, they got attacked by these strange red beetles that looked like horseflies,” he added.
Another forum user offered a different explanation: the Sphere, she wrote, was the Soviet “asymmetric response” to the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative — a decoy target meant to draw enemy fire away from air defense systems.
An investigation by the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted locals who insisted the giant sphere had been dropped by the military from a helicopter — either accidentally during exercises or deliberately during training flights before heading to the Chornobyl exclusion zone.
A former employee of the Tvergrazhdanproekt regional design institute claimed the Defense Ministry had once planned an experimental settlement in the area and that the Sphere was meant to serve as “a recreation space with a dance floor.”
That version was later echoed by an electronics engineer, Leonid Simanskov. According to him, the settlement was being built by the Soviet military research and development bureau NPO Almaz. The decommissioned radio-transparent dome, with its unique acoustics, had been flown in by helicopter with plans to convert it into a kind of concert hall.
Even today, on Wikimapia, the spot is labeled: “Ruins of a radio-transparent dome, [part] of a command-and-trajectory radio link for controlling military spacecraft.”
‘Something spiritual’
Whatever its origin, the Sphere had a strange ability to draw people in.
The first devotees were off-road drivers. In the mid-2000s, forums buzzed with plans for spring expeditions to the Sphere. Drivers traded tales of their trips, sharing videos and recordings made inside the dome. Cyclists soon followed.
“It was a cult place,” Vitaly Balykin, a hiking tour organizer from the nearby town of Kimry, told Takie Dela. “Ten years ago, if you were going to Dubna, you had to see the Sphere.”
Balykin remembers the site before the graffiti and trash accumulated. Once, on their way back from a hike to the Ivankovo Reservoir, in heavy snow and wind, his group stopped at the Sphere and found campers who had spent the night inside, warming tea over a fire.
Another time, they encountered a group of young hippies who had lined the interior with candles and were testing the dome’s acoustics with flutes, bells, and other instruments. “The sounds were indescribable,” Balykin recalled.
In 2012, Alexey Reznikov, then a physics student at Moscow State University, learned about the Sphere through a blog. He and his girlfriend hiked there with a tent and spent the night. He still remembers the mud underfoot — and the way even the smallest sounds reverberated off the curved walls. His girlfriend, not normally inclined to sing, started singing.
That night sparked an idea: what if they returned with guitars?
Reznikov ended up organizing what may have been the largest event in the Sphere’s history. According to him, more than 100 people participated. What began as plans for a modest acoustic set evolved into a full-scale performance titled An Ordinary Miracle: A Symphony in the Sphere, complete with music, poetry readings, choreography, video art, and pyrotechnics.
After that, concerts became a regular occurrence. Musicians spoke of the dome’s peculiar acoustics — how even footsteps or the rustle of clothing seemed to vibrate.
“I’m not someone who’s inclined toward the occult or mysticism,” Reznikov said. “But that Sphere … you can’t help wanting to treat it like something spiritual. Even though, of course, it’s just an ordinary radar dome. But because of the atmosphere and everything connected to it, you feel like writing it with a capital S.”
‘It was a good Sphere’
In the winter of 2014, members of a Suzuki motorcycle club carved the name of their group into the Sphere with a chainsaw and posted the video online. The backlash was immediate. Regulars tracked down license plates visible in the footage and floated ideas of revenge. On an off-road forum, one user published an angry essay accusing the riders not only of vandalism but of compromising the entire structure.
A group of volunteers soon went out to clean up trash and paint over the graffiti. “Let’s respect nature, buildings, landmarks — our shared places,” one activist pleaded.
It wasn’t enough.
Witnesses say the Sphere began splitting in two, slowly collapsing into something like a giant bowl. Its fiberglass panels bent and sank into the marshy soil of the Tver forest. In 2021, it finally gave way. “It’s a pity it fell apart,” said Valentina, a small, smiling woman who has lived in Lartsevo for nearly 30 years. “I don’t know why, but it is. Like something left.”
Lartsevo was one of the two villages pilgrims passed through on their way to the Sphere. It’s not a place you stumble upon by accident: it’s a half-hour detour from the main road, and boasts just two streets and 14 residents.
“It used to be lively. People drove through every day,” Valentina told Takie Dela. Her son, Vyacheslav, made a business of pulling stranded visitors out of the muddy forest road. These days there’s no one left to tow. The Sphere is gone.
Near Fedorovka, the largest village along the route to the clearing, there’s a farm run by an ex-Muscovite named Dmitry. He built it from scratch — goats, sheep, livestock, and a large chestnut cow named Chanel. The farm is thriving, thanks in part to the Sphere.
“I dragged a piece of it out of the forest and made a shelter for the piglets,” Dmitry explained. “Why not? The plastic’s light, strong.” When asked what the Sphere was originally for, he confidently replies that it was “a decoy for the Americans.”
In neighboring Ignatovo, a man named Vadik said that many locals have taken pieces and put them to various uses. He himself once considered opening a shop with a semicircular roof made from the Sphere and selling souvenir magnets. The business never worked out. Perhaps, he suggested, the Sphere disapproved.
An elderly neighbor, Lida, keeps a Sphere magnet. Once, she sheltered half-frozen travelers in sneakers — they were headed to the Sphere. “It was a good Sphere,” she said. “At some point, it was brought here, and then they broke it. Rode motorcycles inside. Built campfires. Sat all night with guitars. Left mud. Broke everything they could.”
Misha, a longtime local, has his own detailed explanation of the Sphere’s origins. He said he once worked as a subcontractor for NPO Almaz. There were actually two domes, he claimed. They were radomes — protective shells for antennas sensitive to weather. According to him, they were flown in by helicopter in the early 1980s. One broke as it was being set down. The other was supposed to become a cultural center or dance hall for young people. After the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, he said, the funds were redirected. No road was built. No base was completed.
“The Sphere itself wasn’t a big deal for us,” Misha said philosophically. “Locals went there to pick mushrooms. To shout. To hide from the rain. For young people, it was perfect.”
And yes, he admitted, the acoustics were extraordinary. People came just to hear the echo wrap around them.
