Ice himself who first introduced Tarzan to the man who would become his partner-in-crime: Juan Almeida. ’90s rapper Vanilla Ice was one such friend - and it was actually Mr. Tarzan’s crime connections and booming business helped him meet a number of powerful or influential figures on both sides of the law. It wasn’t long before the strip club owned by a Russian with mob ties became the hangout of choice for members of Russia’s own organized crime community who were operating within the opulence of 1980s Miami. Fainberg, who went by the name “Tarzan,” eventually made enough money to open his own strip club near the Miami airport that he dubbed “Porky’s!” after the sexploitation flick of the same name, which reportedly filmed in the same building. He quickly found work as an enforcer for the Gambino crime family, doing the sort of work we’ve come to expect from Russians with mob connections - beating money out of people. In 1980, a Russian man named Ludwig Fainberg arrived in Miami with his sights set on the American dream. Ludwig “Tarzan” Fainberg (Courtesy of Showtime) Related: Mexican drug cartels are a national security threat, but the US should not use military force against them Tarzan, Vanilla Ice, and Pablo Escobar? In another, members of the Russian Navy actually conspired to sell a diesel-electric submarine directly to drug cartels in Colombia for the purposes of smuggling as much as 40 tons worth of cocaine into the U.S. In one instance, the Russian government even traded the American soft drink company Pepsi a fleet of warships and submarines in exchange for a new shipment of soda. As a result, military officials participated in the sale of military assets as a means of survival amid the nation’s economic collapse. The new Russian state lacked the funds needed to operate or maintain its massive military apparatus, or even to sufficiently pay large swaths of its personnel. It was during this transitional time that the Soviet Union gained a reputation for offloading military hardware to the highest bidder. Of course, the fall of the Soviet Union can really be attributed to a number of factors, including the will of its populous, but it’s tough to discount the dire financial straights the former superpower found itself in by 1991 - the year the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and a new Russian government took its place. In fact, many credit President Ronald Reagan with effectively spending the Soviets into ruin, fielding increasingly capable military platforms and weapons, which forced the Soviets to respond in kind, despite their struggling economy. (Wikimedia Commons)Īmerica’s eventual victory in the Space Race can be seen as indicative of America’s broad approach to battling the Soviets on technological and financial grounds. The Soviets even funded a Space Shuttle of its own in its twilight years. Related: Nazi Germany’s V-2 vengeance missile: The first human object to reach space Von Braun’s work led to the development of the Saturn V rocket - a platform that took America to the moon and still remains the most powerful spacecraft ever constructed. Those early Soviet wins led directly to the establishment of NASA, and the re-orienting of famed-former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun away from the Redstone missiles he was tasked with building and toward the heavens. The Soviets weren’t just matching the technological might of the world’s first nuclear power, they were exceeding it, and showing the world just how effective their governmental model could be.įor the United States and its allies, dead set on preventing the spread of communism around the globe, these technological successes were seen as a clear and present danger to the American way of life. This early lead created what some have taken to calling the “Sputnik Crises” in America and its Western allies. The Soviets, championing their communist political and economic model, secured a number of early public-relation victories over the capitalist U.S., being the first nation to send a satellite, a dog, and a person into space. The Cold War that erupted between the United States and the Soviet Union immediately after World War II came to an end prompted a massive build-up of military hardware in both nations. The Soviet flag being lowered, with the Russian flag being raised at the Kremlin.
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