Well with this being the year in which the Rockwell-built Space shuttles being retired I figured it to be interesting to look at the Soviet Shuttles.
The Buran (Blizzard)
The Buran program centered around four shuttles and seven additional training vehicles and mock ups which were meant to try out reusable space craft in the same way as the Space Shuttle program was. And although looking very similar to a Rockwell Space shuttle, the Buran was a very different animal indeed.
The Biggest difference between the Buran and it's U.S. made cousins was that it didn't have solid booster rockets, it relied on the power of the carrier rocket alone to get into orbit.
The back end of the Buran, two small rockets were the only propulsion it had and they were only needed to maneuver in the vacuum of space.
A Buran mock up, showing the cargo bay, which was much larger than the Space Shuttle
The only orbital flight the Buran made was in 1989, an unmanned mission which showed that not only was the Buran equal to the Space Shuttle, it also was cheaper to run.
The Buran and a MiG-25 Foxbat chase plane during the landing.
Sadly, after that sole unmanned Mission, the Soviet Union seized to exist and the Buran was placed into a museum which thanks to very poor maintenance had a catastrophic roof failure, crushing the Buran in the process.
The Buran and the Energia Carrier rocket in the musuem before the disaster...
...and after.
So what happened to the other Soviet Shuttles then? Well not every single one of them was a complete built: the fourth frame for example was used for pressure tests and lacked wings and a cockpit. Among the frames that survive today there are only four in complete condition and of those, only one actually flew.
This is the first prototype, it never flew and was used for static tests. It is now on display in Kazakhstan, being beautfully restored.
The third one, again a non-flying static prototype used for electronic tests, is stored in the factory where they made the Energia solid booster rocket near Moscow, it's currently incomplete and in disrepair.
This is one of the Shuttles which was planned to do the first manned mission of the Buran program, there was interest from a museum to buy it and so it was loaded onto a truck and placed on the parking lot...
...Where it remains seven years later because of the sale falling through.
This one, offically named Ptichka, has remained incomplete in storage at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
So with only one operational flight, the Buran would remain a sadly never finished might-have-been.
Except that there was another one that flew. It actually flew no fewer than 25 times and it did so in a manner that NONE of the US-made Shuttles could do: under it's own power.
The Analog Buran taking off, using it's four Jet engines to do so. Because those other frames were used to test out the construction under the stresses of the vacuum in space and to familiarize the cosmonauts with the craft on the ground, it wouldn't have made sense if they didn't make a frame that would teach them how the Buran flew.
In the USA, they did that by bringing a shuttle to the correct height on the back of a Boeing and then releasing it making it glide down to earth in the same manner that it would do so after a mission.
The Analog Buran did just that but flew there under it's own power, after the correct height was acchieved, the crew would stop the engines and glide down. The only other flying Buran is currently at display in Germany, being beautifully restored.
