Consider this before romaticizing Russian engineering:
- They steal and mimic technology: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 ) Everyone does it. There's nothing too unique about Russian design.
- They screw up too: The MIG-21 initially was designed with a range of 75 additional kilometers, until during test flights it was discovered that 25 gallons of fuel are not recoverable by the intake out of the midline fuel tank due to the way it was designed. Every MIG-21 ever flown landed with 25 gallons of fuel, not matter if the engine was burning or not. Nice work.
I don't think anyone is romantacizing Russian engineering and I'm pretty sure that they don't steel everything (they're not the Chinese for God's sake). Also, saying the Russians often screw-up in the field of engineering is like saying "you know, I think Paris Hilton might not be a virgin".
But none of that takes away from the fact that the Russians did engineer a lot of cool stuff.