Interesting that one of Russia’s most beautiful promenades also features one of its biggest blots on the landscape.

From a distance, it looks like a concentration camp tower. On closer inspection, it looks like old mineshaft brought from somewhere like Norilsk. Either way, at either end of the prom, there’s no getting away from it.

In Prussian times, in fact until it fell apart in the ’60s, Svetlogorsk had a pretty - and discreet - funicular railway to take weary beachcombers back up the dune. The lift replaced it in the ’70s. But with all the repro-Prussian initiatives in Svetlogorsk, it’s possible that the lift will sport a red-tiled, gabled hat by next year.

Visitors from the EU might worry about health and safety regs. But in the country that put dogs in space, no one has any qualms about going up a beach lift, however tinny and clanky. Fun for the young and old.

(By the way, in case you missed it, Wonder #1 was the Soviet Sundial.)