They have these rockets and space stations that always seem like they are about to fall apart. I guess they make it work though. If something goes wrong on a Russian spaceship you can probably repair it with a paperclip. There's this story, I don't know if it's true and can't be arsed to look it up, that when NASA wanted to have a pen that could be used in space they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a pen with a pumping mechanism. The Russians just used pencils.
ETA: alright, stop hounding me! Snopes says false:
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp