Computing is like playing with Lego. Different pieces come together and make something new. The Soviet Union was a big country in the past, and they had big plans for building computers too.
In the beginning, they mostly copied other countries' designs. They couldn't buy computers from other countries because they were too expensive and the government wasn't interested in buying them.
In the 1950s, they started to build their own computers. They didn't have many resources, so they used what they had. Their first computer was called MESM. It was really hard to build and took a long time to make, like building a really big Lego set with a lot of pieces.
They also made sure that their computers were different from other countries' computers. They had to use their own language, Russian, instead of English, which was used in most other computers. They wanted their people to use their own language, not someone else's.
The Soviet Union was really good at math, so they used their math skills to build better computers. They even created their own programming languages, which are like the instructions you need to give a computer to make it work.
They also focused on the practical uses of computers, like controlling factories or tracking missiles. They didn't care about stuff like playing games or searching the internet, like we do today.
Even though they had some success, they couldn't keep up with other countries like the United States. The government eventually lost interest in computer development, and the Soviet Union broke up, which made it even harder to keep up.
So, in summary, the Soviet Union tried really hard to build their own computers, but they had to use their own resources and language. They were good at math and made their own programming languages, but they didn't focus on the same things as other countries.