The Soviets were known to pioneer transplant surgeries through Demikhov's work with dog heads. What other bizarre medical experiments were conducted by the Soviets?

by EasySchmitty

I suppose I could have made the title "seemingly bizarre", as in operations that were deemed strange for the time but could be considered normal today.

PerfectDD

Yes, professor Ilya Ivanov in mid 1920s tried to create a human-ape hybrids using artificial insemination.

See: A. Etkind, Beyond eugenics: the forgotten scandal of hybridizing humans and apes, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological & Biomedical Sciences, 2008, v. 39. Special Issue: Eugenics, Sex, and the State, 205–210.

Also http://www.researchgate.net/publication/5321925_Beyond_eugenics_the_forgotten_scandal_of_hybridizing_humans_and_apes mentioned as one of the Ivanov's reasons a 'rejuvenation programs that were fashionable among the Bolshevik elite'.

And this brings us Alexander Bogdanov works with blood transfusion, which were started for this particular purpose.

But despite Ivanov's experiments, those were mostly successful and didn't seem bizarre right now, though they definitely were considered bizarre in that days.