Yes, but the Soviets DID base their design on the Concorde, NOT the other way around.
References please?
How many revenue flights did the -144 ever do? ANY?
Revenue wasn't an issue in the Soviet era, but it did fly extensively within the USSR before things went horribly wrong.
I'm not saying the Tu-144 was a successful aeroplane, in the long run it wasn't. And almost certainly it was built because somebody in the Kremlin was determined that if the Yanks and Brits were building a supersonic airliner the USSR should too. But, my belief (having talked to people who worked on it, and had a good poke around one in a museum over there) is that it was substantially an original design.
G