I've sat in the Buran- the front windows were completely obscured by instrumentation for the 4 jet engines that were installed for flight testing- just a tiny little hole left for looking ahead. Watching the thing get airborne thrashing at enormous speed down the runway must have been a spectacle. My impression of the construction was 'if you told a home handyman to make a space shuttle in his garage, this was it.'. There was no sophistication at all- just aluminium bent into shape and rivetted. No wonder nobody went into space in it- I can't imagine how it ever flew.
What surprises me is this- they did not have a thermal tile arrangement- I think it was beyond their technology. So what did they use to stop it burning up? And could it carry over to the space shuttle?