The most famous Russian Telescope trade-mark is TAL. It is reflector Telescope. Reflector Telescopes use a huge concave parabolic mirror instead of a lens to gather and focus the light to a flat secondary mirror that in turn reflects the image out of an opening at the side of the main tube. You look through an eyepiece on the side of the tube up near the top.

Reflector Telescopes are excellent for faint deep sky objects such as remote galaxies, nebulae and star clusters because of their larger apertures for light gathering.

The planets, the Moon, and close stars require high power, good contrast, and sharp resolution, and if these are the objects of your attention, a reflector Telescope is probably the best.