Science and technology in the Soviet Union served as an important part of national politics, practices, and identity. From the time of Lenin until the dissolution of the USSR in the early 1990s, both science and technology were intimately linked to the ideology and practical functioning of the Soviet state, and were pursued along paths both similar and distinct from models in other countries. Many great scientists who worked in Imperial Russia, such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, continued to work in the USSR and gave birth to Soviet science.