Tu-144 which first flew on 31 December 1968 (two months before Concorde) is the fastest supersonic commercial airliner ever made. Despite the similarity of the Tu-144 to Concorde, there were significant differences in the control, navigation and engine systems. The Tu-144 was in some ways a more technologically advanced aircraft, but in areas such as range, aerodynamic sophistication, braking and engine control, it lagged behind Concorde. A total of 16 airworthy Tu-144s were built. Aeroflot - Soviet’s airline only made 55 scheduled passengers flights with its Tu-144 before it went out of service… In the early 1990s IBP Aerospace negotiated an agreement with Tupolev and NASA. Tupolev offered one Tu-144 as a testbed for High Speed Commercial Research program, intended to design a second-generation supersonic jetliner. In 1995, one Tu-144D built in 1981 (but with only 82 hours and 40 minutes total flight time) was taken out of storage and after extensive modification at a total cost of US$350 million was designated the Tu-144LL (where LL is an abbreviation for Flying Laboratory). It made a total of 27 flights in 1996 and 1997. In 1999, though regarded as a success, the project was cancelled for lack of funding… 
I’m also including this somewhat rare video of Tu-144 from the “High Speed Commercial Research program” landing, notice just how unbelievably fast the landing speed of this aircraft is, this without a doubt was Russian engineering at its best… 
via tupolev.ru, wikipedia.org, geocites.com, zlosnik.pl, os-umag.hr.
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