Buran

When I was in Sydney around 2000 there was a Russian protype space shuttle on display, before then I didn't even know something like it existed.

It was called Buran which means blizzard or snowstorm in russian. The specific one on display there never left the athmosphere it was just a test vehicle for the aero dynamics etc but the program did get a craft up in space and back down to earth safely.

Wikipedia has an entry on the Buran in general, it mentions this specific Buran:

The OK-GLI test vehicle was fitted with four jet engines mounted at the rear (the fuel tank for the engines occupied a quarter of the cargo bay). This Buran could take off under its own power for flight tests, in contrast to the American Enterprise test vehicle, which was entirely unpowered and relied on an air launch.

After the program was cancelled, OK-GLI was stored at Zhukovsky Air Base, near Moscow, and eventually bought by an Australian company, Buran Space Corporation. It was transported by ship to Sydney, Australia via Gothenburg, Sweden — arriving on February 9, 2000 — and appeared as a static tourist attraction under a large temporary structure in Darling Harbour for a few years.

Visitors could walk around and inside the vehicle (a walkway was built along the cargo bay), and plans were in place for a tour of various cities in Australia and Asia. The owners, however, went into bankruptcy, and the vehicle was moved into the open air, where it suffered some deterioration and vandalism.

Click the image above for my set of photos I took there.