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Russian Rovers on the Moon
An Ignorant American writes "Perusing an Air & Space magazine the other day, I came across an article about Russian Moon Rovers during the space-race era. Thanks to my American science education, I had never heard of this feat. I asked around (friends and coworkers) and nobody else I've talked to has heard of them either. They were called 'lunokhod', and were the first of their kind. Unmanned, remotely operated rovers with basic instrumentation. Two were successfully landed on the Moon, each driving for many miles on the Moon's surface, returning tens of thousands of pictures. You can do a Google Search to start your education, or read what they have to say at Wikipedia on the subject (Wikipedia also has some external links.)"
[...] their actual purpose was to try and find US made robots and/or buildings(!) on the surface of the moon.
That's an interesting assertation. Do you have any references to back it up? It seems unlikely -- isn't a moon launch rather hard to hide? Why would they need to bother sending a lander there to check?
Did the Russians ever get a human crew on the moon?