Exactly what is the Buran doing in Bahrain?

[davf]

As far as I know, they essentially copied the US tiles. I have a couple of the white tiles from the Russian orbiter (I almost said 'Buran'... such an easy colloqialism to use... and I am guilty of it) but I don't have any US ones to compare to. During the trip that I was lucky enough to go on, a NASA employee was also present and he felt that the tiles were very similar. One difference regarding the TPS as a whole, though, was that I didn't see any use of thermal blankets: it seemed to be all tile. My guess is that the Russians would be all too willing to discuss this if they were asked.