In these days of satellite GPS systems, smart phones that tell us where we are and where to go to find things, it's hard to remember that it wasn't always so. Heck - a map and compass is a mystery to most people these days. (There used to be a running gag that no one could ever fold up a road map neatly - back in the days when gas stations still had service attendants who gave them out for free!)
Major Kong's write up of the TU-104 airliner explained why Russian airliners were built with windows in the nose:
Another odd feature is the glass nose. Contrary to what many in the West thought, this was not so the plane could be converted to a bomber! Where do we come up with this stuff?
The Soviet Union was a huge country and much of it was sparsely populated. Radio navigation aids were few and far between. We sometimes referred to them as "a third-world country with rockets" and there's some truth to that.
Simply put, the Russians were still doing a lot of visual navigation well into the 1960s. The glass nose was for the Navigator to reference visual landmarks. There was no nefarious Commie scheme to turn airliners into bombers.
If you know where to look, you can still find reminders that America had a similar problem with getting around in the air, high above street signs and road numbers. Here's an amusing story about
mysterious concrete arrows and towers in the desert, history that's vanishing. Enjoy!