Quickfur, you can read Russian. What are the main ideas in Zalgaller's paper?
I think I can understand most of the paper, concerning trivalent and tetravalent vertices; I have been making similar pictures and calculations.
How does he handle pentavalent vertices, which have many degrees of freedom? I see some topological arguments involving the total numbers of elements of various types, and the graph formed by only-triangle vertices.
What is he doing in Figure 297? It reminds me of hyperbolic geometry, with equidistant curves and limiting-parallel lines.
Does he use the help of a computer? It looks like the work is mostly manual.