Russian Pool

I recently paid a visit to Brooklyn to check out a pool hall that I had walked into once earlier this year. It's called Boardwalk Billiards and it's located at 3200 Coney Island Avenue, in the community of Brighton Beach. During my initial visit I saw a unique game of pool being played in which players were hitting these huge, oversized balls on what looked like 6x12 snooker tables. I went back and it was just as I had remembered. The majority of the action was centered around three or four of these large tables, where old Russian men were playing one another. Apparently the game is called "Russian Pool," features 15 white balls and one red, and I'm still trying to figure out the rules (I was more into my own practice session of three-cushion billiards, lots more on this topic soon). From what I could see it looked like one aspect of scoring was to carom one's cue ball off an object ball into a pocket–-a deliberate "scratch by carom." I couldn't figure out what was up with the red ball. As you can see from the photo below, the balls barely fit into the pockets. But these guys were rifling their shots in. Also, they all had their own one-piece cues made of some sort of dense, dark wood. They'd have to be like clubs to move those heavy balls around the table. I'm guessing somewhere in the 23-ounce range.