Yeah, I know, but the point is Saturn V is shown as carrying to LEO 140 tons - and 140 tons was actual translunar payload (Apollo CSM + LEM, ~45 tons) plus dry

Yeah, I know, but the point is Saturn V is shown as carrying to LEO 140 tons - and 140 tons was actual translunar payload (Apollo CSM + LEM, ~45 tons) plus dry 3rd stage (~15 tons) plus unspent fuel in the 3rd stage (about 2/3 of initial load of 105 tons of fuel). At the same time Space Shuttle doesn't show the empty mass (a lot) and unspent fuel (very little) of Space Shuttle "second stage", which is Orbiter, and mentions only payload in the bay of that Orbiter. We could arbitrarily say Energia brings 0 tons on orbit - because it's, strictly speaking, a suborbital rocket, the payload needs to add some ~100 m/s of velocity to get to orbit, this was done to avoid getting empty stage to orbit (so no littering, no necessary maneuver to deorbit). Or, alternatively, we could say Energia brings 170 (!) tons to LEO - indeed, if one pays no attention to factual suborbital speed and adds mass of empty 2nd stage of Energia, which is 78-86 tons (http://buran.ru/htm/rocket.htm http://buran.ru/htm/rocket.htm), one gets this number. So it's important to carefully compare similar things. 140 tons for Saturn V is too different from 27 tons of Space Shuttle by method, not by result.