During the 70 years of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the number of constituent parts changed, but most of the time there were 15 of them. Here is the list. In the beginning ...

It is also one of the most horrifying and difficult movies about World War II which will haunt you for a long time. Come and See is often considered to be the best war movie of all time and is for ...

Russia sells more wheat than any other country in the world. At the same time, its domestic grain consumption is growing, too. So how did Russia manage to achieve this breakthrough in wheat exports?

The Russian state received a huge territory stretching to the upper Oka and Dnepr rivers with 19 border towns, including Chernihiv, Gomel, Novgorod-Siversky, and Bryansk. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

Crowns were usually made individually for each emperor and then broken up afterwards. But some pieces of imperial regalia did survive and can now be seen in museums. Before Peter I, the Tsar's most ...

The great poet’s death has taken on an almost mythical status in Russian culture. Here are five interesting facts about this seminal event in Russian literary history. Most Russians will tell you that ...

This small republic in the north of Russia is famous for its blue lakes, marble quarries and mountain forests filled with giant boulders. The capital and the largest city in Karelia (with just under ...

According to one theory, ‘Russian roulette’ emerged in the Tsarist army as a relatively “safe” trick that easily impressed onlookers. Wulich […] invited us to sit around in a sign. [We] silently ...

The square in Moscow has been associated with executions, violence and torture in the 20th century. It however has a dark past that goes back all the way to the 18th century. For Russians, the word ...

Rodchenko was a comrade-in-“arts” of the Russian avant-gardists Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Tatlin, and Kazimir Malevich, whom he photographed. He also captured on film the unconventional, creative ...

Cossacks are not a race, nation, profession, nor a term for a particular location. They are all of those, combined. Let’s debunk the myths about what the Cossacks were and what they are now. They ...

These so-called vory v zakone - or zakonniki (‘Thieves in Law’) are the kings of the criminal underworld. This group of respected bigshots, who control the majority of the criminal world, both in ...