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 ...

This is the architectural complex inside the Kremlin walls, which includes the early 19th-century Palace, the Terem Palace (the Tsars residence in 17 th century), the Palace of Facets (the hall for ...

How dissenters in the USSR appeared, what they did, and what they changed. When did dissenters first appear in the USSR, and what did they disagree with? When Stalin was in power, almost no one dared ...

Sarah Welch/wikipedia.org Here’s a toast to the explorers and archaeologists who discovered the plant used to produce the drink of the ancient Indians. One of the most mysterious drinks in the history ...

The expression ‘Potemkin villages’ means anything made for the sole purpose of concealing the truth. The legend goes that during Catherine the Great’s journey to Crimea in 1787, Grigoriy Potemkin, the ...

There’s a bunker under a residential building on Kudrinskaya Square accessible to “diggers” and adventure seekers. Serguei Fomine/Global Look Press With WWII memories still fresh and the Cold War in ...

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 ...

The Russian stove has always been more than just a source of heating. It is an element of culture, a sleeping place, a character in fairy tales and the focal point in a traditional Russian house. Find ...

A.Kovtun, B. Korzin/TASS After colonial empires in Africa collapsed, Moscow did all it could to make “African comrades” embrace socialism – but the romance didn’t last long. “During yet another crisis ...

Two of Russia’s finest chess grandmasters, Anatoliy Karpov, and Viktor Korchnoi, both enlisted the help of parapsychologists during their battle to be world champion in 1978. The match was arguably ...

This is one of the most terrifying pages in Soviet history, devoted to the forced industrialization and remote lands’ development at the expense of human lives. R504 Kolyma Highway isn’t a popular ...

Adidas sneakers were a mainstay in the Soviet Olympic team. Then, the shoes were sold under a completely different name. Later, however, they were seen being worn by the Spetsnaz in Afghanistan.