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 ...

From the Arctic Circle to Kazakhstan, from the western borders to the Far East — the Gulag system in Stalin's time encompassed the entire USSR. “Gulag” is often used to describe any Soviet prison or ...

Global Look Press, Legion Media, Public domain The Bolsheviks oppressed the Orthodox Church after seizing power in Russia – but Stalin, despite all his ruthlessness, changed things for better in this ...

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 ...

Even Queen Elizabeth II has some old pieces of jewelry that once belonged to the Russian royal family. The diamond, emerald and sapphire tiaras of the Romanov dynasty were remarkable for their beauty ...

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 ...

Russians couldn’t even make proper bricks before they hired Italians to work for them. The Italian engineers were proficient in war and architecture, and for lavish salaries, helped build the ...

From the tiny apartment that he lived in during the 1990s to Stalin’s dacha and Romanov palaces, the leader of the largest country on Earth has quite a few places to work and relax in. This is the ...

Just five years before Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR, the construction of a giant new tank factory was complete. Uralvagonzavod provided a strong production base for hastily evacuated factories ...

"How is vodka..?" "Why does Putin..?" RBTH has chosen some of the most popular search queries related to Russia and will answer each question in detail in a series of articles titled "Why does Russia.

From chaos and crime to freedom and opportunity - this period in Russian history was sort of a roller coaster ride - one we commonly refer to as the “wild 90s”. Do you remember a time before iPhones ...

Soviet Union, the Congress of Soviets, Soviet of Federation – the word has been and is still widely used in Russia, but what does it exactly mean? During the Soviet times, the USSR was often called ...