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 ...

Lines were a sign of the times - most goods were in short supply and their rare appearance on shelves in shops sometimes caused actual stampedes. In every Soviet food store one could almost always buy ...

There is no shortage of sporting greats in the Soviet and Russian pantheon, but one world record-breaking finswimmer literally earned his hero’s badge by risking his life twice to save more than 20 ...

There are more than 190 ethnic groups among the 142 million inhabitants of Russia, from ethnic Russians who form 78 percent of the population to the Ket people of Siberia who number just over a ...

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 ...

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 ...

The world is enjoying a boom in chess playing following ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ TV series’ sweeping success. We’ve boiled down a list of Soviet chess legends who proved that chess is mental ...

Many people dream of making a journey on the world's longest railway, but spending nearly seven days looking out of the train window at the melancholic landscape and endless taiga is not easy. We ...

“You really don’t trust us?” Valery Legasov, a Soviet scientist and the lead character of HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries, confronts a head of the KGB after his subordinates arrest Legasov’s colleague. “Of ...

The Russian merchant arrived in India in 1469 and lived in the country for three years, travelling all the way to Deccan Plateau. His time in India coincided with the decline of the Bahmani Sultanate.

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 ...

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 ...