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 Mozart and Tchaikovsky to Abba and Vysotsky - we’ve put together Vladimir Putin’s favorite pieces of music in a single presidential playlist! Enjoy! The Russian president has declared his love ...

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 ...

Everything you wanted to know about the USSR’s notorious security apparatus. From its inception and until the end of the Soviet Union, the KGB was a prominent force in Soviet politics and society. Its ...

This architectural utopia of the Soviet authorities became one of the most outstanding examples of engineering and architectural thought. Albeit, only on paper. The Palace of the Soviets is the most ...

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 ...

Why visit Tobolsk? Well, for one, to look at the ancient capital of Siberia, feel what the great exile Fyodor Dostoevsky and Romanovs royal family experienced here and also admire how the city has ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Natalya Nosova Russia has had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1997. But for centuries prior to that, the state was busy killing criminals or those it proclaimed as such - often using rather ...

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?