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 ...

The disclosure of the files offered a unique insight into one of the most secretive organizations of the Cold War era. In the spring of 1992, a Russian man knocked on the doors of the UK Embassy in ...

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 ...

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 ...

In its long and brutal history, there was only one time when Russia was conquered by another state. Despite suffering major defeats and losing wars, Russia has always retained its independence. Only ...

When everyone thought they were seeing the elderly “leader of the peoples”, they were actually seeing a 24-year-old Degaestani! By the time young Feliks Dadaev, who hailed from a Dagestani village, ...

Both paternal and maternal ancestors of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have something to do with Russia and its Imperial family. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and ...

To describe the Soviet penal system, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, wrote a massive book titled ‘Archipelago Gulag’ after collecting hundreds of memoirs of ...

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 ...

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 ...

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?

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 ...