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 ...

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?

Russians are very superstitious and are attentive to various omens. The majority of these omens emerged in the pre-Christian era, and neither the traditional religions that arrived in Russia more than ...

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 ...

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 ...

The Motherland Calls is enormous. The tallest statue in Europe, it is 85 meters tall and weighs 8,000 tons! It is the best-known World War II monument in Russia. Every year, thousands of tourists come ...

According to Lenin’s plan, the future USSR could have had members all around the globe. But eventually, Stalin’s plan prevailed. So, how was the Union prepared? “What? Did the Bolsheviks just start ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...