The largest Buddhist city in Europe is a haven for chess fanatics.

Pictures tacked onto trees remember the more than 40,000 of Stalin's victims buried here in mass graves.

Intricate wood carvings on an island in Siberia.

Thanks to this small string of islands World War II still hasn't officially ended between Russia and Japan.

Rare documents, old instruments, and gruesome specimens showcase the history of military medicine.

A magnificent, Disneyesque chateau built for 150 lucky kindergarteners.

A self-taught Siberian craftsman creates a fantastical and personal design for his 19th century village house.

Inside the world's largest seed bank, WWII botanists elected to starve to death rather than compromise their collection.

You'll find rocket launchers, not rollercoasters, at Russia's “military Disneyland.”

This burial mound is said to be the final resting place of Russia's first Viking ruler, Oleg of Novogrod.

A replica of the straw hut where Vladimir Lenin lived in hiding, disguised as a hay farmer, in 1917.

A former military outpost of Ivan the Terrible, the 16th-century church contains some of the rarest examples of Eastern Orthodox mural paintings.

A monument to the defenders of the Arctic in Murmansk, Russia.

300-year-old villagers houses and traditional churches preserve a nearly lost piece of Russian history.

Fascinating early attempt at a Jewish autonomous settlement.

One of the most well-preserved mammoth specimens in the world.

An incredibly random collection of wax figures is displayed in a shopping center walkway.

Russian researchers who have been excavating ancient squirrel burrows may have brought a 32,000-year-old plant back to life.

An abandoned 14th-century castle and prison complex on a small island in the Neva River.

An unusual abandoned church damaged in World War II sits in a small village outside Moscow.

What was once the base for Russia's first nature reserve is now a ghost town, right on the shore of Lake Baikal.

The mummified remains of Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, Russia's most important Buddhist.

Perhaps the tiniest sculpture in Saint Petersburg is a little bronze finch inspired by a song.

Five mile wide circular ring of rock in the Russian Far East is a curious geological oddity.