Monastery, army base, and infamous Soviet Gulag in the far Russian north.

An abandoned town of skeletal wooden homes.

Gigantic natural towers in a Russian plateau.

Stalin's march toward a more modern USSR flooded a monastery, leaving a unique and extravagant nautical marker, "The Flooded Belfry."

Church built on the site where the last tsar of Russia and his family were killed.

No one knows why ancient labyrinths were built on this tiny northern island.

Unusual, mushroom-like rock formations caused by weathering and water erosion, set to disappear, according to geologists.

The USSR’s Conquest of Nature lead to the domestication of many moose—no squirrel.

This Russian museum stresses the importance of keeping clean and even holds one of Pavlov's dogs.

A remote forest of stone pillars along the Lena river.

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.

The oldest museum in Russia is home to a fascinating collection of nearly two million anthropological artifacts and anatomical curiosities.

A little church on a tiny island looks like something from a fairy tale.

This building holds the embalmed remains of the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Dr. Strangelove-esque tours reveal the inside a bunker once reserved for Stalin himself.

This ancient village and its adjoining cemetery have a beautiful history of death and remembrance.

This impressive rupestrian engraving dates back to the Upper Palaeolithic period.

An abandoned tuberculosis hospital said to be haunted by the patients who died within its walls.

This unassuming chapel in Portugal plays host to a ghoulish collection of bones.

A windswept necropolis carved into the rocks overlooks the "most Portuguese town in Portugal."

A neolithic tomb converted into a tiny chapel.

An honorary saint of the people, Maria Adelaide became an incorrupt corpse, the clothes intact, exhaling “a strong scent of roses.”

The corpse bride of Portugal.

"Portugal's Stonehenge" is made up of nut-like stones aligned with the heavens.