A museum dedicated to controversial Russian pianist Alexander Scriabin.

Most polluted lake in the world, used as a radioactive dumping ground for years.

Mostly underground in the old days Back in the USSR, today the Beatles beckon to tourists from a wall sculpture out in the open in central Russia.

A tiny park off the beaten path covered in ingenious scrap metal sculptures.

Thanks to a spelling mistake this bizarre beaver-tiger hybrid became the symbol of a Siberian town.

This newly renovated Soviet-era outdoor exhibition center is bigger than the principality of Monaco.

Intricate wood carvings on an island in Siberia.

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

The avant-garde design was able to bypass strict Soviet regulations on architecture.

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

The California secessionist movement has its own foreign embassy, in Russia of all places.

Gargantuan home of Russian science.

A uniquely authentic display of traditional Russian culture.

A 360 degree battlefield experience.

This Russian locomotive museum was once devoted just to Lenin's funeral before expanding to encompass Moscow's entire train history.

Stalinist skyscraper built with help of cryotechnology.

Former estate of Lenin, now home to his death mask.

Monastery complex at the location where bodies of the executed Romanov royal family were discovered.

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

Home of the future Emperors of Russia.

This massive glowering Lenin head gazes out over eastern Siberia.

The "Mystery and Company of Merchant Adventurers" is an Elizabethan-era hangout in Moscow.

An early-20th-century "dacha" village of quaint cottages curiously located in a modern part of Moscow.

One of the largest collections of socialist realist art shows the surprising depth of the official art of the Soviet Union.