Fascinating early attempt at a Jewish autonomous settlement.

Intricate wood carvings on an island in Siberia.

Social outcasts and cannibalism in Stalin's Soviet Union.

A uniquely authentic display of traditional Russian culture.

Home of Vissarion, the "Jesus of Siberia."

Gargantuan home of Russian science.

This frozen-in-time summer home outside Moscow provides a look at Russian life in the 1950s.

Stalinist skyscraper built with help of cryotechnology.

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

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

An ever-growing literary collection housed in the apartment where the Russian author penned his final novel.

Home of the future Emperors of Russia.

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

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

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

Stalin's secret bunker.

The giant Siberian crater known locally as the "doorway to the underworld" is expanding every year.

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

Site of the world's largest nuclear explosion.

An abandoned town of skeletal wooden homes.

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

This massive glowering Lenin head gazes out over eastern Siberia.

The Nazis lost more men trying to take this Russian-held Stalingrad apartment block than they did when taking Paris.

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