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

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

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

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

Stalin's secret bunker.

A man-made island fort that has housed soldiers, scientists, and ravers.

An abandoned town of skeletal wooden homes.

A scale model of Russia so big visitors are offered binoculars to rent so they can see the whole thing.

This nostalgic Russian museum is full of USSR cultural artifacts from the 1970s and 80s.

Former prison camp dedicated to the victims of political repression.

Hidden in a metro shop under a shopping mall, this small museum tells the story of one of the world's largest urban transit systems.

Museum design and public transportation meet in this unique Russian train car.

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

A small part of Russia that does not touch any other part of Russia.

The deepest hole drilled in the name of science, where evidence of Precambrian life was found.

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

Siberian ghost town built by gulag prisoners.

Abandoned castle was once a grand example of Russian privilege, built exclusively to win a frivolous bet between noblemen.

Moscow's imposing monument to the Space Age.

The world's second-largest excavated hole.

Former headquarters of the KGB.

A sculpture park of the tossed aside relics of the USSR, from Stalin to a massive Soviet emblem.

Secret Soviet city once home to Russian cosmonauts and space training facilities.

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.