The hidden "ballroom" under a mansion lake was built by a criminal who ate a cyanide pill during his trial.

Henry Ford's failed rubber plantation in the middle of the Amazon rain forest.

The laboratory where the Soviet secret police invented exotic poisons used to kill dissidents in hideous and (mostly) untraceable ways.

An unused hyberbolic electricity pylon kept as architectural monument.

Fascinating early attempt at a Jewish autonomous settlement.

Some Moscow residents once claimed the bizarre, contorted mass of metal on top of the building was used to manipulate minds.

Ukrainian defense contractor's center for studying "pyramid energy."

Site of the world's largest nuclear explosion.

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

This iconic Russian space museum sits on a landmark space production facility and houses the Vostok 1, the first manned spacecraft, that was also built here.

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

Siberian ghost town built by gulag prisoners.

Moscow's imposing monument to the Space Age.

A dormant lightning machine equal to all the power in Russia.

Site of the largest impact event to occur over land in Earth's recorded history.

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.

It took over half a century but a Russian monument to a famous and tragic space pup finally stands in Moscow.

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

Museum celebrating the achievements of the Soviet space program.

Immortal combat in a Moscow museum.

This exquisite, alienesque piece of Soviet architecture is being threatened by modern shopping malls.

One of the largest museums in Ukraine remembers the story of the German-Soviet War in iconic, brutalist style.

This unassuming museum's slogan translates to “there is a limit of sadness, anxiety has no limits."

The ghost town left by the worst nuclear disaster of all time is being taken over by nature and urban explorers.