A model village fit for an emperor.

This late-brutalist masterpiece everyone forgot about was originally created to get the proletariat jazzed about the arts.

Russia's own leaning tower was built on a tragic historical fable.

A former military outpost of Ivan the Terrible, the 16th-century church contains some of the rarest examples of Eastern Orthodox mural paintings.

Perhaps the tiniest sculpture in Saint Petersburg is a little bronze finch inspired by a song.

Volcanic irregularity? Odd erosion? Alien eggs? Local legends compete to explain these strange orbs.

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

A city block packed with whimsical sculptures that seem to be plucked from a tiled fantasy world.

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

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

Stalinist skyscraper built with help of cryotechnology.

Stalin's secret bunker.

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

An abandoned town of skeletal wooden homes.

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

Russia's giant concrete QWERTY keyboard is likely the largest in the world.

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

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

Replica of mosque destroyed by Russia in the 16th century.

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

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

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

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

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