Freemasonry came to Russia in 1731 when Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England Lord Lowell appointed Captain John Phillips Grand Master of Russia, who subsequently preached among a small circle of ...

When it comes to jewelers of the Russian Imperial court, the first name to be mentioned is of course Faberge, which produced gem-encrusted Easter eggs, cigarette cases made of precious metals, and ...

At a bend on the mighty Volga River, there lies a city that holds the most impenetrable secret of medieval Russia. How to get there: by boat along the Volga from Moscow (journey time: 2 days) or from ...

“You really don’t trust us?” Valery Legasov, a Soviet scientist and the lead character of HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries, confronts a head of the KGB after his subordinates arrest Legasov’s colleague. “Of ...

The rebellion led by Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, later dubbed the Peasants’ War, shook the Russian Empire in the late 18 century. The “ghost of Pugachev” haunted Imperial Russia until its demise in ...

During the 70 years of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the number of constituent parts changed, but most of the time there were 15 of them. Here is the list. In the beginning ...

16-year-old Peter and Eudoxia (who was born Praskovya Lopukhina, but given the more "noble" name of Eudoxia after she became tsarina) were married in Preobrazhenskoe in 1689. However, their marriage ...

This is the story of how the mastermind behind MMM, Russia’s biggest financial pyramid scheme, managed to get elected to parliament while behind bars, how he declared war on the oligarchs and how he ...

To describe the Soviet penal system, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, wrote a massive book titled ‘Archipelago Gulag’ after collecting hundreds of memoirs of ...

While Russia and the United States border each other in the North Pacific, the two countries often seem to be very far apart. Nevertheless, the U.S. has many towns and cities that still bear traces of ...

Lines were a sign of the times - most goods were in short supply and their rare appearance on shelves in shops sometimes caused actual stampedes. In every Soviet food store one could almost always buy ...

Since 2007, the Kalashnikov assault rifle has formed part of the coat of arms of East Timor, following more than 30 years of this small state’s struggle for independence from Indonesia. In 1999, after ...