These so-called vory v zakone - or zakonniki (‘Thieves in Law’) are the kings of the criminal underworld. This group of respected bigshots, who control the majority of the criminal world, both in ...

Everything you wanted to know about the USSR’s notorious security apparatus. From its inception and until the end of the Soviet Union, the KGB was a prominent force in Soviet politics and society. Its ...

Vladimir Grebnev/TASS Over four million Germans were imprisoned, captured and interned for labor in the USSR after WWII. Not all of them managed to find the road back home. “If I do survive, I will be ...

Soviet Union, the Congress of Soviets, Soviet of Federation – the word has been and is still widely used in Russia, but what does it exactly mean? During the Soviet times, the USSR was often called ...

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 ...

Conflict, comedy, drama, engaging characters, fatherless children and ideal love — some Soviet movies depicted the relations between men, women, parents and other family members better than a thousand ...

Why is its color red? What does the ‘hammer and sickle’ emblem represent? And what about the five-pointed star? Red flags and banners have been used by rioters, protesters and insurgents since ancient ...

Russia is famous for its extra cold winters, but in some places, summer temperatures are unbelievably high. People who live in these cities spend every summer in conditions of incredible heat. So, ...

Central Asia became the arena of the ‘Great Game’ between the Russian and British empires. It was the arrival of the British in the region that, to a large extent, pushed Russia into conquering it.

Often, these summer houses had no running water, sanitation or any other amenities for that matter, but, every weekend, their happy owners would make their way to their dachas, usually having to take ...

Some saw him as a charlatan, others a “saint”, who foretold the fall of the Russian Empire shortly before his own death. His descendants had had to live in the shadow of the ‘tsarist monk’ for years ...

The Bolsheviks were in at the beginning of the Communist movement in China. However, it wasn’t the followers of Mao Zedong who became the USSR’s main allies in the country. In 1949, the Communists won ...