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 ...

Victor Pelevin, author of the 1999 novel ‘Generation P’, is often referred to as one of the most important writers in modern Russian literature. But, while his wildly imaginative books are a fusion of ...

In the USSR playing sports was a part of everyday life. It was thought that it’s better to have a sound mind in a sound body, and so, starting in childhood each self-respecting Soviet man and woman ...

Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II who was shot dead by the Bolsheviks together with his family, could have escaped this grim fate and left Russia after the abdication in March 1917. His cousin King ...

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 ...

The expression ‘Potemkin villages’ means anything made for the sole purpose of concealing the truth. The legend goes that during Catherine the Great’s journey to Crimea in 1787, Grigoriy Potemkin, the ...

Boris Kudoyarov/Sputnik By far the most deadly and destructive military conflict in history, World War II took the lives of at least 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians. The war on the Eastern ...

The USSR was known for its many brilliant scientists, outstanding athletes and creative intellectuals. The reason was not just a good gene pool but also Soviet principles for bringing up children.

Despite its location deep within the former imperial Chinese province of Manchuria, Harbin has a peculiar Russian feel to it. The secret, we found out, lies in its history. Go back 150 years and the ...

One of the first to grasp the scale of the catastrophe, Valery Legasov was on hand to mitigate the consequences. His decisions helped save millions of lives, but he paid the ultimate price. A man in a ...

Russians couldn’t even make proper bricks before they hired Italians to work for them. The Italian engineers were proficient in war and architecture, and for lavish salaries, helped build the ...

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 ...