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.

Throughout the filming of Come and See, real bullets were used. At times, they flew just above the heads of actors, making their terrified looks genuine. And the scene where machine gun fire takes ...

Starting in the 1960s, the USSR was a net grain importer. For example, in 1963, it bought 10.4 million tons of grain and 2.1 million tons of flour from the U.S. Furthermore, the amount of imports ...

1. ‘The Forties’ by David Samoilov (1920-1990) Samoilov (born Kaufman) is regarded as one of the leading Soviet poets of WWII. His poems depicted the horrors of war and the struggle for peace ...

Forests are what you'll see out of the train window for most of your journey on the Trans-Siberian. Sometimes this landscape of endless lines of trees outside the train window does not change for ...

The death of the Dyatlov group in the winter of 1959 was caused by an avalanche triggered by a sudden change of weather, deputy head of the Urals Federal District directorate of the Prosecutor ...

According to the Soviet Sports Committee’s logs from 1979 “on the partnership with Adidas (FRG)”, the partnership with the German company was already ongoing for 20 years! Other Western ...

Internal politics, however, would come in the way of a promising career as a swimmer. He eventually turned to finswimming and started to gain worldwide attention in this non-Olympic sport. His ...

On the streets of the post-war USSR, it was often possible to meet disabled people on “gurneys”. They were simple boards on four wheels made of bearings. Legless invalids rode them, starting ...

The Russian president has declared his love for classical music on more than one occasion. In particular, he has mentioned Pyotr Tchaikovsky - according to Putin, the composer’s First Piano ...

The Russian style consists of fashioning modern buildings on the wooden architecture of Slavic masters, sometimes deliberately exaggerating their most pronounced features. The most famous Russian ...

The KGB was known for its highly creative methods for eavesdropping on the U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow. Once, Soviet agents modified typewriters used by the embassy staff. “Inside that ...