One of the world's tallest statues is also one of its most hated.

This small museum is basically a time capsule of daily life in the Soviet Union.

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

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

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

The California secessionist movement has its own foreign embassy, in Russia of all places.

Stalinist skyscraper built with help of cryotechnology.

Former estate of Lenin, now home to his death mask.

Stalin's secret bunker.

This massive glowering Lenin head gazes out over eastern Siberia.

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.

Stalin's prisoner-built rail line sits in ruin, never having a single car ride its tracks.

This nostalgic Russian museum is full of USSR cultural artifacts from the 1970s and 80s.

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

Former prison camp dedicated to the victims of political repression.

The tallest hotel in Europe.

Siberian ghost town built by gulag prisoners.

Its front wall is striped with a menagerie of fantastic beasts and magnificent monsters.

Moscow's most popular cemetery includes the graves of numerous cosmonauts.

The past, present, and future of Russia's signature alcohol is remembered in the world's only museum dedicated to the starchy spirit.

Some of the world's only freshwater seals live in one very special lake in Russia.

Former headquarters of the KGB.

The gorgeous entrances into the city's underbelly look more like grand halls than subway stops.