Both paternal and maternal ancestors of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have something to do with Russia and its Imperial family. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and ...

Sarah Welch/wikipedia.org Here’s a toast to the explorers and archaeologists who discovered the plant used to produce the drink of the ancient Indians. One of the most mysterious drinks in the history ...

At the beginning of the 17th century, the Poles had a chance to crush their main rival and become the ruler of Eastern Europe. For centuries, Eastern Europe was a battleground between two Slavic ...

We at Russia Beyond cover this extremely fascinating time of history often, so we’ve put together your guide to the Soviet Union with our most noteworthy articles. Probably the first thing you ought ...

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 ...

In the space of just nine months in 1917 Russia underwent two revolutions, changing the country's destiny forever. In February the Russian monarchy collapsed. In October, squeezing out the moderate ...

From chaos and crime to freedom and opportunity - this period in Russian history was sort of a roller coaster ride - one we commonly refer to as the “wild 90s”. Do you remember a time before iPhones ...

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 ...

The Russian state received a huge territory stretching to the upper Oka and Dnepr rivers with 19 border towns, including Chernihiv, Gomel, Novgorod-Siversky, and Bryansk. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

Russian church architecture is very diverse, and the look of Orthodox churches has changed over the centuries. However, their domes serve as an indication of the period and the region to which a ...

The “Battle on the Ice” where Alexander Nevsky, a Russian prince, defeated the knights of the Livonian Order, is considered a milestone in Russian history. We explain this, and other important facts ...

From the Arctic Circle to Kazakhstan, from the western borders to the Far East — the Gulag system in Stalin's time encompassed the entire USSR. “Gulag” is often used to describe any Soviet prison or ...