Communism's topsy-turvy effect on Poland has been brought to life in this wacky tourist trap.

A program of Communist glamour in post-Stalin Poland is preserved in this colorful museum.

The former Nazi concentration camp stands as a museum to remember this dark chapter in European history.

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

The last stop in southeast Russia.

A collection of iconic Soviet car models on display.

Mostly underground in the old days Back in the USSR, today the Beatles beckon to tourists from a wall sculpture out in the open in central Russia.

A "station to nowhere" marks the site of a Siberian subway project that never saw the light of day.

You'll find rocket launchers, not rollercoasters, at Russia's “military Disneyland.”

The laboratory where the Soviet secret police invented exotic poisons used to kill dissidents in hideous and (mostly) untraceable ways.

Fascinating early attempt at a Jewish autonomous settlement.

A monument to the defenders of the Arctic in Murmansk, Russia.

A replica of the straw hut where Vladimir Lenin lived in hiding, disguised as a hay farmer, in 1917.

One of the last examples of Soviet architectural propaganda has a few technological tricks up its sleeve.

This massive monument honors the first human in space.

An art museum inside an active factory.

A small and surprising passageway in Saint Petersburg devoted to the Beatles.

Site of the world's largest nuclear explosion.

The world's tallest statue of a woman wields the world's tallest sword and is at risk of toppling over.

Europe's highest peak is a key pillar of the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge.

A surreal pile of colorful junk fills a small yard in an otherwise gray neighborhood.

This 15th-century cave complex is one of the very few monasteries to stay open throughout World War II and the Soviet regime.

This Russian locomotive museum was once devoted just to Lenin's funeral before expanding to encompass Moscow's entire train history.

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