Volcanic irregularity? Odd erosion? Alien eggs? Local legends compete to explain these strange orbs.

300-year-old villagers houses and traditional churches preserve a nearly lost piece of Russian history.

An unusual abandoned church damaged in World War II sits in a small village outside Moscow.

Mirrors and glass shards cover every inch of this arrestingly beautiful mosque.

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

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

Perhaps the tiniest sculpture in Saint Petersburg is a little bronze finch inspired by a song.

A uniquely authentic display of traditional Russian culture.

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

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

Monastery complex at the location where bodies of the executed Romanov royal family were discovered.

The mummified remains of Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, Russia's most important Buddhist.

Siberian whale bones stand as cairns marking location of an ancient butcher yard.

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

Home of the future Emperors of Russia.

What was once the base for Russia's first nature reserve is now a ghost town, right on the shore of Lake Baikal.

Stalin's secret bunker.

Stalinist skyscraper built with help of cryotechnology.

The "Mystery and Company of Merchant Adventurers" is an Elizabethan-era hangout in Moscow.

An abandoned town of skeletal wooden homes.

Unusual, mushroom-like rock formations caused by weathering and water erosion, set to disappear, according to geologists.

This remote lake in Siberia supposedly contains a fearsome sea monster.

Russia's giant concrete QWERTY keyboard is likely the largest in the world.

Church built on the site where the last tsar of Russia and his family were killed.