97 Fun Facts About Russia

Which Russian scientist won a Nobel Prize for studying digestion?

Ivan Pavlov: his digestion research led him on to conditioned reflexes, the dog experiments he's best remembered for.

Which mountain range is traditionally taken as the boundary between European and Asian Russia?

Ural Mountains: most Russians live west of the range, even though about three-quarters of the country's land lies east of it.

At 5,642 metres, which Caucasus volcano is Russia's highest mountain?

Mount Elbrus is often called Europe's highest peak, but whether it beats Mont Blanc depends on where you draw the line between Europe and Asia.

Which river is the longest in Europe?

Volga: despite being Europe's longest and biggest river, it has no natural connection to any of the world's oceans.

Which Siberian lake holds more fresh water than all of North America's Great Lakes combined?

Lake Baikal sits in a rift where the Earth's crust is slowly pulling apart, which is how it became the deepest lake in the world.

What is the nerpa, an animal found only in one Siberian lake?

A freshwater seal: when the lake freezes over, it keeps breathing holes open in the ice, and its pups are born on the ice too.

Which Russian territory on the Baltic coast has no land connection to the rest of the country?

Kaliningrad was the German city of Königsberg until the Soviet Union annexed the territory after Nazi Germany's defeat.

Klyuchevskaya Sopka, the highest active volcano in Eurasia, stands on which Russian peninsula?

Kamchatka was a closed military zone for decades, and even Soviet citizens needed special permission to go there until it opened up in 1990.

The Trans-Siberian, the world's longest railway line, runs from Moscow to which Pacific port?

Vladivostok: the distances were so vast that crews built different sections at the same time, before a bridge over the Amur completed the line in 1916.

Which US Secretary of State negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia, mocked by critics as his 'Folly'?

William Seward agreed a price of $7.2 million, and after gold was found in the Yukon in 1896, sparsely settled Alaska became the gateway to the Klondike.

At which world's fair did Russian matryoshka nesting dolls win a bronze medal and first gain attention?

Paris 1900: the Mamontov family showed the dolls at the Exposition Universelle, and soon regions across Russia were making matryoshkas in their own styles.

About how deep is Russia's Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest hole humans have ever drilled?

About 12 km: drilling was halted when the rock turned out far hotter than expected, at around 180 °C.

What most likely caused the 1908 Tunguska blast that flattened 2,150 square kilometres of Siberian forest?

An exploding space rock: it blew up several kilometres above the ground rather than hitting it, which is why no impact crater was ever found.

Which video game did Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov create in Moscow in the mid-1980s?

Tetris earned Alexey Pajitnov nothing for years: as an employee of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he received no royalties until 1996.

Which Soviet dog became the first animal to orbit Earth, aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957?

Laika died of overheating within hours, but the story that she had survived for days in orbit held until the truth came out in 2002.

Which village in the Sakha Republic is often called the coldest permanently inhabited settlement on Earth?

Oymyakon has a monument in its square boasting of −71.2 °C, a reading that was never officially recognised.

Which tsar ordered St Basil's Cathedral built to celebrate capturing Kazan and Astrakhan?

Ivan the Terrible, legend says, blinded the architect so he could never repeat the design, but records show the builder kept working afterwards.

Which composer's Seventh Symphony was performed in besieged Leningrad and broadcast by loudspeaker to the German lines?

Dmitri Shostakovich: New York heard the symphony before Leningrad did, when the NBC Symphony Orchestra played it there in July 1942.

Peter the Great founded Saint Petersburg on the site of a fortress captured from which country?

Sweden: Peter was fighting the Great Northern War to break Sweden's grip on the Baltic, and he later made his new city Russia's capital.

Peter the Great made men pay an annual tax for refusing to give up what?

Their beards: Peter brought the tax in during 1698, after touring Western Europe, and men who paid it carried a token as proof.

Catherine the Great, Russia's longest-reigning empress, was born in which country?

Prussia: born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst in Stettin, now Szczecin in Poland, she seized the Russian throne in a 1762 coup against her husband.

Catherine the Great founded the Hermitage in 1764 by buying paintings from a merchant in which city?

Berlin: merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky had gathered the paintings for Frederick the Great, who stopped buying during the Seven Years' War.

Which Soviet space hero died in a 1968 plane crash, seven years after his famous flight?

Yuri Gagarin: at the end of his officially 108-minute flight, he ejected from his capsule and came down separately by parachute.

Which Russian novelist was led out to be shot in 1849, only to be reprieved at the last moment?

Fyodor Dostoevsky: the tsar's reprieve arrived as the prisoners waited, and he was sent to a Siberian prison camp for four years instead.

Architects from which country built the Moscow Kremlin's current walls and towers?

Italy: builders such as Pietro Antonio Solari took their lead from castles back home, including Milan's Castello Sforzesco.

Which tsar commissioned the first imperial Fabergé Easter egg, the Hen Egg, in 1885?

Alexander III gave it to his wife as an Easter surprise, and his son Nicholas II kept the tradition going for both his mother and his wife.

On which night does Ded Moroz, Russia's Grandfather Frost, traditionally bring children their presents?

New Year's Eve: early Soviet authorities denounced Christmas figures, so Ded Moroz and the fir tree were recast around a secular New Year festival.

Which town in Vologda Oblast is regarded as the official home of Ded Moroz?

Veliky Ustyug has Ded Moroz's own post office, where letters to him get answers, and his 'residence' draws tourists, especially in winter.

In which city were Nicholas II and his family shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House in July 1918?

Yekaterinburg: in 1977 local party boss Boris Yeltsin had the Ipatiev House demolished on Politburo orders, to stop it becoming a shrine.

Stalin's grand Moscow Metro stations were meant to serve as underground what for the people?

Palaces: when German bombs fell on Moscow in 1941, the stations became air-raid shelters where Muscovites took refuge.

Which German commander of the 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad in 1943?

Friedrich Paulus gave up on 31 January 1943, the day after Hitler promoted him to field marshal, a hint that he should die rather than be captured.

Which battle of 7 September 1812, west of Moscow, was the bloodiest single day of Napoleon's Russian campaign?

Borodino: Napoleon was left holding the field, but marching on into Moscow ultimately led to his defeat.

Which prince led the group of nobles who murdered Grigori Rasputin in late 1916?

Felix Yusupov: the empress, who believed Rasputin eased her son's haemophilia, demanded the killers be executed, yet none of them was ever put to death.

Which Russian composer conducted at the opening concert of New York's Carnegie Hall in 1891?

Tchaikovsky: he only took up conducting in 1887, and the concert tours that followed brought him to America.

Which Russian chemist published the periodic law and his periodic table of elements in 1869?

Dmitri Mendeleev left gaps in his table and correctly predicted the properties of elements not yet found: gallium, scandium and germanium.

Which Russian world chess champion lost a 1997 match to IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue?

Garry Kasparov had beaten Deep Blue 4–2 in 1996, but in the 1997 rematch it became the first computer to beat a reigning world champion in a match.

The Russian title 'tsar' shares its Latin root with which German title?

Kaiser: both come from the name Caesar, which the Romans raised into a title for their emperors after Julius Caesar.

Which leader resigned as president of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991?

Mikhail Gorbachev: weeks earlier, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus had signed an accord declaring that the Soviet Union no longer existed.

Which former residence of the Russian emperors is the main building of St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum?

Winter Palace: the Bolsheviks stormed it in October 1917, and afterwards it became the Hermitage's main home.

Which sea does Russia share with Iran and Turkmenistan?

Caspian Sea: despite its name, it's often described as the world's largest lake, with no natural connection to any ocean.

Which Siberian river does the Irtysh flow into?

Ob: though the Irtysh is only its tributary, it runs about 4,250 km, farther than the Ob itself.

What does the name of Ded Moroz's granddaughter and helper, Snegurochka, mean in English?

Snow Maiden: in one folk tale she vanishes while jumping over a bonfire, and in Ostrovsky's play she melts once she falls in love.

Which country claims the southernmost Kuril Islands, which the Soviet Union seized at the end of World War II?

Japan: the Soviet Union never signed the 1951 San Francisco peace treaty, and in 1956 the two sides ended their state of war without one.

Which Asian country shares Russia's shortest land border, about 17 km long?

North Korea: the frontier only follows the last stretch of the Tumen River, from the Chinese border to the sea.

Big Diomede and Little Diomede islands sit in the middle of which strait?

The Bering Strait: Russia's Big Diomede and America's Little Diomede lie about 4 km apart, but the date line between them puts Big Diomede almost a day ahead.

During which Russian president's term were presidential terms extended from four years to six?

Dmitry Medvedev: the longer terms applied once Vladimir Putin won back the presidency in 2012, and a 2020 amendment reset the count of Putin's terms.

According to the Primary Chronicle, quarrelling tribes invited a prince from which people to rule them?

The Varangians: the tribes had earlier driven them back across the sea, but after falling to fighting among themselves, they invited them back.

Which Ice Age animal survived on Russia's remote Wrangel Island until around 4,000 years ago?

The woolly mammoth held on there for some 6,000 years after vanishing from the mainland, outliving the rise of Bronze Age cities such as Sumer.

The 'Red' in the name of Moscow's Red Square comes from a Russian word that once meant what?

Beautiful was the old meaning of krasnaya, which only later came to mean red. Main squares in other old Russian towns carry the very same name.

Which daughter of Tsar Nicholas II was long rumoured to have survived her family's 1918 execution?

Anastasia Nikolaevna's burial place stayed unknown for decades, which let impostors such as Anna Anderson claim to be her. DNA tests later showed she died with her family.

Which vegetable gives its name to the bulb-shaped domes on top of Russian Orthodox churches?

Onion domes crown Russian buildings from as early as the 13th century, yet nobody is quite sure when or why the shape caught on.

Which Soviet tank commander turned weapons designer gave his name to the AK-47 assault rifle?

Mikhail Kalashnikov had dreamed of becoming a poet, and he kept writing poetry all his life alongside his rifle designs.

Which alphabet, whose modern Russian form has 33 letters, is used to write the Russian language?

Cyrillic is named in honour of Saint Cyril, though it was probably devised by his disciples in 9th-century Bulgaria rather than by the missionary himself.

For a Russian man called Ivan Petrovich Sidorov, what does the middle part, Petrovich, reveal?

His father's first name was Pyotr: Russians carry a patronymic built from the father's name, and it is written in all legal and identity documents.

In Russian folklore, the witch Baba Yaga lives in a hut standing on the legs of which animal?

A chicken's legs let the hut turn on the spot, while Baba Yaga herself gets about by flying in a wooden mortar and wielding a pestle.

Which Soviet cosmonaut became the first woman in space when she flew solo aboard Vostok 6 in 1963?

Valentina Tereshkova was a textile factory worker and amateur skydiver before her flight, and she remains the only woman to have flown a solo space mission.

Which author of War and Peace died at the remote Astapovo railway station in 1910?

Leo Tolstoy was 82 and a day into a train journey south when pneumonia struck. His heroine Anna Karenina also meets her end at a railway station.

Which thin Russian pancakes are traditionally eaten during Maslenitsa, the festive week before Lent?

Blini were a treat eaten twice a day during the festival, whose name means 'butter week' and which marks the end of winter.

Which traditional Russian drink, only slightly alcoholic, is made by fermenting rye bread?

Kvass is cloudy, sweet-and-sour and only faintly alcoholic, and for generations vendors sold it from barrels on the street.

Which metal urn, whose Russian name means 'self-brewer', traditionally boils water for tea in Russia?

Samovar makers clustered in Tula, a city of metalworkers and gunsmiths that has been the heart of the trade since the 18th century.

Which Russian folk instrument has a triangular wooden body and just three strings?

The balalaika comes in a whole family of sizes, from a tiny piccolo to a contrabass so big that it rests on the floor on extension legs.

Which Moscow theatre, whose name means 'big', is home to a ballet company founded in 1776?

The Bolshoi has a neighbour on the same square called the Maly, or 'small' theatre, and its ballet troupe is among the oldest in the world.

Which poet, seen as the founder of modern Russian literature, was fatally wounded in an 1837 duel?

Alexander Pushkin was shot by Georges d'Anthès, a French officer rumoured to be his wife's lover, and died two days later.

Which Russian playwright, author of The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull, was a doctor by profession?

Anton Chekhov once said "Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress", and he treated poor patients free of charge.

Which author of Doctor Zhivago was forced by Soviet authorities to decline a Nobel Prize in 1958?

Boris Pasternak could not publish his novel at home, so the manuscript was smuggled abroad and first printed in 1957.

Which Russian-born novelist wrote Lolita in English and was also an expert on butterflies?

Vladimir Nabokov was a serious lepidopterist who also composed chess problems, and he reached America in 1940 after fleeing the German advance into France.

Which Soviet cosmonaut made the first ever spacewalk in 1965, spending 12 minutes outside Voskhod 2?

Alexei Leonov almost failed to get back in: his suit ballooned so much that he had to bleed off air before he could squeeze through the airlock.

Which Soviet space station orbited Earth from 1986 until it was deliberately brought down in 2001?

Mir means both 'peace' and 'world' in Russian, and it was the first space station to be assembled in orbit from separate modules.

Russia leases Baikonur Cosmodrome, its historic space launch site, from which neighbouring country?

Kazakhstan inherited the site when the Soviet Union broke up, so Russia now pays rent for the cosmodrome that sent the first human into space.

On which planet did a Soviet probe make the first soft landing on any planet beyond Earth in 1970?

Venus was also where a later Soviet lander, Venera 9, took the first pictures ever sent back from the surface of another planet.

Which Russian currency, in use since the 14th century, is divided into 100 kopeks?

The ruble is the second-oldest currency still in circulation, behind only Britain's pound sterling.

Which three colours, from top to bottom, make up the horizontal stripes of Russia's national flag?

White, blue, red was introduced by Tsar Peter the Great in 1693 and adopted in 1705 as the flag flown by Russian merchant ships.

Which creature, clutching a sceptre and an orb, appears on the national coat of arms of Russia?

A two-headed eagle has been Russia's emblem since the late 15th century, an image with Byzantine and even older roots.

Whose preserved body has been on public display in a mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square since 1924?

Vladimir Lenin died in January 1924, and within two days an architect was told to build a tomb where mourners could view the body.

Which Soviet engineer, publicly known only as the 'Chief Designer', led the launch of Sputnik 1?

Sergei Korolev had survived nearly six years in prison and labour camps on false charges, and his name was only made public after his death in 1966.

Which Soviet goalkeeper, nicknamed 'the Black Spider', won football's Ballon d'Or in 1963?

Lev Yashin earned the nickname by dressing head to toe in what looked like black but was really a very dark blue.

Over which Arctic archipelago was the Soviet Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuclear bomb ever tested, detonated?

Novaya Zemlya felt a blast equal to 50 megatons of TNT in October 1961, from a bomb dropped by parachute and set off 4,000 metres above the ground.

Which animal was Misha, the smiling mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow?

A bear cub called Misha was the first sporting mascot to become a big commercial hit, with dolls, a cartoon film and a TV series.

Which Russian avant-garde painter called his stark 1915 canvas Black Square his breakthrough work?

Kazimir Malevich saw it as the start of his Suprematist movement, an effort to free art from depicting the real world, and he painted three more versions.

Which Soviet ballet star caused a sensation by defecting to the West at a French airport in 1961?

Rudolf Nureyev had just been told to fly home alone while the rest of his company went on to London. His was the first defection by a Soviet artist in the Cold War.

Which Russian composer's ballet The Rite of Spring caused uproar at its first performance in 1913?

Igor Stravinsky had scored a great public success with The Firebird three years earlier, but the jagged new music and dancing of 1913 shocked the first-night audience.

Which Russian composer wrote Peter and the Wolf, giving each character in the tale its own instrument?

Sergei Prokofiev wrote it in 1936 after the director of a Moscow children's theatre asked him for a symphony for young listeners.

In Russia, what kind of place is a traditional banya?

A steam bath fired by a wood stove, the banya uses twig bundles called veniks, cut fresh from birch or oak trees.

What do Russians call a seasonal second home in the countryside, often with a vegetable plot?

Dacha comes from the Russian verb 'to give', because the word first meant land handed out by the tsar to his nobles.

Which big cat survives mainly in the Sikhote-Alin mountains of Russia's Far East?

The Siberian tiger is also called the Amur tiger, and a 2015 census counted roughly 500 of them in Russia's Far East, including 100 cubs.

Which Russian word names the vast belt of coniferous forest that stretches across Siberia?

The taiga is the world's largest land biome, and in eastern Siberia it becomes one vast forest of larch.

Which name is given to the officers whose 1825 revolt against Nicholas I ended in Siberian exile?

The Decembrists took their name from the month of the revolt, when some 3,000 troops marched into Senate Square to stop the army swearing loyalty to the new emperor.

Which dynasty ruled Russia for just over 300 years, from 1613 until the revolution of 1917?

The Romanov line began when an assembly of the land elected 16-year-old Michael as tsar, ending the chaos of the Time of Troubles.

Which designer of the Soviet hydrogen bomb later won the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize as a dissident?

Andrei Sakharov was arrested in 1980 after protesting against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and was exiled to Gorky, a city closed to foreigners.

Which Russian politician climbed onto a tank in Moscow to defy the attempted coup of August 1991?

Boris Yeltsin had been elected Russia's president just two months earlier, the first head of state the country had ever chosen by popular vote.

Which Moscow cathedral was dynamited in 1931, replaced by a huge swimming pool and rebuilt by 2000?

Christ the Saviour was blown up to make way for a colossal Palace of the Soviets, but the flooded foundation pit ended up as the world's largest open-air pool.

Which Russian dish of sautéed meat in a mustard and sour cream sauce is named after a noble family?

Beef Stroganoff honours the Stroganovs, merchant nobles so rich that they bankrolled the Russian conquest of Siberia.

Which poet's Requiem recalls months spent waiting outside a Leningrad prison during Stalin's terror?

Anna Akhmatova began the cycle in 1935, but it was far too dangerous to print: the complete text did not appear in the Soviet Union until 1987.

Which Russian word meaning 'openness' became a slogan for freer debate in the 1980s Soviet Union?

Glasnost was launched as a campaign in 1985 alongside perestroika, and both words passed straight into English.

Which Soviet gymnast's record of 18 Olympic medals stood for 48 years until Michael Phelps broke it?

Larisa Latynina made her Olympic debut in Melbourne in 1956, and two years later she won five world titles while four months pregnant.

Which Soviet director filmed the Odessa Steps sequence in the 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin?

Sergei Eisenstein was a pioneer of montage, and his scene on the steps has been recreated by other film-makers ever since.

Which scientist walked to Moscow to study at 19 and now gives his name to Moscow State University?

Mikhail Lomonosov, a fisherman's son from the far north, co-founded the university in 1755 and also helped to shape the modern Russian literary language.