For more than 150 years, the Russian Empire was governed by ethnic Germans – including the Romanovs, starting from Peter III. Aside from them, there were a great lot of German people who contributed immensely to the culture and science of Russia.

“A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a leading author of his time, famously stated. He knew what he was talking about. During Nikita Khrushchev’s cultural years of Thaw, Soviet poets were public figures like rock stars. They performed to sell-out crowds, predicted the future and helped get over the past.

How to load a plane with cargo exceeding its capacity, and still make it fly.

Russians make their own, very special sandwiches that have nothing in common with any snacks in other countries. Moreover, there’s even an entire special Russian 'butterbrot' culture.

There are surprisingly few and there are also bridges among them.