In today’s Russia, women are officially banned from working in coal mines. But things were different in the USSR, where more than 200,000 women worked as miners and produced three times the quota.

The world is enjoying a boom in chess playing following ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ TV series’ sweeping success. We’ve boiled down a list of Soviet chess legends who proved that chess is mental “body-building on steroids”.

These military choirs and ensembles will make you sing, dance (and love Mother Russia)!

Curiously, if you were to swap around the Soviet and American space missions, you would find that neither would be able to offer a spot to a national of the other country.

Every time we look through google trends to figure out what people actually search about Russia, we often see language searches - how to say “thank you” in Russian, how to say “hello” in Russian… well, you get the picture! So, we’ve put together the most useful phrases for you, so you don’t have to waste time on dead end searches!