It’s rare for any dog to reach 100 kilograms, let alone a stray one, but Krugets, a stray dog living in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, has become so fat that he can barely get up.

The Great Dane, the world’s largest dog breed, weighs between 300 (136 kg) and 400 pounds (181 kg), but for a midsize stray dog to weigh just under 220 pounds (100 kg) is somewhat of an oddity. Volunteers in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, recently found a stray dog so fat that he howled in pain every night, and barely managed to get up on all fours because of the unbearable joint pain. The dog had to be placed on a large scale by a number of people, and his weight reportedly stunned everyone. Krugets weighed a whopping 99.9 kilograms (220 lbs) and no one could understand how a stray could become so heavy.

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A Russian man was recently arrested after stealing 53 new iPhones on his very first day of work at a Moscow electronics store.

Earlier this month, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs published a short clip of a man “cleaning up” an electronics store in Moscow and filling a small suitcase and several bags with dozens of iPhone cases. The 44-year-old unnamed man doesn’t seem bothered by the surveillance camera and, after trying and failing to change its facing direction with a cleaning mop, he simply carries on with his business. After taking 53 brand-new iPhones and 53,000 rubles ($570) from the register, he casually walks out the front door. Believe it or not, this was the man’s first day on the job as a sales manager at the electronics store…

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A school in the Russian town of Bolshoy Kamen has attracted a lot of criticism both from students and their parents after installing a camera surveillance system inside the girls’ toilet.

Many people view toilets as one of the few remaining places to enjoy privacy outside their homes, and even in the busiest of places. But if you are a girl studying at School no. 1 in Bolshoy Kamen, Russia, you can no longer enjoy privacy inside the toilet because of a three-camera surveillance system that feeds live footage straight to the security guard’s booth. Granted, the cameras don’t offer a view inside the toilet booths, but simply knowing that someone might be watching your every move in what is supposed to be the most private space in the school is disturbing, according to many students and their parents.

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A 53-year-old Russian woman sparked outrage in her home republic of Tatarstan by tying the knot with a 22-year-old man whom she had raised for the last eight years.

Aisylu Chizhevskaya-Mingalim, a well-known musician in Tatarstan and the niece of famous singer Renata Ibragimov, found herself at the center of a massive scandal after reportedly marrying her adopted son. Eight years ago, while teaching music in the orphanages of Kazan, Aisylu met Daniil, a 13-year-old boy who shared her passion for music, and after a few lessons, the two became a duet. The boy also participated in various reality talent shows, such as the “You’re Super!” project, and sang with popular Russian singer Filip Kirkorov. When he was 14, Daniil became the singer’s foster child, and they have lived together ever since. However, on October 20, the two shocked the world when they legally became married.

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After undergoing a CT scan, an 80-year-old woman from Russia’s Sakhalin region discovered that she had a 3cm metal needle lodged in the left side of her brain.

Photos of the woman’s CT scan results were recently released by the Sakhalin Ministry of Health, along with a shocking explanation. Taking into consideration the woman’s age, doctors believe that the needle was inserted into her brain by her own parents, soon after her birth. As shocking as that sounds, such practices were not uncommon in war-torn Russia. Parents who could not afford to take care of their babies in difficult wartime conditions inserted thin needles into their brain through the fontanelle – the gap in the skull that gradually closes as the baby grows – to kill them. This method left no trace, as the fontanelle quickly closed, leaving no evidence of the murder weapon.

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Russian police are currently on the lookout for a young girl who reportedly stormed out of a restaurant, leaving her date to foot the bill after he asked her to split it evenly.

Handling the bill on a first date has always been a point of contention, as some people believe that men should cover the entire cost, while others are convinced that going Dutch is the only way. Both sides have their arguments, and while online forums are full of endless debates on the subject, there was never really cause for involving the police. Until recently, that is, when one 28-year-old man from Moscow filed a complaint against a woman he went on a date with after she refused to split the bill, leaving him to cover the entire 16,000 rubles ($165) cost.

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A Russian man who had spent the last 22 years of his life in a penal colony for serious crimes, recently escaped on the very day he was supposed to be released.

According to the SHOT Telegram channel, Kamoljon Kalonov had been serving a lengthy 22-year-sentence for a double murder, theft,  and possession of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices, but he was supposed to be released from the IK-19 penal colony in the village of Markova near Irkutsk last week. However, the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service told RIA Novosti that on the morning of his release day, at around 4 in the morning, Kalonov disappeared from the colony without informing anyone and is now supposedly on the run.

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A 69-year-old man from the Russian Republic of Dagestan claims to have set a new world record for fastest weight loss, after allegedly losing over 11 kilograms during a 2.5-hour race.

Bahama Aigubov had already had his name inscribed in the Russian Book of Records in 2019 when he lost 9.3 kg after a five-hour race, but he recently managed to blow his own record out of the water by losing  11.1 kg in 2.5 hours during a 21 km race in Makhachkala. Aigubov cannot have his record recognized by the Guinness Book of Records, as it does not acknowledge achievements in rapid weight loss so as not to encourage people to engage in dangerous experiments, but the pensioner claims to be the fastest body weight shedder in the world, by far.

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An unemployed man in Russia managed to live out his dream of being a traffic policeman by putting on a fake police uniform and going on patrols with actual traffic inspectors for two months.

Tired of sitting around all day, Viktor, a 48-year-old unemployed man from Russia’s Stavropol Region, bought himself a realistic-looking police uniform and joined the ranks of law enforcement officers in the village of Pyatigorsky. Relying on his traffic inspector attire, great acting skills, and enviable self-confidence, the man patrolled the streets of Pyatigorsky, actively stopping negligent drivers and educating them on various traffic rules. It is unclear why Viktor chose this specific profession, or whether he actually took any bribes from motorists during his voluntary service, but his career was short-lived. Two months after joining the ranks of the Stavropol traffic police, his cover was blown.

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An 81-year-old Russian woman with ties to the criminal underworld of Krasnodar was recently arrested for ordering the killing of a criminal investigations detective.

Lyudmila Ryabykh is not your average grandmother. Not only does the 81-year-old have a strong connection to members of Krasnodar’s organized crime, but she once threatened to kill a paramedic with a sawed-off shotgun and she recently placed a hit on a local detective that apparently rubbed her the wrong way. The pensioner was caught red-handed after ordering the killing of an officer from the Krasnodar police department and paying part of the reward for proof of his death. Unfortunately for her, Ryabykh didn’t know that her criminal associates had revealed her plan to the authorities, and she now risks spending the rest of her days behind bars.

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A cafe in the Russian city of Perm has been getting a lot of attention after announcing plans to introduce a controversial breast milk-infused latte on its menu.

Perm-based cafe chain Coffee Smile has been the talk of the Russian internet over the past week after announcing intentions to use real human breast milk as an ingredient for coffee products like lattes and cappuccinos. The craziness started earlier this month, when Coffee Smile locations started plastering posters advertising the controversial new ingredient. People started sharing photos of the photos on social media, and before long, local businessman and Coffee Smile owner Maxim Kobelev released a promotional video claiming that his cafes will be using genuine breast milk stored in special, pharmacy-grade bags.

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A Russian woman has been accused of hiring a contract killer to have her own daughter murdered in order to get her hands on the woman’s apartment.

A 67-year-old woman from Krasnoyarsk, Russia, is being accused of ordering the murder of her 48-year-old daughter so she could inherit her apartment. According to investigators, the pensioner shared her ominous intentions with a local acquaintance who told her that they knew someone who could pull it off, for a fee. On April 19, 2023, the acquaintance set up a meeting between the woman and the would-be perpetrator of the murder in a park on Odesskaya Street, in the city of Krasnoyarsk, during which they discussed the details and method of committing the crime. The woman allegedly promised to pay the contract killer 80,000 rubles ($1,040) once he produced evidence of her daughter’s murder.

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Police in Russia recently arrested a woman who reportedly dressed a cat in thick baby clothing in order to look like an innocent young mother and traffic dangerous drugs.

It’s a well-documented fact that drug traffickers come up with all sorts of ingenious techniques to move their products undisturbed. We’ve written about drugs diluted in women’s breast implants, or concealed in hollowed-out coffee beans, but these methods pale in comparison to that used by a young Russian woman trying to conceal packets of methamphetamines in the city of Nizhny Tagil. According to police spokeswoman Irina Volk, the unnamed woman was spotted walking hand in hand with a little girl and pushing a stroller with what looked like a baby inside. It’s unclear whether police were tipped off about the woman, or they simply noticed something off about her, but neither she nor her baby were what they seemed.

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Indigirka Salad, a Russian fish salad that originated in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited region in the world, was recently voted the worst dish in the world by the readers of online food guide Taste Atlas.

Indigirka is a rather simple dish – it consists of diced whitefish such as broad whitefish, elma, and muksun combined with onions, and seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Well, at least not so bad as other dishes we’ve featured on Oddity Central in the past. The problem with Indigirka salad is that the fish is not only raw, but frozen solid, which is to be expected from a dish born in a region where temperatures routinely drop below -70 degrees Celsius. The dish is usually served as an appetizer, accompanied by lemon wedges and a shot of vodka.

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A Russian man was recently arrested after allegedly being tricked into throwing a Molotov Cocktail in a Moscow bank by scammers who also relieved him of his life savings.

A few days ago, Moscow police arrested a 48-year-old man from Ruza, a town in the Moscow region of Russia, for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail in a Sberbank branch in the Russian capital. Bank employees were able to put out the flames before the firefighters arrived on the scene and police quickly identified and detained the perpetrator. But this was far from an open-shut case; the more the suspect tried to explain, the crazier his story got, and by the end, investigators didn’t know whether to throw the book at the guy or just feel sorry for him…

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