Egor Onopko, an up-and-coming blogger from Vladivostok, Russia, managed to attract a lot of media attention and make some nice pocket money by turning the right side of his neck into advertising space for interested individuals and businesses. No one really believed Onopko, who goes by “onokonda” on social media, would go through with the idea when he first announced it on Instagram, but last week, he posted visual proof that he had gone through with it, adding that he made around 1 million rubbles ($13,500) from the 10 sold advertising spots.

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The Russian Emergencies Ministry was forced to issue a public warning about the mortal danger of getting to close to the crater of an erupting volcano, after photos and videos of daredevils right next to a lava filled volcano cone started showing up online.

Klyuchevskaya Sopka, an active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East, recently became a hotspot for adrenalin-seeking tourists, as the spectacular formation of a second volcano hole allowed them to get close enough to actually cook meat and sausages on the hot rock surrounding the erupting volcano. But while the trend may have started with funny pics and videos of sausages sizzling on a natural stove made of volcanic rock, it grew into something a lot more dangerous, with people getting close enough to the cone to film inside it, completely disregarding the lava bombs shooting out of it.

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In winter, Siberia’s Lake Baikal becomes the scene of a rare natural phenomenon known as “Baikal Zen”. Large stones balance on thin ice “legs” above the surface of the lake, making it seem like they are floating in the air.

Lake Baikal is a fascinating body of water. It’s so large it can easily be mistaken for a sea, it is also the deepest and oldest lake on Earth, as well as the largest freshwater lake by volume. But these are only the most well-known facts about Lake Baikal. There are other more mysterious things going on there, some of which give the place a mystical, almost magical aura. Take the phenomenon known as Baikal Zen, for example – large, Zen-like pebbles balancing precariously on a thin ice pillar, above the frozen surface of the lake. Scientists have been studying this rare phenomenon for years, and we still don’t have a unanimously accepted explanation for it.

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A giant puddle in Russia’s Far East city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is being described as “invincible”, after it somehow survived unfixed for over a quarter of a century. It now has its own Instagram page and over 16,000 followers.

As it often happens in Russia and other eastern European countries, what started out as a small pothole gradually grew to become a giant puddle. It attained that rank in 1994, and locals have been trying to get local authorities to fix it ever since. So far it has proven a futile endeavor, as scheduled repairs have been postponed repeatedly. In the meantime, a frustrated local known only as Nikolay decided that the 25-year-old pothole was old enough to have its own Instagram page, and created one for it in September. The witty sarcastic posts created in first-person quickly went viral and got the local government to act.

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Officially recognized as the coldest permanently inhabited settlement on Earth, the small Russian settlement of Oymyakon is probably home to the most resilient kids in the world.

Can you imagine sending your kids to primary school (years one through four) at -50° Celsius? Well, in Oymyakon, that’s pretty much standard procedure, as the one school in the rural locality only closes when temperatures drop under -52° Celsius. Children older than 11 have to be even tougher, as they get to stay home only when the temperature drops under -56° Celsius. Daytime temperatures around this time of year are around -50°C, which means that pupils of all ages have to brave the cold and get to school every morning.

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A 24-year-old woman from Moscow, Russia, met her husband, Gideon, five years ago, at a hardware store, while shopping for photoshoot props. Gideon just looked irresistible, so she ended up buying “him”, and the rest is history. Gideon is a metallic briefcase…

Rain Gordon, who works as a nursery school teacher, claims that her fascination with inanimate objects began at a very young age. She has always believed that everything around her had a soul, and as time went by, her belief in animism only got stronger. In her early teenage years, she fell in love with a new shopping center that opened in her home city, but she knew people thought that was wrong, so she didn’t tell anyone. Rain is now opening up about her love story with Gideon the briefcase in order to break down the misconceptions and stigma surrounding romantic relationships with inanimate objects.

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Photos of a house near the Russian city of Irkutsk have gone viral on social media because of the contrast between its exterior and interior design.

Located in the village of Novaya Razvodnaya, near Irkutsk, this modern house was recently put on sale, as part of a 620-square-meter property. At first glance, the house has a pretty modern look, but the solitary Roman column decorating the yard hints at the fact that there is more to this place than meets the eye. The moment you set foot inside, it’s like going down the rabbit whole and waking up in a whole new dimension.

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A 59-year-old man in Zelenograd, Russia, lived with serious nose breathing difficulties for over half a century, because of a coin he had shoved up his nose as a child and forgot about over the years.

Doctors at the Konchalovsky City Clinical Hospital in Zelenograd recently reported the strange case of a patient who said he had been completely unable to breathe through his right nostril for several months. A CT scan showed that the right nasal passage was completely blocked by a foreign body of stony density stuck in the posterior, close to the nasopharynx. A more common curvature of the septum was also observed, but it would not have obstructed the nasal passage completely all by itself. The foreign object was the problem, but the deviated septum had emphasized the breathing difficulties to the point where the patient had no choice but to seek help.

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If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a pharaoh without having to build your own lavish palace, you can settle for this unique Moscow apartment designed to make you feel like a ruler of ancient Egypt.

Over the last two decades, the Khamovniki district of Moscow has turned from a simple working-class district, into one of the most expensive living areas in the entire Russian capital. There are plenty of luxurious apartment complexes to choose from if you have the funds, but if you’re looking for something truly unique, you may want to consider this $1.7 million apartment in the “Opera House” residential complex on Ostozhenka street. It’s literally fit for a king, an Egyptian king, that is…

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Six months after catching the coronavirus, a 69-year-old Russian virologist and researcher exposed himself to patients infected with Covid-19 without any protection to see how his immune system would respond.

A former researcher at the Vector Centre of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk, Alexander Chepurnov first caught Covid-19 at the end of February 2020. He was on a skiing holiday in  France when he started feeling unwell, with a high fever, sharp chest pain and a complete loss of his sense of smell. There was no way to get a coronavirus test in Europe at the time, so he returned home to Novosibirsk, where he was quickly diagnosed with double pneumonia. He was lucky enough to recover, and a month later an antibody test confirmed that he had been infected with the new virus.

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A popular Russian vlogger recently made international headlines after purposely burning his expensive Mercedes-AMG G63, because he was sick of it breaking down all the time.

Russian media reported that young vlogger Mikhail Litvin bought his brand new luxury car in December of 2019, for a whopping 13 million rubles, or around $170,000. For that kind of money one would expect both performance and durability, only Litvin claims that his Mercedes-AMG G63 was really short on the latter. Despite having allegedly driven it only 15,000 km (about 9,300 miles), he claims the car has been in and out of repair shops over the last 10 months. Exasperated by the constant need for repairs and the manufacturer’s reluctance to accept responsibility, the Russian vlogger decided that the best way to solve things was to simply burn the car down to a crisp.

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Winter temperatures in Russia’s northern region of Yakutia can drop under a staggering -70 degrees Celsius, making it impossible for humans to stay outside for long periods of time. But for the indigenous horses of this region, such extreme temperatures are comfortable enough to spend days and nights in the open.

Yakutian horses are only 140-145 centimeters tall, but can weigh up to half a tonne, because of a thick layer of fat and heavy, thick mane that can reach up to 10 centimeters long. Because of their stocky physique and long mane, some have referred to them as the equestrian version of wooly mammoths. There’s more to that comparison than looks, though, as these horses can withstand far lower temperatures than any other horse breeds anywhere in the world.

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A stonecutting workshop that set out to carry on the legacy of legendary Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé has managed to raise the art of volumetric mosaic stone cutting to a level never reached before in all of human history.

Volumetric mosaic is one of the most complicated and technical hardstone carving techniques. It involves combining volumetric fragments of various colored semiprecious and ornamental stones to assemble impressive sculptural compositions. It has been practiced by Russian craftsmen and artisans for over a century, but Alexei Antonov’s stonecutting workshop in Yekaterinburg has elevated the art form to a whole new level, by incorporating precious metals in the detailed sculptures and using modern technology to make the artworks stunningly detailed.

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Looking back at the most significant battles and military operations in history, deception has always been an important strategy, and in modern-day Russia balloons are one of the most important tools of deception.

Bouncy castles aren’t known as the most effective tools of war, but in Russia, they are just as important as actual weapons worth millions of dollars. That’s because bouncy castles designed to mimic actual weapons cost a hundred times cheaper than the real thing, and can be deployed and moved a lot faster. And if your goal is to deceive the enemy, to appear stronger than you really are, drawing their fire, or simply buying time by forcing them to verify targets, this inflatable army is an important piece of your arsenal.

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Galina Chuvina, a retired woman from the small Russian town of Sasovo, took up knife throwing as a hobby and ended up becoming an eight time national champion, European champion and even world champion.

Chuvina was 56 years old when she discovered knife throwing, back in 2007. The pensioner had landed a simple job in the coat check section of the local pool, taking people’s clothes and handing out numbers. One day, two young people came by to discuss the possibility of opening a knife throwing club on the premises, and Galina became one of the first people to enroll for knife throwing training. Just a month and a half into her training, the pensioner learned that her home town would soon host a knife throwing competition with around 50 participants, including special forces soldiers, professional knife throwers, as well as amateurs like her. She signed up, and shocked the audience by wining first place.

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