This popular holiday tradition has believers plunging into ice-cold water… voluntarily!

The Siberian village of Okunevo is a "place of power." For literally hundreds of years, people have visited here, convinced that the lake has healing power, among other things.

Known as “Russia’s Tibet,” the Altai region is vast, unpeopled, and brimming with energy centers.

Presidents eating ice cream, kids reporting toy theft to police… summer is almost over, thank Allah. 

Lakes vanish, free food appears, and a priest speaks to the dead.

Sleepy Pskov has everything a historic Russian town ever needed: a winding river, a kremlin, and whitewashed churches – all of which have finally received global recognition from UNESCO.

The exceptional life story of the father of the first Romanov tsar, the reluctant Patriarch, Filaret.

Today, now that the huge dome of St. Isaac’s towers over the center of the city, not far from the granite embankment, the sumptuous Senate and Synod Building, and the iconic Bronze Horseman statue, it is hard to imagine that in its first incarnation this church was much smaller and located on the Admiralty Meadow.

Both science and religion shed (northern) light on the Aurora Borealis. 

In which we look at how Russian painters have been inspired by Maslenitsa.

This fascinating wooden sculpture exhibition is running in St. Petersburg through mid-Febuary. For those who cannot visit, we offer a photo feature and notes from the curator.

Russia has its own way of marking Twelfth Night (Ephiphany). But as a Christian holiday it misses the mark.