The Suzdal Cucumber Festival
Cucumbers may be just every day vegetables to you, but in the Russian town of Suzdal they are of such importance that they have their own yearly festival. The first cucumbers were cultivated in the Suzdal area, around 500 years ago, and some locals even consider the popular vegetable inherently Russian. The people here consider […]
Russian Cult Worships Female Cartoon Character
I’m sure we can all agree Gadget Hackwrench is an adorable character, but do you like her enough to worship her like a goddess? If you’ve never heard of the cute Gadget Hackwrench, she is a Disney character from the Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers cartoon series. This female mouse was the team’s pilot, mechanic […]
Till Death Do Us Part? Russian Couple Has Zombie Wedding
Vitalich and Jirka are a young couple who decided to have their very own special wedding, as zombies. I guess not even death can split-up these two. Believe it or not, this is the couple’s third wedding so far. Every time they married each other. It sounds strange, I know, but they have reasonably good […]
600-Kilogram Hero Book on Display in Russia
In order to better familiarize the people of Chelyabinsk (the city that brought us the human smiley face) with the tragedies and heroes of World War II, local authorities have created a giant Hero Book. 6 meters long, 3 meters wide and weighing around 600 kilograms, the Hero Book of Chelyabinsk contains photos of the […]
Make Art, Not War
I guess it’s true what they say, guns really don’t kill people, they can actually be used to create original works of art. Come May 21, The Rusian city of Perm will be hosting an important exhibition of modern Ukrainian art, called YAKSCHO. It aims to reflect the situation in this country: productively unstable, full […]
Russian Craftsman Builds Himself a Castle
Ever since I started this blog I’ve been amazed at what amazing things ordinary people can achieve, if they put their minds to it. And this old Russian craftsman is just another perfect example. Vladimir Filippovich must have really wanted to be a king, and live in a palace. His desire was so strong that […]
Russia’s Super Car Hits the Streets
Presented at the beginning of 2009, Marussia has finally hit the streets of Russia, and we have the pics to prove it. You’re probably wondering what a car has to do with an oddities blog, but i figured it’s not every day you see a super car that’s made in Russia. We first reported on […]
Mosquito Monument Found in Russian Village
If this thing was for real, you’d need a lot more than a can of Raid, to hold on to your blood. Back in 2007, Biologists from the Tyumen Regional Museum, who were examining the Noyabrsk area, for creating an eco-tourism route, for kids, stumbled across what they considered the most bizarre find, in their […]
Russians Blow Up Their Own Weapons
Russia’s blow-up weapons might seem funny, but they play a crucial role in the country’s strategy to keep their real arsenal hidden from prying eyes. The inflatable decoys were commissioned by the Russian government, to protect their real military capabilities from surveillance satellites. The company making them, Rusbal, says they imitate the heat signature of […]
Russian Cows Get to Watch TV
They’re probably going to end up in someone’s burger, but at least these guys can say they’ve lived a happy life. A Russian farmer learned that happy cows are more productive, so he decided to buy some state of the art LED TVs (not sure if they’re HD) so the cows can have something to […]
The Mysterious Dancing Forest of Kaliningrad
Located on the thin Curonian Spit that splits the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea, lies one of the strangest natural phenomena on Earth. Known as the Dancing Forest by caretakers of Curonian Spit National Park and as the Drunken Forest, by locals, this unusual pine forest is made of trees of various shapes, most […]
Russian Entrepreneur’s Mobile Sauna
It’s nice to see people coming up with original ways of earning a buck or two, and it doesn’t get much more original that Sergei’s mobile sauna business. In Sergei’s Russian village, saunas (traditionally called “banya”) were a must in every villager’s backyard. However, many locals still don’t have their own banyas, so our Russian […]
Russian Mafia Tombstones
Say what you will about Russian mobsters, but you can’t say they lack artistic sense. Too bad it only shows on their tombstones. These photos were taken in the cemetery of Dnepropetrovsk, in the Ukraine, a place much like the mafia-infested Yekaterinburg, in Mother Russia. Although the two cities are 2,000 km apart, mafia fashion […]
Lena’s Stone Forest
One of the most beautiful natural wonders of Russia, Lena’s Stone Forest is also one of the most difficult to reach, by tourists. Known also as Lena’s Stone Pillars, this incredible rock formation is not only beautiful to look at, it’s also holds important information on the formation of the organic world. Fossils from various […]
Red-Deer Butchering in Russia
BEFORE YOU SCROLL DOWN TO THE PHOTOS, BE WARNED, THEY ARE NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED! Welcome to the village of Salba, 610 km southeast of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. This is where 600 Siberian Marals (a subspecies of Red-Deer) lose their antlers every year. These photos, taken June 15 2009, at a private ranch, […]