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When cosmonauts and astronauts now return from a long-duration space mission on board the International Space Station, they are always coming home on a Soyuz capsule, landing in northern Kazakhstan. The Kazakh Steppe is known for its bitter winters (I just checked the local weather in Ayagoz, Kazakhstan and there is currently a blizzard going on with heavy snow, high winds and a current temperature of -26 C [-15 F] ) More »
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If you're looking for the outline of the Alaska you know and love, you might as well give up now. This bizarre map, which appeared in the third volume of Diderot's Encyclopédie, dates all the way back to 1772 — and it's a total hodgepodge of misinformation. More »
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It's widely acknowledged that crows are remarkably intelligent animals (did you know that they're commonly referred to as feathered apes?), but seeing one engage in a pastime as distinctly human as snow-sledding is a sight to behold. More »
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Phobos-Grunt was the chosen one. It was said that it would bring an end to Russia's Martian curse, not extend it. But now, Russia's once-promising spacecraft — the country's first bid at interplanetary exploration in 15 years — is coming home earlier than planned. More »
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You may have heard how a portion of the Soyuz-2 rocket destroyed some poor guy's house in Siberia. That wasn't the only shenanigan Soyuz debris pulled last weekend. A portion of the Soyuz rocket that transported three astronauts to the International Space Station flared up the skies over Germany, Belgium, and France on Christmas Eve, leading confused observers to assume that Santa Claus had fed his reindeers napalm. More »
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Looking back on all of humanity's successes in space, it can be easy to forget that many of our accomplishments have been built on the sacrifices of other creatures. Here are ten animals who played an indispensable role in paving the inter-planetary way to space. More »
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Evidently failure is no longer an option when it comes to Russia's space program. The country's president, Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters this weekend that scientists and engineers behind the Phobos-Grunt mission — the most recent failure in Russia's decades-long streak of unsuccessful interplanetary missions — could face criminal prosecution. More »
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Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft — the country's first bid at interplanetary space exploration in 15 years — made a successful launch yesterday afternoon, but is now reportedly stuck in orbit after losing communication with Earth and failing to fire the thrusters that would have sent it into deep space. So much for kicking the country's Martian curse. More »
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At 3:16 EST, Russia launched its first interplanetary mission in 15 years. The unmanned Phobos-Grunt probe is designed to drop a lander onto the surface of Phobos — one of Mars' two moons — and acquire soil samples from its surface before returning to Earth some time in 2014. More »
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Japan has a wealth of bizarre abandoned amusement parks. For example, we've seen an entire Mount Rushmore left to rot and a graffitied giant model of Lemuel Gulliver. More »
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Painted movie posters rules, particularly when they take gonzo creative liberties with the films' plots, as Ghanaian and Thai posters sometimes do. More »
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From Klingon Jesus to Russian Orthodox Darth Vader — it's that kind of day. This illustration comes to us courtesy of Dmitry Dyachkov, who has stolen Patriarch Alexy II's duds and given them to a Sith Lord. The internet, everyone. More »
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The August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia was fought at sea, in the air, on land … and in the press, as both sides tried to spin events in their favor. The shooting has ended. The propaganda war continues. More »
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An uncrewed Russian cargo shipment to the International Space Station crashed into Siberia just minutes after blastoff this morning. The Russian space agency is reporting that the Progress M-12M cargo ship (pictured above) failed to detach from its launch vehicle at the correct stage of the launch, and was subsequently unable to enter the correct orbit. More »
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Despite the absolutely Dullsville real-world explanations for chupacabras, it seems as if the dreaded goat-sucker has hopped continents. More »
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If you ever find yourself 60 miles north of Vladivostok in the city of Ussuriysk, you can visit the crumbling Vozdvizhenka Air Base, where gutted planes sit in the open for trespassers to explore. Crazily enough, security's nonexistent here. More »
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A new ATM for a Russian bank turns money machines into truth machines, using fingerprint recognition, 3-D face scans and voice analysis to determine whether customers are worthy of applying for credit cards. More »
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Dictators are used to having their manliest poses carved into stone statues, or their most avuncular portrait printed on posters. But one Russian artist is bringing authoritarian iconography into the 21st century by drawing Russia's boss-for-life Vladimir Putin as an ass-kicking character in an online comic book. More »
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Crop circles recently appeared in a wheat field near the village of Znamensky outside of Krasnodar, Russia. These circles have captured the imaginations of motorists, bedazzled by visions of a spacefaring race that has zero respect for a staple crop. More »
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Over the last several days, YouTube has gone absolutely bonkers over footage of an alien corpse found in the Russian village of Kamensk. Sadly, this body has more in common with a chicken nugget than ET. More »
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Lunnaya Raduga ("Moon Rainbow") is a 1984 Russian science fiction melodrama directed by Andrei Yermash and based on the novel by Sergei Pavlov. More »
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Academics at Russia's Kemerovo State University are starting an institute to investigate increasing reports of 30 or so yetis around Mount Shoria in Siberia. According to institute head Dr. Igor Burtsev, these yetis are likely undiscovered neanderthals. More »
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Even if you've been to the Catacombs of Paris or have gone spelunking in Brooklyn's abandoned subway lines, there's still a wealth of underground places to be explored. Here are some of the world's less welcoming manmade tunnels and grottos. More »
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Imagine a life of almost complete isolation, spent on a barren island constantly hit by a mix of volcanoes, tsunamis, and long, brutal winters. For thousands of years, that's what people have endured on the Kuril Islands, an archipelago stretching from Russia to Japan that just might be the most extreme place humans have ever lived. More »
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At 1 PM yesterday in Moscow, three astronauts from the European Space Agency's 520-day simulated trip to Mars finally touched down on a 10 meter by 6 meter recreation of the planet's Gusev Crater. From the ESA: More »
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Frigid temperatures in the small town of Verkhoyansk in Russia's Sakha Republic have led to the formation of an unnaturally large pack of livestock-hungry wolves. In the past four days, 30 horses have been devoured by this massive pack. Temperatures in Verkhoyansk can hit -56.2° Fahrenheit, and this particular cold winter has limited the wolves' food options. Says wildlife behavioralist Dr. Valerius Geist: More »
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The United States won the Space Race decisively when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969, but nobody ever really knew just how close the Soviet Union got to putting cosmonauts on the lunar surface. Now, forty years later, researcher Charles Vick says the Soviets really could have reached the Moon by the mid-seventies...if they just could have gotten their rockets under control. Check out Space.com for the full story. More »
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Just how much does the Russian TV show Project Popcorn ape Mystery Science Theater 3000? Check out the theme song. Something tells me nobody from the original MST3K was consulted on this. More »
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2012 hysteria is so 2009, but that doesn't matter to Russian engineer Evgeny Ubiyko. He's built an $80,000 emergency pod that can survive magma and magnetic storms, and he's imploring the Russian government to buy several thousand post haste. More »
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An oxygen-rich lake, unreachable for the past 14 million years and buried beneath a thick sheet of ice, is about to be penetrated by a drill bit from a faraway place. More »
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The Russian village of Oymyakon is one of the coldest hamlets on planet Earth. Check out what happens when you lob a cup of warm H2O in the air on a bone-chilling Siberian winter day. [BBC] More »
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Karabash, a Russian industrial town has been called the most polluted city on Earth. Home to a major copper smelter, Karabash sees acid rains, poisoned air, barren soil, and a pile of slag that dwarfs the nearby homes. More »
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I've never had the pleasure of visiting a Soviet-era mental hospital, but if these placards are any indicator, the interior decorations wouldn't be conducive to one's mental salubriousness. You don't need to understand Russian to be wigged out by these. More »
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In a series of beautifully ugly (and tenuously legal) Russian kids' books, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet "Space Hunter," a crab-faced alien with dreadlocks. They fight at first, but the creatures later reconcile and enjoy poorly drawn pizza together. More »
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Here are plans for Eco-City 2020, a 100,000-person domed city built in the kilometer-wide and 550-meter-deep Mir diamond mine in the Yakutia Republic. According to designers AB Elise, the mine will be powered by the Siberian sun. More »
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The recent shortage of food in the Arctic Circle has forced plenty of Russian bears to get creative and starting feasting on tasty corpsicles conveniently buried at various cemeteries. More »
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Having a crappy day? This can't help but lift your spirits by capturing everything that is truly awesome about cheesy scifi, and giving it to you in one glorious, CGI-spangled package. More »
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Although climate change could still have devastating effects for much of the world, some regions stand to benefit immensely. Canada, Scandinavia, and even Greenland could all become economic powerhouses, making "The New North" a very attractive destination. More »
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In late 2009, two intrepid bloggers visited a museum of Soviet arcade games outside of Moscow. What did they find? A subterranean den of gaming classics from behind the Iron Curtain. More »
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Russian photographer Slesarev Oleg Victorovitch took these photos of Gagra, a once-thriving resort town on the coast of Black Sea. Gagra was a palatial tourist destination until 1992, when the area was at the forefront of the War in Abkhazia. More »
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