Places daveschaaf Wants to Go

A reconstructed medieval gateway that was the magnificent entrance to the capital city dating back to 1037.

This 1000 year old relic-filled cave monastery and UNESCO World Heritage Site also hosts an amazing micro-miniature museum.

An Art Nouveau building covered in animal gargoyles and grotesques.

The deepest metro station in the world.

A striking Soviet memorial commemorates the liberation of Belarus from the Nazis.

Remains of the old fortification along the Western border of the USSR, now an elaborate defense museum.

Glowing orb in Minsk houses 8,600,000 items.

Specimens collected by the author of "Lolita" and self-taught lepidopterist are exhibited in his childhood home.

Inside the world's largest seed bank, WWII botanists elected to starve to death rather than compromise their collection.

This Russian museum stresses the importance of keeping clean and even holds one of Pavlov's dogs.

A 250-year-old timepiece-automaton adorned with golden mechanical birds, which still sing to this day.

The oldest museum in Russia is home to a fascinating collection of nearly two million anthropological artifacts and anatomical curiosities.

Disused seaplane hangar gets a second life as the jaw-dropping home of Estonia's museum of maritime history.

A former imperial sea-fortress and Soviet prison.

"There's nothing there," and other lies the KGB told us.

A top secret Cold War bunker hidden beneath a Latvian spa facility is now open for tours.

A vast and unlikely aviation museum kept alive for over 50 years due to one man's tenacity.

Latvia's symbolic mountain-shaped national library is home to millions of cultural tomes.

3,000 market stands in five former Zeppelin hangars.

The oldest housing complex in Riga is a mini timeline of architectural trends.

A black cat protests the City Guild in Riga's Old Town.

Flamboyant architecture from the turn of 20th century.

A former Latvian headquarters of the brutal KGB secret police is now open as a grim reminder of their atrocities.

A national collection of Communist-era musical posters.