One part local history, 99 parts gruesome haunted house.

Eighty million natural history specimens call this gargantuan museum home.

A preserved oasis with traditional Andalusian-style architecture and beautiful views of the Nile.

An iconic Soviet statue of working-class people.

For lovers of Soviet cinema, this museum is home to a vast collection of artifacts and costumes.

This massive monument honors the first human in space.

One of the world's tallest statues is also one of its most hated.

One of the last examples of Soviet architectural propaganda has a few technological tricks up its sleeve.

Moscow's imposing monument to the Space Age.

Former headquarters of the KGB.

A sculpture park of the tossed aside relics of the USSR, from Stalin to a massive Soviet emblem.

It took over half a century but a Russian monument to a famous and tragic space pup finally stands in Moscow.

This building holds the embalmed remains of the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The gorgeous entrances into the city's underbelly look more like grand halls than subway stops.

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

An ever-growing literary collection housed in the apartment where the Russian author penned his final novel.

An 18th century wonder of the world, lost in WWII, re-created at the Catherine Palace.

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

This effigy of Peter the Great is greatly disproportionate.

A curious urban windmill once owned by a renowned British mathematical physicist.

One of the oldest libraries in England, and one of the last of the great medieval chained collections.

Also known as “Robin Hood’s tree,” it became a famed location along Hadrian's Wall before it was cut down.

A monument to a beloved aquatic folk hero in the Irish town of Dingle.

A spooky juxtaposition of caves and graves gives this legend-filled cemetery a particularly haunting vibe.