Places rigor Wants to Go

These Finnish rapids have been attracting tourists for over a hundred years and are now released with the push of a button.

This irregularly shaped sea fortress has defended not one but three different sovereign states.

The deepest hole drilled in the name of science, where evidence of Precambrian life was found.

Monastery, army base, and infamous Soviet Gulag in the far Russian north.

Stunning examples of Russia's 18th-century wooden architecture.

A little church on a tiny island looks like something from a fairy tale.

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.

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

This Soviet-era "closed town" was a top secret uranium producer often left off of maps.

This old Estonian mine has been kept like a sprawling time capsule of the local shale industry.

A decommissioned submarine base makes a great space for graffiti art.

This dizzying tower was built to better broadcast the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

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

This disappearing geyser has been attributed to witchcraft, but really it's all about rainfall.

The ruins of an Estonian prison are drowning in the quarry lake where the convicts were once forced to work.

The gutted remains of this Estonian mansion are a monument to a tragic love.

This abandoned fighter jet launch center is now a haunting street racing course.

Wars fought and wars won are remembered by these abandoned bunker ruins.

A wooden replica of France's famous tower.

Once standing on solid ground, this slender beacon is a victim of the very shoreline it was charged with announcing.

Man-made mineral caves house massive bat colony.

3,000 market stands in five former Zeppelin hangars.

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

This impressively complicated radioastronomy research center was once a tool of Soviet spies.