Places Edited by serpent

A solemn, monumental, kitschy palace of worship honoring victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The last stop in southeast Russia.

This poignant art installation raises awareness of violence against women.

Though it was heavily modified, fragments of the original medieval cathedral still survive.

Roughly 17 million letters to Santa have found their way to this Arctic Circle post office.

Long tunnels run under the ancient chariot racing circuit to the tower.

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

Some Moscow residents once claimed the bizarre, contorted mass of metal on top of the building was used to manipulate minds.

The avant-garde design was able to bypass strict Soviet regulations on architecture.

An early-20th-century "dacha" village of quaint cottages curiously located in a modern part of Moscow.

Stumbling upon this whimsical wooded garden is like stepping into an enchanted forest full of philosophical musings.

A magnificent, Disneyesque chateau built for 150 lucky kindergarteners.

The walls of Germany's Parliament still show the scars of the Red Army takeover in World War II.

Moscow's other, lesser known kremlin is a fairytale-like cultural complex modeled after Old Russia.

A small part of Russia that does not touch any other part of Russia.

The mysterious large white cross visible from the runway is a memorial to a massacre during Spanish Civil War.

Legends of time travel and magical woodland creatures bolster the natural charm of this verdant sanctuary in the midst of Moscow.

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

A giant gorilla made of used car tires used to sit sentinel over a Helsinki college campus.

This jaw-dropping 19th-century bridge uses its reflection to form what appears to be a perfect circle.

A 360 degree battlefield experience.

Gigantic natural towers in a Russian plateau.

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

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