Places Sputnicktatorship Wants to Go

The grandest stage for the world's foremost masters of invisible instruments.

A lumberjack in Finnish Lapland did not want to cut down his Arctic pines, so he offered them up to be adopted by nature-lovers.

No matter how many times this community-run sauna gets destroyed, it always rises from the ashes.

If you visit Santa's village, you can get your passport stamped to show you crossed into the Arctic Circle.

A cathedral resurrected from the ashes of one of Europe's greatest urban fires.

Pigduck of Turku.

The etchings on this narrow channel between two islands bear witness to maritime travelers who have passed through since the Middle Ages.

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

Nuclear waste experts study this prehistoric crater lake to envision landscapes one million years in the future.

A 246-foot-high revolving restaurant rises unexpectedly from a forested Finnish hilltop.

The smallest restaurant in the world.

A beautiful Arctic museum and nature center preserves the culture of the Sámi people.

A little-known sculpture park of contemporary environmental art in a Lapland forest.

An abstract monument to a symphonic composer.

Crawling into this primordial cave may feel disconcertingly familiar.

Villas that once served as playgrounds for the rich now fall away in decay.

This lake-bound geographical marker sits at the point where three European countries intersect.

An alien church provides much needed silence in the midst of a Finland shopping center.

Legend has this precariously placed rock was placed by giants. Science has another explanation.

A subterranean house of worship carved right out of the bedrock.

This lonely rock has been turned into a character loved and feared by children.

The most remote tree in the world is more than 170 miles from its nearest neighbor.

This village was once a thriving Soviet uranium mining center, but is now semi-abandoned and desolate.

This mysterious complex of abandoned yurts and fading murals was meant to be a center of science and spirituality in Kyrgyzstan.