A monument to the defenders of the Arctic in Murmansk, Russia.

A surreal pile of colorful junk fills a small yard in an otherwise gray neighborhood.

This effigy of Peter the Great is greatly disproportionate.

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

Perhaps the tiniest sculpture in Saint Petersburg is a little bronze finch inspired by a song.

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

Rare documents, old instruments, and gruesome specimens showcase the history of military medicine.

An art museum inside an active factory.

This memorial complex contains several mass graves for victims of the Siege of Leningrad.

A replica of the straw hut where Vladimir Lenin lived in hiding, disguised as a hay farmer, in 1917.

An abandoned 14th-century castle and prison complex on a small island in the Neva River.

A man-made island fort that has housed soldiers, scientists, and ravers.

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.

Estonia's largest creative city is a vibrant bohemian hub located within a former industrial complex.

A former imperial sea-fortress and Soviet prison.

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

An empty relic of the Moscow Olympics crumbles away in Estonia's capital.

This striking memorial is one of Estonia’s most controversial Soviet leftovers.

The first monument in Estonia that was made by an Estonian sculptor.

A spectacular Petrine Baroque summer palace commissioned for Catherine I by Peter the Great.

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

An abandoned textile factory on the "island of crows" was home to Estonia's first workers' strike.

This stunning limestone waterfall is the highest in Estonia.

The reason for the strange contortions in the trunks of these "drunken" pine trees in Russia is still a mystery.