At the end of 1914, when Russia was fighting in World War I, the Russian Army had 6,553,000 men, but only 4,652,000 rifles.

Venice, Italy is north of Vladivostok, Russia. (source)

In Moscow, it is estimated that three per cent of pets are addicted to alcohol. (source)

Catherine the Great of Russia, upon discovering that she had dandruff, imprisoned her hairdresser in an iron cage for three years to prevent the news from spreading. (source)

Between 1828 and 1845, Russia coined money made of platinum. (source)

The U.S.S.R.'s Soyuz was the first Soviet spacecraft to dock with an American spacecraft. (source)

Table tennis was banned in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1950 because it was believed to be harmful to the eyes, but it was never explained why this might be the case. (source)

Russia can be seen as having been founded as a by-product of Viking slave raids in the ninth century. (source)

The first woman in space was a Soviet, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. No female Americans went into space until twenty years later, when Sally Ride did in 1983. (source)

As recently as 1890, almost no country required its nationals to have appropriate documents to travel abroad, and only a few countries (such as Persia, Romania, Russia, and Serbia) required foreigners to have passports to cross their borders. (source)

In 1929, the U.S.S.R. decreed a week of five days. In 1933, a six-day week was decreed. By 1940, the seven-day week was restored. (source)

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, Earth's first artificial satellite. It was quite small, being about the size of a basketball and weighing 183 pounds. It took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical orbit. (source)

Lake Baikal in Russia is the world's deepest lake, being as deep as 5,712 feet (over one mile) in places. Even though Lake Baikal is only the seventh-largest lake in the world by area, it is the world's largest lake by volume due to its depth. It contains about 20% of the world's liquid surface freshwater. (source)

During the 19^th century, Turkey lost three wars to Russia (in 1812, 1829, and 1878). The Greeks won their independence by defeating the Turks in 1827, while the Egyptians invaded and defeated Turkey in wars fought in 1832, 1839, and 1840. From 1912 to 1913, Turkey lost wars to Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania. During World War I, Turkey joined the Central Powers and went down to defeat with Germany. (source)