55 stunning facts about Russia from the British newspaper The Telegraph

It turns out that our main delicacy - chicken feet soup "brawn" and omit the "ears" fur hat considered shameful, if the street is warmer than 20 ° C! The British publication The Telegraph has told the British a few dozen stunning facts about Russia. Journalists gathered in one pile everything: the main delicacy of the mysterious Russian soul, and grandmothers working in the wardrobe, and the icicles that can kill one of its kind ...

The site has decided to publish this collection. So, what is it - Russia through the eyes of Englishmen?

1. Astoria - Hotel in St. Petersburg, where Hitler was planning to throw a banquet in honor of the capture of the city.

2. The largest museum of Russia - the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. In it live about 70 cats that guard the treasures from rodents. This tradition laid the Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, the founder of St. Petersburg. The museum has nearly 14 miles of marble corridors.

3. «Saturday" called the day when the people of the Russian cities come voluntarily to sweep and tidy streets. The tradition was founded after the Revolution, but survived to the present day.

4. The name "Red Square" has nothing to do with communism and comes from the word "red", which once meant "beautiful».

5. Icicles hanging from the roofs of houses in the winter in Moscow, so huge that enclose the sidewalks strap. For icicles certainly kill you, if you fall on your head.

6. In the bronze dog at the Revolution Square subway station shiny nose. According to local signs, if you touch to it, you catch up with good luck.

7. This is not the only dog ​​sculpture in Russia. There is still a monument to Laika - a dog, a melted into space for the first time in 1957.

8. A traditional Russian delicacy - soup made from chicken legs, "aspic».

9. In Russia, like wardrobes. Do not expect to go far in the restaurant, bar, museum or gallery, while not pass the coat and / or a bag at the entrance. Tuck all the team here grandmothers.





10. There may be a problem with presenting flowers. Before handing you should make sure that their number is odd in a bouquet. And only if you go to a funeral, you can take the bunch with an even number of flowers.

11. In St. Petersburg, next to the bridge leading to the fortress, there is a monument hare, relatives who previously inhabited the island and died during the floods. It is considered good luck to throw a coin into it and get.

12. The further away from the capital, the smaller cars. And the people of hairstyles stranger.

13. Russian - the fourth in a row of most drinking nation in the world after Belarus, Moldova and Lithuania. United Kingdom 25 seats.

14. The word "vodka" comes from the word 'water ».

15. Male life expectancy is only 63 years old, is lower than that of North Korea or Iraq. But women live to 75.

16. Whale Island Itygran famous alley - ancient Eskimo construction of dug into the ground parallel rows of skulls and jaws of bowhead whales.

17. Moscow subway, perhaps the most beautiful in the world.

18. Many people believe that there is an alternative scheme to the underground - passages that link the system of military bunkers.

19. Russian marinate everything: cucumber, beets and former leaders.

20. can be found in Moscow, trees, hung with iron locks - couples leave them here to prove his love.





21. In the museum under the monument to heroic defenders of Leningrad always ticking metronome. This is the only sound on the radio during the siege to let people know: the city is still alive.

22. Russian considered cowardly lowered "ears" on the fur hat when outdoors warmer -20 C.

23. With the movement in Moscow so bad that wealthy Russians are hiring fake ambulance siren to overcome traffic jams.

24. The park of Arts Museon in Moscow - a bunch of Soviet statues proved unnecessary, as well as more modern works.

25. Women in Russia to 11 million more women than men.

26. 50% of police accept bribes.

27. In one of the restaurants in Moscow are only twins.

28. Russia - is not only the tundra and taiga, you can go hiking on the volcanoes.

29. The foreigners have to pay more for entrance to the Russians most of the tourist sites. It's not fair, but it is useless to complain. Better to laugh at the fact that Abramovich will pay five times less than you just because he is a Russian citizen.

30. Faster Yakovlev - the man who supervised the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral. Legend has it that Ivan the Terrible blinded him so he could never build anything that can compete with the cathedral in Moscow.





31. in Russia is more time zones than any other country - 11.

32. Despite the fact that the situation has improved significantly, Russian police are still notorious for document checks, so always carry them with you.

33. One of the biggest mysteries of World War II - the fate of the Amber Room. The hall, decorated with panels of amber gold leaf and mirrors, was located in the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg. The Amber Room was looted by the Nazis, then traces of it are lost.

34. Olkhon Island, the largest on Lake Baikal - a hotbed of shamanism.

35. In the small dining room of the Winter Palace is a clock on the mantelpiece. They were stopped at 2:10 am on the night of October 25, 1917, when the Provisional Government had been arrested by the Bolsheviks. This is the moment when Russia took the path of communism.

36. Mikhail Gorbachev recorded an album of romantic ballads. And Putin has your DVD Judo.

37. In the 90s at PepsiCo was one of the most powerful submarine fleets in the world thanks to an agreement with Russia.

38. The Russians can visit Helsinki from St. Petersburg without a visa within the cruise ferry.

39. There are in St. Petersburg Beach. Next to the Peter and Paul Fortress called "walrus" - people who believe in the therapeutic effect of ice water - swimming in the winter.





40. Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg offers a quirky selection of attractions, including a pair of Egyptian sphinxes 15th century cabinet of curiosities, where you can see the skeleton of the heart and personal servant of Peter the Great.

41. 1800 skiers and snowboarders in winter came down from the mountain Sheregesh in bikini in an attempt to beat the Guinness world record.

42. The ambitious plans of Russians have a dream to build a highway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.

43. Russia - home to Europe's longest river, the Volga, 3690 km in length, which has more than 200 tributaries.

44. The inhuman labor camps (Gulag) could become a tourist spot. This controversial plan voiced by Regional Tourism Department in the Republic of Sakha, Eastern Siberia.

45. Around 10,000 British tourists visit Russia every year. And 90% of them did not go as far as Moscow and / or St. Petersburg.

46. in Uglich (about 125 miles north of Moscow), in 1591, allegedly on the orders of Boris Godunov, killed eight years of Tsarevich Dmitry, the younger son of Ivan the Terrible and the last of the dynasty of Rurik. In order to prevent the people's indignation from Moscow sent investigators who found that the boy fell on the knife and accidentally self-inflicted wound.

47. Russia - home to the coldest inhabited place on the planet - the village Oymyakon. February 6, 1933 there was a fixed temperature of -67, 7 ° C.

48. One Russian built round the ship.

49. In 1908, the Russian Olympic team late in the game for 12 days because the country lived under the Julian calendar, and England - is the Gregorian.

50. Yokangsko-Sami of the Kola Peninsula is on the brink of extinction - it is spoken by only two people.

51. You can buy vintage stamps in small stalls on the streets.

52. Peter the Great was so fond of his toy soldiers that hung a rat that had the imprudence to chew off the head of one of them. He also imposed a tax on beards.





53. In Russia there is a chain of cafes in which everything is free, you pay only for the time being there. One of these was opened in London last year.

54. Lake Karachai is used as a dump for nuclear waste, so that if the stand next to him for an hour - it certainly kill you.

55. One of the museums of St. Petersburg states that owns the exclusive exhibit - severed penis of Grigory Rasputin, placed in a glass jar. However, experts doubt that this is the real thing.



via www.kp.ru/daily/26393.4/3270323/