The most common piece of advice ever given might be to just be yourself, to remain true to yourself despite the opinions and judgments of others. Social norms and expectations of how people should behave have led to anxiety in many individuals who feel the need to fit in. However, one country has always stood out in the crowd.

Russia has become famous for its unusual people, events, and traditions. Even when alcohol isn’t involved, the people of Russia seem more willing to step outside the norms of society than most other cultures. And as a result, their country is full of weird and surprising stories—here are only a few examples.

10 Winnie-The-Pooh Steals Tourist’s Money In Moscow

Russia has its own version of Winnie-the-Pooh, which has been a beloved cartoon character for decades. Whenever someone wanders around Central Moscow, they have a good chance of encountering people dressed up as Russian icons and cartoon heroes.

In 2017, one tourist visiting Moscow from Ulyanovsk ran into a group of such costumed characters and jumped at the chance to take some group photos. However, the pictures were not available for free. She paid 5,000 rubles (around $79) to a man dressed as Winnie-the-Pooh. The man promised to return with smaller bills and give her the change, but he never came back.^[1]

9 Town Hires Cat Chief To Attend To Strays

Around 80 applicants responded to an unusual job advert searching for a cat chief in Zelenogradsk in 2018. The job description stated that the worker has to take care of the town’s approximately 70 stray cats. The small town in the Kaliningrad region had also erected a cat statue and added a feline to its emblem to rebrand itself as Russia’s foremost cat-loving community.

Local resident Svetlana Logunova was ultimately appointed as guardian of the town’s felines. She was given a budget of 5,700 rubles (roughly $90) per month to ensure that all the community’s cats are happy, petted, and fed. Logunova was also given a bicycle and uniform, including a bright green jacket, black bow tie, and hat. She was to provide the cats with free rides in the bike’s basket.

“I alone cannot care for every single one and a helping hand would go a long way,” Logunova said.^[2]

8 Russian Orthodox Church Considers Ending Blessings For Nuclear Weapons

A committee on ecclesial law met in Moscow during June 2019 and recommended ending the practice of blessing missiles and warheads. They suggested that priests should instead bless only individual soldiers and their personal weapons. Blessing nuclear weapons is an ongoing Russian tradition, seen as a way of spiritually protecting the country. Bishop Savva Tutunov of the Moscow Patriarchate suggested ending this tradition:

One can talk about the blessing of a warrior on military duty in defense of the fatherland. At the end of the corresponding ritual, the personal weapon is also blessed—precisely because it is connected to the individual person who is receiving the blessing. By the same reasoning, weapons of mass destruction should not be sanctified.

But Tutunov’s view is not universally held in the Orthodox Church. Vsevolod Chaplin, a former spokesman for the Patriarch of Moscow, likened Russia’s nuclear arsenal to “guardian angels” of the country, needed to protect Orthodoxy.^[3] Religion News Service has quoted Chaplin once saying: “Only nuclear weapons protect Russia from enslavement by the West.”

There is another reason why the initiative to stop blessing nuclear weapons faces strong opposition among members of the clergy—Saint Seraphim. Reportedly, St. Seraphim’s remains were discovered in a Russian town housing several nuclear facilities. He is now the patron saint of Russia’s nuclear weapons and an important religious figure.

7 Cops Put Out Fire With Snowballs

Two police officers in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk were commended for averting a tragedy by rushing to help put out a fire with snowballs in November 2018. Lieutenant Yevgeny Lunin and Lieutenant Pavel Istomin noticed heavy smoke rising out of a garage next to a house while on patrol in the village of Kuragino. They alerted the fire department and helped residents to evacuate before the flames spread.

The fire started when a car parked in the garage short-circuited. The Krasnoyarsk regional branch of the Interior Ministry said, “The guardians of law and order continued to hurl snow at the burning fence and garage gates before firefighters arrived.” The statement also added that the police officers will be awarded for helping to prevent a tragedy.^[4]

6 Drunk Man Steals Car And Realizes He Doesn’t Know How To Drive

In 2014, police noticed the “strange behavior” of a man sitting in a car parked in front of a Kemerovo region cafe. When asked to identify himself, the man had no formal documents—no driver’s license and no registration for the vehicle he was sitting in. He also exhibited signs of intoxication, according to the police statement.

Police took the suspicious man to the local precinct, where another local resident soon appeared to report that his car had been stolen. It didn’t take long for the police to determine that the drunk, unidentified man had drilled a hole into the ceiling of the other man’s garage and stolen his vehicle.

However, the drunken thief had to push the stolen car 1 kilometer (0.6 mi) down the road when he realized that he did not know how to drive. The thief, whose identity was not disclosed, faced up to six years in prison.^[5]

5 Woman Rides Moscow Subway With A Live Fox On Her Shoulder

A video of a woman riding the Moscow subway with a pet fox nonchalantly perched on her shoulder went viral on Russian social media in late 2018. Commuters on the busy platform gave the fox strange looks as they waited for the train.

Because the fox did not seem concerned about either the other subway riders or the arriving train, it might not have been the animal’s first train ride. When the doors opened, the woman stepped inside while keeping her back straight so as to not affect the fox’s balance.

Although some social media users were worried about rabies and accused the owner of putting other passengers at risk by not muzzling the animal, most of the commenters found the video hilarious. A few even commended the woman for wearing real fur without harming any animals. “When you want a fur coat but you love animals,” joked one Twitter user.

Despite being a fairly bizarre sight, pet foxes are not that unusual in Russia. Geneticist Dmitry K. Belyaev started a breeding program to domesticate the animals in the 1950s, and a small population of domesticated red foxes still exists today.^[6]

4 Man Crashes Armored Vehicle Into A Shop And Steals A Bottle Of Wine

At the start of 2018, a Russian man was arrested after he stole an armored vehicle and crashed it into a shop in Apatity, a small town near the Arctic Circle. Reportedly, the culprit took the vehicle from a driving school, struggled to steer it, crushed a parked car, and crashed into the shop front.

Russian TV channel Vesti said the man was bored and took the tracked vehicle from the driving school operated by DOSAAF, a voluntary organization which cooperates with the armed forces in Russia. Witnesses described the thief as being drunk. After crashing, the man exited the vehicle through its hatch, briefly inspected the damage, and entered the shop through the broken window.

The man, in his late twenties, was later arrested in possession of a stolen bottle of wine. According to the RIA news agency, he did not resist arrest. The shop was not licensed to sell alcohol that early in the morning, the agency added.^[7]

3 Russian Official In Trouble After His Wife’s Twerking Caused A Massive Traffic Jam

In 2018, the wife of a Moscow region deputy shot a music video on the middle lane of one of the capital’s busiest highways. The footage of three women performing choreographed dances while blocking the traffic with an SUV quickly gained fame among social media users in Russia.

Oksana Yakovleva, 29, who performs under the stage name Yaxana, wrote on her Instagram: “I still have the jitters. My cameraman was almost run over, it was scary.” Moscow City Hall’s traffic control center said the performance delayed several ambulances, and Moscow police filed a traffic violation report against Yakovleva.

The incident also stirred up trouble for Yakovleva’s politician husband, Alexei Yakovlev from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.^[8] Yakovlev said that he planned to “scold” Yaxana once he returns from a trip. “I don’t need this PR. I think there are other more suitable places to film these kinds of performances,” he said.

However, while going through Yaxana’s Instagram page, Moscow Times reporters discovered that Yakolev has joined his wife in middle-of-the-street dancing on previous occasions. Yaxana stated that the trouble was worth it for the sake of her pop music career. “The modern world of show business is so cruel that it’s almost impossible to get there without money and connections,” she said. “I have neither.”

2 City Paints Snow White To Hide Pollution

Footage of a woman’s hands turning white after playing with snow was shared by media in late 2018. This led to accusations that the authorities were covering up snow with sticky white paint to hide signs of pollution in the coal-mining region of Kemerovo.

Dmitry Ivanov, the head of the town where the video was shot, ordered the removal of the paint and reprimanded the officials responsible for it. “I apologize to the townspeople whose New Year’s mood was spoiled by this,” said Ivanov.

The Prague Civil Society Centre, an organization that promotes social change throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia, stated that black snow is common in some parts of Russia. On their website, the organization said: “Coal is big business for Russia’s Far East. Although trade in coal is providing a welcome boost to the region’s struggling economy, it is having a devastating effect on both the environment and health of its inhabitants.”

Russia is among the largest coal producers in the world, and their numbers are only expected to increase. The country’s Ministry of Energy predicts roughly 480 million tons will be produced annually by 2030.^[9]

1 Four Men Dress Up As A Bus To Cross Vehicle-Only Bridge

A clip taken in 2018 by a baffled motorist shows a group of Russian men hiding inside a yellow cardboard bus costume while trying to cross the Golden Bridge in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok. Unfortunately, a traffic guard saw through their disguise and asked them to make a U-turn.^[10]

The massive cable-stayed Golden Bridge was opened in 2012, linking the center of the city to the Pervomaiskyi district. Despite being a popular tourist site, the bridge was closed off to pedestrians in 2015. But locals have started complaining about the ban, claiming they are being denied access to the shortest route into the center.

According to a report by The Moscow Times, the woman recording the video was heard saying, “Where did they come from? This is beautiful, it’s art. Why are they kicking them out?” The video went viral on Twitter, and the comments were filled with laughter and praise for their creativity.

There are nearly 144 million inhabitants in Russia, putting it at ninth place in the list of countries by population. With a total land area of 16,376,870 square kilometers (6,323,142 mi²) and a population density of only nine people per square kilometer (23 people per mi²), there is plenty of space for people to do dumb and unusual things.

That might be why Russia has an unlimited supply of odd stories and events despite containing only 1.87 percent of the world population.^[1] Here are ten more examples of their weird news stories which can rival the famous “Florida Man.”

10 Stadium Blasts Dying Bird Noises To Scare Away Birds

If you think your neighbors are too loud, try living next to Gazprom Arena. Residents flooded police departments with noise complaints after a new bird-scaring system went live in the popular St. Petersburg arena in June 2019. Reportedly, the system emitted sounds of dying birds and gunfire.

One resident named Anastasia said: “Children either can’t fall asleep or wake up asking ‘why are the birds suffering?’ ” Football Club Zenit did not say whether any birds were harmed in the recording of the sounds. Another resident complained that the people in charge of Gazprom Arena promised to adjust the volume, but it only seemed to get louder.

St. Petersburg isn’t the only place dealing with troublesome birds. The Moscow metro recently installed nearly 300 bird of prey stickers at 21 station lobbies to scare away birds and prevent them from crashing into glass panes to their deaths.^[2]

9 Former Teacher Kills Friend Who Claimed That Poetry Is Not Real Literature

In early 2014, a 53-year-old man in Irbit, a town in the Sverdlovsk region of the Urals, was charged with the murder of another man, 67, said to have been a friend. They were drinking together in the friend’s flat when he said only prose was “real literature.”

According to federal police in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk: “The host insisted that real literature is prose, while his guest, a former teacher, argued for poetry. The literary dispute soon grew into a banal conflict, based on which the 53-year-old admirer of poetry killed his opponent with the help of a knife.”^[3]

The killer fled the scene and was later found hiding at an acquaintance’s house in a nearby village. He confessed to the murder and faced a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

8 Two Drunk Men Cut Off Their Ears For A Bet

Another odd news headline appeared in early 2014, when two intoxicated men in a Siberian mining region cut off their own ears after betting on an arm-wrestling contest. Police reported that the men were drinking to celebrate Orthodox Christmas and held an arm-wrestling contest, agreeing that the loser had to cut off his ear.

One man won the first match, but his opponent insisted on a second round, which he won. The men decided that according to their rules, both must cut off their ears. “The men voluntarily cut off their left ears. One completely, and the other half off. They were hospitalized with these injuries,” police said.^[4]

7 Naked Cheesemakers Take Photos In A Vat Filled With Milk

A group of cheesemakers celebrated the beginning of 2014 by swimming in the milk used for cheese processing. They posed and took pictures, which quickly went viral. An Artem Romanov posted the photos on the VKontakte social network with the caption: “Yeah, our job is really boring.” One man is even seen holding up his shorts for the camera.

Although the original images were removed, a wave of reposts and comments spread across the web. Some Internet users commented, “Now we know why the cheese is so salty.” Turns out that Romanov had previously posted other bizarre photos and videos. Earlier, he had posted a video of nearly naked men preparing dried braid cheese on the factory floor.

Their stunt may have caused some serious damage to the cheese industry in Omsk, a major Russian center for food processing. “If you plan to buy stringed-cheese the next time you go to the supermarket, you may want to check that it wasn’t made in Omsk,” warned The Moscow Times.^[5]

6 Man Fights Off Siberian Bear By Biting Its Tongue Off

In 2019, Nikolay Irgit, 30, and his two friends were collecting deer and moose antlers without the necessary permits in a forest reserve in the Tuva region. The antlers were used for making furniture as well as for medical purposes and often sold for a hefty price on the black market.^[6]

The men split up to cover more ground. Deep into the forest, Igrit stumbled across a brown bear. Weighing up to 600 kilograms (1323 lb), Siberian bears can rip an adult man apart. Igrit tried to scare away the beast by screaming, but the bear charged at him and repeatedly bit his face and head, also injuring the man’s hands and stomach.

As the bear was snapping at his face, the man bit the bear’s tongue off, scaring it away. Covered in blood, Igrit called for help, and his friends arrived to call an ambulance. Although the man survived the bear attack, he did not escape the law. Police launched an administrative case against him for illegal activities in the forest reserves.

5 Clairvoyant Purchases Psychic Cat For $84,000

An unusual news headline appeared at the start of 2017, when a clairvoyant bought a “psychic” cat in Russia. Dimitry, the cat’s owner, inherited the cat from his aunt when she died. He claimed that the cat could suddenly appear from behind locked doors and use mind tricks to make Dimitry go shopping for the cat’s favorite food in the middle of the night.

The owner reported that he hates fish and sausage, but the cat made him hungry for these foods. “He would wake me up at 5 am giving me a strong desire to eat fish or sausage,” said Dimitry. “So much so that I had to go out right then to buy it, and give it to the cat. And as soon as the cat started to eat, my hunger disappeared.”

The cat also stared into empty spaces, evidently seeing things humans could not. Even Dimitry’s marriage suffered, with his wife feeling uneasy around the “psychic” pet. That was until a clairvoyant from Novosibirsk, around 4,500 kilometers (2,800 mi) away, mysteriously heard about the cat and came to inspect it.

Labeled as a “witch” by local media, the woman paid five million rubles (around $84,000) for the cat, intending to put it to work in her seances. “She is a clairvoyant and came with all her paraphernalia. She closed the cat in the room, and then rapidly decided to buy it,” Dimitry said.^[7]

4 Cargo Plane Drops Three Tons Of Gold Over Siberia

For a brief moment on March 15, 2018, the gray skies of Siberia were filled with gold. A Cold War-era cargo aircraft took off from Yakutsk Airport in Siberia, carrying an estimated $378 million in gold, platinum, and diamonds on behalf of a private mining company. During takeoff, the cargo hatch tore open and spilled nearly 200 gold bars.

Most of the ingots immediately landed on the Yakutsk Airport runway, but the plane continued flying for another 16 kilometers (10 mi) to make an emergency landing and dropped more cargo along the way. A police spokesperson stated that nobody was injured, and the treasure was recovered. Apparently, the plane’s maintenance crew was to blame for improperly securing the cargo.^[8]

3 Dagestan Hosts Sheep Beauty Queen Contest

To celebrate the Muslim “Festival of Sacrifice,” known as Eid al-Adha in Arabic and Kurban Bayram in the Russian and Turkic-speaking world, the city of Dagestan held a sheep beauty contest in August 2018. Considered as one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar, Kurban Bayram celebrates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son on a command from God.

An outdoor livestock market in central Dagestan held the contest to mark the occasion. According to the Buynaksk district website, “The jury faced a truly difficult task: To pick the most worthy candidate for the ‘Most Beautiful Sheep’ title out of 10 decorated and fairly good-looking sheep.”

They awarded the owner of the winning sheep, named “Princess Aisha,” with a traditional handmade dagger. Estimates say roughly 300,000 sheep are slaughtered on Kurban Bayram every year, but no words were given about the ultimate fate of Princess Aisha.^[9]

2 World Chess President Claims He Was Abducted And Aliens Invented Chess

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was the world chess president from 1995 to 2018, defeating the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the job. He was also the president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia from 1993 to 2010.

However, one unusual claim sets Ilyumzhinov apart from the average politician. He says that aliens wearing yellow spacesuits abducted him from his Moscow home in September 1997:

I was taken [from] my apartment in Moscow to this spaceship, and we went to some star and after that, I asked them, “Please bring me back.” They are like people, like us. They have the same mind and the same vision. I talked with them and I understand that we are not alone in this whole world—we are not unique.

Considering Ilyumzhinov’s alleged otherworldly encounter and his long-term association with the World Chess Federation, it is not surprising that he made a connection between aliens and the game of chess:

My theory is that chess comes from space. Because it’s the same rules—64 squares, black and white, and the same rules in Japan, in China, in Qatar, in Mongolia, in Africa—the rules are the same. Why? I think maybe it is from space.^[10]

1 Bag Of 54 Severed Human Hands Found In Siberia

A fisherman in Siberia made a grim discovery in March 2018. He was walking along the icy Amur River when he noticed a hand sticking out of the snow on a small island near the city of Khabarovsk. Soon, he discovered that there was an entire bag full of hands.

The bag contained 27 pairs of human hands, severed at the wrist. Photos of the 54 hands lined up in neat rows quickly gained media attention. But according to the Russian government, it was not the work of a hand-obsessed killer.

Medical bandages and plastic shoe coverings commonly used in facilities such as laboratories and hospitals were also found in the bag. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation determined that their origin was a Khabarovsk-based forensics laboratory, which disposed of its biowaste improperly.

“The biological objects (hands) found are not of a criminal origin, but were disposed of in a manner not provided for by law,” wrote the committee. However, it is not known why the laboratory severed the hands in the first place.^[11]

There are nearly 144 million inhabitants in Russia, putting it at ninth place in the list of countries by population. With a total land area of 16,376,870 square kilometers (6,323,142 mi²) and a population density of only nine people per square kilometer (23 people per mi²), there is plenty of space for people to do dumb and unusual things.

That might be why Russia has an unlimited supply of odd stories and events despite containing only 1.87 percent of the world population.^[1] Here are ten more examples of their weird news stories which can rival the famous “Florida Man.”

10 Stadium Blasts Dying Bird Noises To Scare Away Birds

If you think your neighbors are too loud, try living next to Gazprom Arena. Residents flooded police departments with noise complaints after a new bird-scaring system went live in the popular St. Petersburg arena in June 2019. Reportedly, the system emitted sounds of dying birds and gunfire.

One resident named Anastasia said: “Children either can’t fall asleep or wake up asking ‘why are the birds suffering?’ ” Football Club Zenit did not say whether any birds were harmed in the recording of the sounds. Another resident complained that the people in charge of Gazprom Arena promised to adjust the volume, but it only seemed to get louder.

St. Petersburg isn’t the only place dealing with troublesome birds. The Moscow metro recently installed nearly 300 bird of prey stickers at 21 station lobbies to scare away birds and prevent them from crashing into glass panes to their deaths.^[2]

9 Former Teacher Kills Friend Who Claimed That Poetry Is Not Real Literature

In early 2014, a 53-year-old man in Irbit, a town in the Sverdlovsk region of the Urals, was charged with the murder of another man, 67, said to have been a friend. They were drinking together in the friend’s flat when he said only prose was “real literature.”

According to federal police in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk: “The host insisted that real literature is prose, while his guest, a former teacher, argued for poetry. The literary dispute soon grew into a banal conflict, based on which the 53-year-old admirer of poetry killed his opponent with the help of a knife.”^[3]

The killer fled the scene and was later found hiding at an acquaintance’s house in a nearby village. He confessed to the murder and faced a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

8 Two Drunk Men Cut Off Their Ears For A Bet

Another odd news headline appeared in early 2014, when two intoxicated men in a Siberian mining region cut off their own ears after betting on an arm-wrestling contest. Police reported that the men were drinking to celebrate Orthodox Christmas and held an arm-wrestling contest, agreeing that the loser had to cut off his ear.

One man won the first match, but his opponent insisted on a second round, which he won. The men decided that according to their rules, both must cut off their ears. “The men voluntarily cut off their left ears. One completely, and the other half off. They were hospitalized with these injuries,” police said.^[4]

7 Naked Cheesemakers Take Photos In A Vat Filled With Milk

A group of cheesemakers celebrated the beginning of 2014 by swimming in the milk used for cheese processing. They posed and took pictures, which quickly went viral. An Artem Romanov posted the photos on the VKontakte social network with the caption: “Yeah, our job is really boring.” One man is even seen holding up his shorts for the camera.

Although the original images were removed, a wave of reposts and comments spread across the web. Some Internet users commented, “Now we know why the cheese is so salty.” Turns out that Romanov had previously posted other bizarre photos and videos. Earlier, he had posted a video of nearly naked men preparing dried braid cheese on the factory floor.

Their stunt may have caused some serious damage to the cheese industry in Omsk, a major Russian center for food processing. “If you plan to buy stringed-cheese the next time you go to the supermarket, you may want to check that it wasn’t made in Omsk,” warned The Moscow Times.^[5]

6 Man Fights Off Siberian Bear By Biting Its Tongue Off

In 2019, Nikolay Irgit, 30, and his two friends were collecting deer and moose antlers without the necessary permits in a forest reserve in the Tuva region. The antlers were used for making furniture as well as for medical purposes and often sold for a hefty price on the black market.^[6]

The men split up to cover more ground. Deep into the forest, Igrit stumbled across a brown bear. Weighing up to 600 kilograms (1323 lb), Siberian bears can rip an adult man apart. Igrit tried to scare away the beast by screaming, but the bear charged at him and repeatedly bit his face and head, also injuring the man’s hands and stomach.

As the bear was snapping at his face, the man bit the bear’s tongue off, scaring it away. Covered in blood, Igrit called for help, and his friends arrived to call an ambulance. Although the man survived the bear attack, he did not escape the law. Police launched an administrative case against him for illegal activities in the forest reserves.

5 Clairvoyant Purchases Psychic Cat For $84,000

An unusual news headline appeared at the start of 2017, when a clairvoyant bought a “psychic” cat in Russia. Dimitry, the cat’s owner, inherited the cat from his aunt when she died. He claimed that the cat could suddenly appear from behind locked doors and use mind tricks to make Dimitry go shopping for the cat’s favorite food in the middle of the night.

The owner reported that he hates fish and sausage, but the cat made him hungry for these foods. “He would wake me up at 5 am giving me a strong desire to eat fish or sausage,” said Dimitry. “So much so that I had to go out right then to buy it, and give it to the cat. And as soon as the cat started to eat, my hunger disappeared.”

The cat also stared into empty spaces, evidently seeing things humans could not. Even Dimitry’s marriage suffered, with his wife feeling uneasy around the “psychic” pet. That was until a clairvoyant from Novosibirsk, around 4,500 kilometers (2,800 mi) away, mysteriously heard about the cat and came to inspect it.

Labeled as a “witch” by local media, the woman paid five million rubles (around $84,000) for the cat, intending to put it to work in her seances. “She is a clairvoyant and came with all her paraphernalia. She closed the cat in the room, and then rapidly decided to buy it,” Dimitry said.^[7]

4 Cargo Plane Drops Three Tons Of Gold Over Siberia

For a brief moment on March 15, 2018, the gray skies of Siberia were filled with gold. A Cold War-era cargo aircraft took off from Yakutsk Airport in Siberia, carrying an estimated $378 million in gold, platinum, and diamonds on behalf of a private mining company. During takeoff, the cargo hatch tore open and spilled nearly 200 gold bars.

Most of the ingots immediately landed on the Yakutsk Airport runway, but the plane continued flying for another 16 kilometers (10 mi) to make an emergency landing and dropped more cargo along the way. A police spokesperson stated that nobody was injured, and the treasure was recovered. Apparently, the plane’s maintenance crew was to blame for improperly securing the cargo.^[8]

3 Dagestan Hosts Sheep Beauty Queen Contest

To celebrate the Muslim “Festival of Sacrifice,” known as Eid al-Adha in Arabic and Kurban Bayram in the Russian and Turkic-speaking world, the city of Dagestan held a sheep beauty contest in August 2018. Considered as one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar, Kurban Bayram celebrates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son on a command from God.

An outdoor livestock market in central Dagestan held the contest to mark the occasion. According to the Buynaksk district website, “The jury faced a truly difficult task: To pick the most worthy candidate for the ‘Most Beautiful Sheep’ title out of 10 decorated and fairly good-looking sheep.”

They awarded the owner of the winning sheep, named “Princess Aisha,” with a traditional handmade dagger. Estimates say roughly 300,000 sheep are slaughtered on Kurban Bayram every year, but no words were given about the ultimate fate of Princess Aisha.^[9]

2 World Chess President Claims He Was Abducted And Aliens Invented Chess

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was the world chess president from 1995 to 2018, defeating the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the job. He was also the president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia from 1993 to 2010.

However, one unusual claim sets Ilyumzhinov apart from the average politician. He says that aliens wearing yellow spacesuits abducted him from his Moscow home in September 1997:

I was taken [from] my apartment in Moscow to this spaceship, and we went to some star and after that, I asked them, “Please bring me back.” They are like people, like us. They have the same mind and the same vision. I talked with them and I understand that we are not alone in this whole world—we are not unique.

Considering Ilyumzhinov’s alleged otherworldly encounter and his long-term association with the World Chess Federation, it is not surprising that he made a connection between aliens and the game of chess:

My theory is that chess comes from space. Because it’s the same rules—64 squares, black and white, and the same rules in Japan, in China, in Qatar, in Mongolia, in Africa—the rules are the same. Why? I think maybe it is from space.^[10]

1 Bag Of 54 Severed Human Hands Found In Siberia

A fisherman in Siberia made a grim discovery in March 2018. He was walking along the icy Amur River when he noticed a hand sticking out of the snow on a small island near the city of Khabarovsk. Soon, he discovered that there was an entire bag full of hands.

The bag contained 27 pairs of human hands, severed at the wrist. Photos of the 54 hands lined up in neat rows quickly gained media attention. But according to the Russian government, it was not the work of a hand-obsessed killer.

Medical bandages and plastic shoe coverings commonly used in facilities such as laboratories and hospitals were also found in the bag. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation determined that their origin was a Khabarovsk-based forensics laboratory, which disposed of its biowaste improperly.

“The biological objects (hands) found are not of a criminal origin, but were disposed of in a manner not provided for by law,” wrote the committee. However, it is not known why the laboratory severed the hands in the first place.^[11]

Before Peter the Great, who ruled from 1682 to 1725, Russia was lagging years behind the rest of the world. While the Enlightenment was bringing the European world into a new age, Russia was stagnant, until Tsar Peter I dragged it kicking and screaming into the modern world.

Peter the Great did some incredible things for Russia, but he was mainly working off the idea that if the Europeans were doing something, Russia should be doing it, too. And that led to some absolutely insane decisions.

For better or for worse, Peter the Great brought Russia into the modern world—but he did it in some of the strangest ways possible.

10 The Terrible Disguises Of Peter The Great

Peter the Great was determined to make Russia a nation that rivaled the greatest European powers. He wanted Russia to do everything the Europeans did. First, though, he had to figure out what that was. So, Peter decided to make a tour of Europe—in disguise.

It was a fine idea, in theory, except that Peter was 203 centimeters (6’8”) tall. The man towered above every person he saw, and he traveled with an entourage of 250 Russian nobles. So when a gigantic, wealthy Russian man walked around telling people he was a migrant laborer, absolutely nobody was fooled.

The tsar spent months working as a shipbuilder in the Netherlands. He told his employer that he was a foreign craftsman. They didn’t believe him. Everybody knew who he was. But, mostly for the novelty, they let Peter work there, anyway.

Whole crowds of Dutch citizens would come out to watch Peter the Great building ships and living in peasant quarters. As a man who grew up in a castle, he was probably doing the worst job at it that they’d ever seen. He worked as a laborer long enough to help build a ship. If he didn’t realize that his disguise wasn’t working by then, it must have hit him when his boss asked if he wanted the ship sent to his palace.

9 The Beard Tax

When Peter the Great returned to Russia, he was determined to make some changes. From there on out, they were going to do things the European way, and Peter wasn’t going to waste any time. During the reception to welcome him home, Peter hugged his noblemen. Then, without a word of warning, he pulled out a razor and chopped off their beards.

Having a beard became a crime shortly after. This was a major a change: Until then, Russian had viewed a long, flowing beard as a sign of manliness. But the Europeans had made fun of Peter for his, so the beards had to go.

Anyone with a beard had to pay a tax of 100 rubles each year. Peasants and clergyman were excepted, but if a peasant entered a city with beard, he paid a fine. People who paid the tax were given a coin that read, “The beard is a useless burden!” to let the police know they were legally permitted to have one. If they were caught without the coin, the police could forcibly shave them on the streets.

For all of his hatred for beards, though, Peter the Great loved mustaches. For the men of the Russian military, he set out another decree: Beards were forbidden, but mustaches were mandatory.

8 The All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod Of Fools And Jesters

Up until then, the Russian Orthodox Church had been led by the patriarch of Moscow. Peter the Great changed all that. He was a raging drinker and partier, and he didn’t care for all the pious stuff. So he replaced Russia’s religious leaders with a new group called the Holy Synod, filled with people he could control.

He didn’t particularly respect his own church, either. Around the same time, he set up another group called the All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters, and their job was to get as drunk as possible as often as they could. This was Peter’s old drinking group, now reformed to let the church know exactly what he thought of it. He even made one of his friends the “prince-pope” of the All-Drunken Synod and had him do a mock Stations of the Cross before they all got hammered.

People weren’t thrilled. Some started to say that Peter the Great was the antichrist himself. But the people in power didn’t mind. Eventually, every powerful man in the government was part of the All-Drunken Synod—including some of the clergy.

7 The Medal Of Drunkenness

Peter the Great might have been a raging alcoholic, but he didn’t want Europeans coming to Russia and seeing drunken peasants sleeping on the streets. He was determined to fix the drinking problem—in the silliest ways possible.

Anyone caught on the streets intoxicated was forced to wear an 8-kilogram (18 lb) cast iron medal around his neck for the next week. It looked exactly like a medal of honor, except that it read “For drunkenness,” and it was incredibly heavy.

The Medal of Drunkenness didn’t do much to curb alcoholism in Russia, but Peter probably wasn’t too worried. His other rules made it pretty clear that he thought getting drunk was a God-given right. In another law, Peter decreed that a woman could be flogged if she made her husband leave the tavern before he was done drinking.

6 The Museum Of Deformities

In Europe, Peter the Great had seen countless cabinets of curiosities. These were the era’s freak shows, and he found them incredibly fascinating. Putting freaks on display, he believed, was a scientific and educational tool that would enrich the country, so he had a museum built as soon as he got back.

His museum was called the Kunstkamera, and it was full of the strangest things he could find. It had two-headed babies preserved in jars, deformed animal skeletons, and more. It even held live exhibits where children with birth defects would meet and greet the visitors.

For Peter, it wasn’t just exploitation. It was education. When he opened it, he declared, “I want people to look and learn!” The press agreed. In France, the papers spread the news about his museum of oddities. Impressed, they wrote, “Tsar Peter Alexeyevich is intent on enlightening his country.”

5 Mandatory Pants

In this era, Russia still wore its traditional clothing. The men would step out dressed in long, thick robes with tall hats on their heads—until Peter the Great forced them to put on some pants. “No one,” Peter declared, “is to wear Russian dress.” From that day forward, it was law: “Western dress shall be worn by all!”

Every piece of clothing was dictated. There were laws on what type of underwear you could wear. There were punishments in place for wearing shoes in the bed. Men were required to wear French-cut coats with German-cut clothes underneath, and they could be punished if they didn’t.

Like his beard tax, Peter introduced his mandatory pants laws by pouncing up behind unsuspecting noblemen and cutting the sleeves off their robes. Then he laughed at them and said, “Now you won’t be dragging your clothes through your food!”

He certainly changed fashion, but it wasn’t exactly well-thought-out. Those thick cloaks had kept Russians warm through the winter. Now, dressed in German underwear, they were struggling not to freeze to death.

4 The Russian Flag

The modern Russian flag was Peter the Great’s creation, too. It’s a bold but simple design: three stripes, with white above, red below, and blue between, colors carefully chosen to symbolize . . . uh . . . absolutely nothing.

Russia got its flag because when Peter was in Europe, he was delighted by the way Dutch ships had little flags on them. Russian ships, he decided, needed to have little flags on them, too. He didn’t really know what to hoist, though, so he just moved the colors on the Dutch flag around and had his ships use that as their flag.

At first, the new flag was only used on ships, but in time, it turned into the country’s national flag. Soon, the whole country was marching under those three colors, most unaware that the patriotic symbol of their nation was just an old emperor trying to be like the Netherlands.

3 The Construction Of St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg, too, was just another attempt to copy the Dutch. Peter the Great ordered his men to build the city on top of a swamp and demanded that it look as much like Amsterdam as possible.

His dream was to make it Russia’s most European city. He even imagined that people would travel around St. Petersburg by drifting down the canals in boats, like in Venice. And he was willing to work his people to death to get it.

One of the first buildings constructed in the city was the Peter and Paul Fortress. Over 20,000 laborers worked on it, some being required to work with their bare hands. Thousands of people died building it.

To make sure he had enough stone, Peter made it illegal to build any stone buildings anywhere in Russia other than St. Petersburg. All stones, Peter demanded, were to be sent to the city.

Peter was thrilled with the result. He even made St. Petersburg the capital of the nation. Others, though, were less impressed. Dostoyevsky, for one, called it the “most artificial city in the world.”

2 Mandatory Nicotine Habits

Tobacco had been banned by the previous tsars. The Russian Church viewed smoking as an “abomination to God,” and they dealt with it severely. A person caught smoking could be exiled to Siberia or worse. Some had their nostrils torn open or their lips cut off to keep them from ever smoking again.

Peter the Great, though, took a different approach. He didn’t just legalize smoking—he insisted on it. Every Russian was encouraged to smoke as often as possible. Some members of the nobility were even required to smoke under the decree of the tsar.

As with everything else Peter did, smoking was something he’d seen the Europeans do. It was also an opportunity to get them into the country. He let foreign companies set up tobacco plantations in Russia and started building tobacco-manufacturing plants around the nation.

Cigarettes, though, are never complete without caffeine, so Peter brought coffee to Russia, too. The Russians thought it was disgusting. They called it “smut syrup,” but Peter pushed it hard enough that pretty soon, there were enough coffee drinkers to open Russia’s first coffee house.

1 The Dwarf Wedding

Peter the Great loved people with dwarfism. In his time, treating little people like jesters was normal, but he took it to extremes. He would get little people to hide naked inside pies and then jump out to surprise people for a laugh.

He wanted more dwarfs—so he tried to breed them. He had a little person in his court, Iakim Volkov, married to another dwarf, hoping to breed a race of little people. But he wanted it to be a big affair. He ordered every little person in Russia to attend.

About 70 little people made it, and he dressed them all in the latest Western fashions, lined with gold. This wasn’t a gesture of respect. Most of these dwarfs were poor, uneducated peasants. His attendants deliberately loaded them up with alcohol and then laughed while the peasant dwarfs clumsily stumbled through dances and erupted into drunken fistfights.

Peter thought it was hilarious—but more than that, he thought it was an allegory for Russia. Russia, he believed, was like those drunken little people. They had the clothes, and they were doing the dances, but they were just playing at being Europeans.