subject: Twenty Interesting Facts You Never Knew About Russia [print this page] Twenty Interesting Facts You Never Knew About Russia
1. The Romanov dynasty lasted 300 years. It began with sixteen year old Mikhail Romanov in 1613 and ended with Nicholas Romanov in 1917.
2. Chess is taught in all Russian schools, it is part of the curriculum like maths and science
3. Matryoshka dolls are erroneously referred to as babushkas in English speaking countries. The word babushka means old woman / grandmother in Russian whereas matryoshka means woman with many children.
4. Fire fighting foam was invented by the Russian engineer and chemist Aleksandr Loran in 1902
5. Russia is the largest country in the world, it has 11 times zones and its mass circles half the globe
6. Leo Tolstoy had thirteen 13 children with his wife Sophia. On the eve of their wedding he gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past.
7. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy is one of the few cities in the world completed inaccessible by road. The only way to get there is by air or sea
8. Russian born Ayn Rand (Alisa Zionv'yevna Rosenbaum) is one of the most influential female writers of the 20th century
9.. In 1961 Russian pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, a feat which made him an international celebrity. His life was tragically cut short, however, when he died in a plane crash in 1968 aged 34.
10. Wedding rings are worn on the right hand in Russia
11. Women outnumber men in Russia by ten million. This is due to the country's high rate of alcohol abuse and suicide among young men.
12. Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula is home to some 160 volcanoes with 29 still active
13. The radiator was invented in St. Petersburg by Russian Franz San Galli
14. Russia was one of the first countries to introduce decimal currency in 1704
15. The periodic table of elements was compiled by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869
16. When giving flowers in Russia and other Eastern European countries it is the custom to always give a bouquet consisting of odd numbers to someone who is living. Even numbers are given only at funerals.
17. Artificial leather known as "kirza" was invented in Russia in 1935
18. Powdered milk was invented in Russia
19. Russia produced some of the world's greatest writers including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy
20. At a Russian wedding it is considered very impolite not to be intoxicated
