as the world's largest country Russia makes up one tenth of all the land on our planet in fact this country is so big they have 11 time zones that span across Europe and Asia Russia has an astounding 11 000 years of History add to that its sheer size and you have a country with a lot to offer home to more than 100 million people it's also the place of many complex cultures with that being said there's a lot more to Russia than the stereotypes we see on the internet in this video I'll show you some of the most interesting things in the country from Siberian sinkholes to the mysterious Amber Room here are the 15 most shocking discoveries in Russia foreign Siberian sinkholes in 2020 scientists were surprised when they discovered enormous craters that mysteriously appeared in Siberia it's still unclear whether they've just formed or if they've been there for long but regardless these holes in the landscape worry many people at least 17 of these massive holes have been spotted across Siberia over recent years and no one knows how when or why exactly they formed one Theory suggests that these holes form in a day and are caused by the buildup of methane gas in the pockets of warming permafrost however there is still a chance that man-made activities influence these terrifying craters to appear seeing these sinkholes in person is definitely terrifying if these were to appear in regions inhabited by people they would do massive damage due to their size in fact one of the creators researchers examined is a staggering 165 feet in depth this means it can easily swallow up a 17-story building in case you're wondering what would happen if someone got swallowed by one of these in 2 2019 two men were allegedly boiled alive when they fell into one of these before we go on like this video smash the Subscribe button and click the notification Bell right now for team Russian Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire England for many years we weren't quite sure what its purpose was and why prehistoric people bothered to build it there is one theory that it was used by early humans as an observatory for a place for religious ceremonies perhaps our ancestors back then unknowingly had similar ideas to modern humans recently a photographer discovered Russia's very own Stonehenge this is sunduki also known as the Siberian Stonehenge it can be found on the bank of the belly eus River in the Republic of cacasia it's a series of eight Sandstone rock formations and many believe that it's a prehistoric site that dates back to 16 000 years there's a huge chance that just like Stonehenge people back then used this site as a religious site or a place to observe the heavenly bodies in the sky so far this site is considered to be the oldest astronomical observatory in all of Asia number 12. Anatoly mustvin and its bizarre dolls all right buckle up because this is a pretty wild story this is Anatoly musvin and he's known for his weird obsession with dolls but not just any dolls he has a strange Fascination for mummified ones people discovered Anatolia has been living with Life-Size dolls with human corpses inside of them needless to say many were shocked by this discovery you're probably thinking that no one in their right mind would ever do such a thing and I guess you're right because after catching his strange Behavior he was taken by authorities and was later on diagnosed with a mental disorder schizophrenia to understand where anatoly's Strange Obsession began let's take a look at his rather hard childhood according to Anatoly he was allegedly assaulted by a man when he was in third grade and he never told his parents about it but that's not all even as a child he had a strange habit of hanging out in cemeteries and claimed that he had always been interested in anything surrounding death we all have a phase where we're into the Doom and Gloom but for him him it was a little different when he was 13 years old he was allegedly stopped by a group of people wearing black suits while on his way home from school young Anatoly didn't know any better and followed them it turned out that the group dragged him to a funeral of a young girl the adults purportedly encouraged him to kiss the dead girl's face which was pretty weird for them might I add and the mother of the deceased girl proceeded to give both of them wedding rings here's the thing both of these came from anatoly's statements so we're not sure whether these are true life events that actually happened or if these are figments of his imagination Anatoly claims that he wanted to adopt a child but after being denied repeatedly he decided to dig up the graves of young girls and make them into dolls by preserving them and putting clothes on them no one had any idea about his strange hobby but his neighbors did notice a foul smell when walking near his house his parents on the other hand claimed that their son had always been a little different than when they saw the dolls in his house they thought he only he liked Life-Size dolls they had no idea that corpses were inside them Anatoly had been confined in a mental institution and even when some of the doctors claimed that he was mentally sound enough to be released the authorities still think it was better for him to stay confined after all Anatoly claimed that there's no use to re-berry the corpses found in his house because he'll dig them up again after his release so I guess the mental institution will be his long-term home for now number 11. Siberian unicorn the reason why we don't see unicorns today isn't because they're not real it's because they existed a long time ago and are now extinct this is the Siberian unicorn and the last of them died out almost 350 000 years ago I know what you're thinking that's a unicorn yes I know that they're far from the unicorns that are portrayed in fictional works but hey they fit the description kind of these animals officially named elasmotherium sibericum had one long horn on their head instead of the mythical unicorn these guys resembled the modern day Rhino with their Shaggy coats and huge rhino-like horns but hey at least we know now that unicorns are indeed real but sadly they had no magic glitter or rainbow tails number 10. giant diamond mine this might look like the Siberian sinkholes that I showed you earlier but unlike those holes that were formed by Nature itself this is the second largest man-made pit in the entire world this hole is more than 1 700 feet deep and has a diameter of a whopping 3 900 feet it can be found in the Siberian region of Eastern Russia and it's one of the largest diamond mines in the world in 2017 a flood caused the death of several miners here and since then it's been closed but according to authorities they will continue their operation in the mine starting again in 2024. if you're getting intimidated by looking at this huge pit you really should be it's deep enough that it has the possibility to suck in small aircraft and it's an accident-prone area it's not a place that just anyone should explore as dangerous as it is it's a valuable project that produced diamonds worth at least 17 billion dollars in the years it was operational however the rough Terrain in the area and the freezing weather made it difficult for the workers to continue the project the deadly accident became the final straw for officials to close it to this day many associate the mine with mystery and death number 9. 32 000 year old wolf since the permafrost in Siberia began thawing people started discovering preserved parts of woolly mammoths that once roamed the area thousands of years ago mammoths are pretty awesome but perhaps one of the most astounding discoveries as of yet is the perfectly preserved head of a wolf that is more than 32 000 years old the head was discovered in siberia's yakusha region and to be precise the specimen was the partial carcass of an adult pleistocene step wolf these creatures lived among woolly mammoths and despite living in vastly different periods than the modern wolves we see today researchers claim that there's not much of a difference between the two species however this specimen will still help them to uncover how these animals live during the pleistocene Epic number eight oldest permafrost first of all what is permafrost as its name suggests it's a permanently Frozen layer below our planet's surface it can range from three feet thick to thousands of feet thick and it can be merely two years old or thousands of years old recently researchers found the oldest known permafrost in the Siberian Village of batigai this layer has been frozen at a depth of about 50 meters and it's been like that for the past 650 000 years this is incredibly amazing considering 130 000 years ago our planet underwent a warm phase that thought other permafrost and yet this one endured it however researchers are afraid that if other permafrosts continue to get exposed in melt more and more carbon dioxide and methane will be released into our atmosphere which could lead to pretty bad effects on our climate number seven blood chocolate bar this sweet choco bar is a unique treat that many Russians enjoyed as kids it has a sweet vanilla flavor and it looks like your typical chocolate bar now you're probably wondering why exactly does it have the word blood in its name that's because this sweet food actually has blood in it blood choco is a soviet-era supplement that's known as hematogen or gematogen you see decades ago these chocolate bars had another purpose other than satisfying those with a sweet tooth unlike other snacks they were sold at pharmacies but now they can be found in many stores and shops in former Soviet countries like Russia and Ukraine in fact you can even chance upon these Goods in the U.S and Canada in case you're bewildered this chocolate doesn't contain human blood and you don't have to worry because it only contains cow's blood additionally it doesn't really contain as much as you think it has at least five percent black food albumin or in layman's terms cow's blood aside from satisfying Cravings The Not So secret ingredient in the chocolate bars helped with anemia malnutrition and fatigue some believe that people who ate them weren't aware that the chocolate bar contained blood but contrary to popular belief most people in Soviet Russia knew the ingredients of this food when they consumed it because this chocolate contains a lot of iron These Bars almost always leave a metallic aftertaste in your mouth I guess you can say that this condensed milk sweetened treat is a bloody good chocolate bar number six cave lion cub you might think that this is just a lump of fur but you're looking at the oldest lion cub on Earth this is Sparta a female lion cub that was found preserved in siberius permafrost and this tiny one is a cave lion that's more than 26 000 years old this lion Cub's body is so incredibly preserved that researchers believe they could still get some traces of its mother's milk in it how cool is that number five spheres of champ Island champ Island is located in Russia's France Joseph land and it's one of the many uninhabited places in the country aside from the fact that the temperature here is incredibly chilly due to being an Arctic Island this one Island alone is littered with hundreds of spherical stones of varying sizes there are nearly 200 Islands surrounding this one but the sphere Stones can only be found here the size of the sphere varies with some being smaller than a coin and some being larger than an adult human seeing a single round stone is pretty odd but seeing many of them in different sizes on just one island is pretty weird what's weirder is that unlike other places where there are records of early human settlements this island is known to be uninhabited ever since its existence this means there's no way humans could have made these Stone balls so who or what this time Aliens aren't part of the theory and it's highly possible that these curious fears are the creations of Nature and time these might have been formed as sedimentary materials that came in contact with wigs leaves or shells through this a chemical reaction might have been triggered causing the formation of these balls and now it's time for today's topic this photo has been making waves on the internet recently and it allegedly shows a strange and mysterious creature that is unknown to science it doesn't have any features and it resembles a sea cucumber it was purportedly found washed ashore and needless to say scientists were shocked to find this in Russia with all of the strange creatures that we've discovered so far I'm not even baffled at this point what do you think this strange creature is do you think it's another mysterious sea creature that we're yet to discover more about or do you think this is yet again another hoax as always comment down below with the hashtag today's topic and let us know your opinion about what we just showed on screen with that said let's keep things moving number four t-34 polar bear polar bears are incredible creatures that are now on the brink of extinction because they're losing their habitat that's why over the past few years many have been making efforts to save them and preserve their population that's why some people became concerned when they saw this polar bear with a symbols t-34 written on its body with what looks to be paint but did this really harm the animal let me tell you the story of the t-34 tank the polar bear this photo was snapped by concerned residents after spotting the bear near The Village's rubbish dump in Russia I don't think anyone would even dare to approach a ferocious animal like the polar bear to spray graffiti on its skin but as absurd as it may sound seeing this would make anyone worry for the animal but as it turns out the people who sprayed these symbols onto the bear's skin were scientists themselves who wanted to have a grid reference relating to the area of the Arctic archipelago where the animal is found the spray was safe paint which wears off in two weeks and the researchers also cleared up that the t-34 symbol wasn't a reference to to a Russian tank I guess this was just a bad case of misunderstanding so hopefully the big fella was okay number three diet love pass case the diatlov path case is an enduring mystery for more than 60 years this incident involved eight students and one sports instructor 10 students were originally supposed to join but because of joint pain one of them bailed out from the plan this student unknowingly dodged a miserable death that would forever be remembered in history in 1959 the nine-man group headed into the freezing Wilderness of Russia not knowing that they would never come back from their Journey no one ever heard from the seven men and two women ever again since their leader or instructor Igor diatlov is known to be a skilled person who even participated in the second world war everyone thought that the group would come back home safe when no one heard of them after a few weeks a search and rescue team was organized to find the missing group when the rescue team found the spot where the group set up a tent they only found Food Supplies inside all of which seemed to have been abandoned without warning the tent also had a slash on one side indicating that someone tried to make an escape from the inside and they all also found Footprints walking away from the shelter as if something prompted its occupants to run outside in Sub-Zero temperature just to escape from something or someone it took months before all the bodies were recovered and all of the corpses died miserably two of the men were found Barefoot and covered only with undergarments the majority of them died from hypothermia but they also had perplexing injuries including missing body parts a fractured skull broken ribs and a gaping gash to the head to this day there's no definite conclusion as to what really prompted the group to leave their tent and run into the freezing Wilderness many conspiracy theories have been created out of this incident and many believe that aliens Yeti Cryptids radiation Fallout or a secret society are responsible for it however scientists believe that the diatlov pass is just an unfortunate incident where Travelers got caught up in an avalanche recent studies show that the injuries they garnered could have been caused by a pretty massive Avalanche however this explanation leaves two things unanswered why were some of the victims only clad in their underwear and why did some of them have missing tongues and eyes number two legend of the black Volga the black Volga is a Sleek dark car that is popular in Russia Ukraine and Hungary but it's not just because of its durability as a vehicle the reason why this black car is so famous is because of a dark Legend It's associated with this vehicle was once the nightmare of kids in Russia especially during the 50s you see just like how many urban legends were used by our parents disceris's kids the black Volga was like the Slenderman that would take you away if you did something that the adults didn't approve of The Story Goes that this car would roam around at night and kidnap any children that were still out whoever gets taken by it would end up being sold to rich people and die a miserable death there are a few theories as to who drove it some say the black vogas were driven by priests nuns satanists and even vampires but none of these claims have proven to be true however just like other Legends the story has some figments of Truth in it in April 1965 a black Volga got involved in the kidnapping of a three-year-old and ever since these classic cars have been associated with kidnappers in goons I guess it makes sense that this Legend is still so well known to this day times might have changed already and the generation today May fear other things but sometimes Legends like this are still fear to this day number one the Amber Room also known as The Eighth Wonder of the world it's one of History's oldest Mysteries and also one of Russia's Treasures it's located in sarskoye Salo Catherine Palace near Saint Petersburg and it was meant to symbolize a deal that put a stop to the Prussian Russian cooperation on the international scene the Amber Room had amber colored walls and mirrors with gold leaf embellishments as its name would apply it was built in Prussia in the 18th century but it was demolished swiftly and it wasn't long before it disappeared during World War II neither the room's panels nor its artwork have been seen since it was disassembled and brought to Germany however in 2020 a shipwreck was discovered by polish divers and they claimed that it looked like a German second world warship many were excited about its contents but perhaps the most thrilling thing about this discovery is that it contained the ornate chamber that the Germans looted from asars Palace in Russia the Lost Amber Room if this is true then we might finally get to see the Amber and gold room that was one is one of the most precious rooms inside the Catherine Palace with all these discoveries Russia is pretty interesting don't you think if you already had the chance to visit this country make sure to share your experience in the comments below if you haven't tell me your favorite entry in this video also check out our other cool stuff showing up on the screen right now and I'll see you in the next video take care everybody