This immense country’s rich in culture and characters. Who doesn’t know of Rasputin, Tolstoy, Peter the Great, Faberge, Catherine the Great and Stalin? Or Anna Karenina, Dr. Zhivago and Count Bezuhov? A country that poured more lives into winning WW2 than any nation has ever sacrificed - and then, ultimately, dealt with its own demons! A country that, for all its backwardness, can still lift payloads 10 times as big as the USA can into space! And let’s not forget the vodka and beluga caviar!