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10 bizarre facts about Russia you probably didn’t know [SLIDESHOW]

Ryan McClenagan Contributor
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Here are 10 bizarre facts about the country of Russia that you probably did not know.

Arctic wolves stand in enclosure at Wolfspark Werner Freund in Merzig

Verkoyansk, Russia has a population of 1,311 people and an average temperature of -50 degrees Fahrenheit. Livestock and horses in the town were attacked by a pack of 400 wolves in 2011. The sun currently rises at 2 p.m. and sets at 3:30 pm. (Photo: Reuters)

 

Snow_in_forest

One quarter of Russia is covered by trees, and its forests contain 22 percent of all the trees on earth. (Photo: Reuters)

 

Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the dwarf planet Pluto

Russia is one million square miles larger than Pluto. (Photo: Reuters)

 

Zhirinovsky, leader of the LDPR, throws back a shot of vodka in the southern Russian city of Stavropol

There are over 500,000 alcohol-related deaths in Russia every year. (Photo: Reuters)

Female Russian police officers line up during a dress parade in the far eastern port of Vladivostok

Russia has nine million more women than men. (Photo: Reuters)

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT YELTSIN AWARDS ORDERS OF MERIT.

During a 1995 visit to Washington, then-President Boris Yeltsin was found on Pennsylvania Avenue, drunk in his underwear and trying to hail a cab in order to find pizza. (Photo: Reuters)

Sailors and workers attend a ceremony launching the "Novorossiysk", a diesel-electric submarine, at the Admiralteiiskiye Shipyard in St. Petersburg

In exchange for Pepsi products, Russia gave Pepsi 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer in 1990. At the time, it was the seventh largest submarine fleet in the world. (Photo: Reuters)

 

Russia is suspected to have at least 15

Russia is suspected to have at least 15 “closed cities.” These “closed cities” are officially classified by the government, with their names and locations unknown, they do not appear on road maps or signs and foreigners are strictly prohibited from visiting them. (Via commons.wikimedia.org / Ecodefense, Heinrich Boell Stiftung Russia, Alla Slapovskaya, Alisa Nikulina)

Bears in Russia are addicted to jet fuel, and sniff it to get high and pass out. (Via commons.wikimedia.org)

Bears in Russia are addicted to jet fuel, and sniff it to get high and pass out. (Photo: commons.wikimedia.org)

The USSR built, and Russia still maintains, a doomsday device capable of bypassing all standard protocols to launch their entire nuclear arsenal. (Via commons.wikimedia.org)

The USSR built, and Russia still maintains, a doomsday device capable of bypassing all standard protocols to launch their entire nuclear arsenal. (Photo: commons.wikimedia.org)

Tags : russia
Ryan McClenagan