43 - Zhaksylyk, Khazakhstan

N of the sweet- salt Ballhash lake.

42 - Yerema River, Russia

400mi. N of Lake Bailal

41 - Alas, no Xs in Siberia

39 - Voyampolka, Russia

On the W coast of Kamchatka.

47 - Tolvoyarvi, Russia

N. of St. Petersburg, on the Finnish border.


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I like how the terrain becomes much more mottled once you cross over into Finland—an artifact of the different countries' mapping resolution.

46 - St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia

Outside the Kremlin's Eastern wall.


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Wikipedia:

The initial concept was to build a cluster of chapels, one dedicated to each of the saints on whose feast day the tsar had won a battle, but the construction of a single central tower unifies these spaces into a single cathedral. A popular legend says that Ivan had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded to prevent him from building a more magnificent building for anyone else. However, Yakovlev designed the chapel added to the edifice in 1588, four years after Ivan's death, and had therefore not been blinded.

How many of the world's great monuments have attached lore about the architect being blinded/otherwise disabled afterwards? I think there's one about the Taj Mahal too.

45 - Ryl'sk, Russia

60mi. W of Kursk, 160mi E of Kiev. A merchant from Ryl'sk, Grigory Shelikhov, founded the first Russian settlements in North America. The town has quite a coat-of-arms:

42 - Olonki, Russia

On the river that flows SE into Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.

41 - Novaya Zemlya, Russia

Big icecapped island N of Russia. In fact, it's the northernmost bit of the Urals. Atomicforum.com adds this:

The first nuclear test fired at Novaya Zemlya was an underwater test on September 21, 1955. It was a test of the RDS-9 warhead deployed on the 53-58 (T-5) torpedo. Over 30 ships were positioned around the explosion at distances ranging from 984 feet to 5249 feet. Among the ships were four destroyers, three submarines, minesweepers and seaplanes. Over 500 goats and sheep, 100 dogs, and other animals were on board the ships. Only one ship was sunk by the explosion, a destroyer less than 984 feet from the explosion.

40 - Mogocha, Russia

On the trans-Siberian railway, about 450mi E of Lake Baikal. Here's Wikipedia's history of the town. The last sweeping sentence is intriguing.

Name 'Mogocha' has at least two meanings in Evenk language: a. mongo - Evenk tribename and possessive suffix chi; b. "mongochi" means "golden valley". Local expression: "God created Sochi, and Satan Mogocha"
Mogocha was founded in 1910 and granted town status in 1950. Most of its population came from European part of the USSR to work for Trans-Siberian Railway company and in gold mines since the 1930s.
One third of Mogocha's population fled to nearby cities. This tendency is a Siberiawide practice because of notorious economic crisis of the 90s. At the same time a significant number of Chinese citizens and companies try to sing their roots in the region.

Photo from Transsib.ru.

39 - Loshkalakh, Russia

NW of Magadan, in far eastern Siberia. Here's a hitchhiking video from the region:

38 - Karaul, Russia

In the Arctic, near the mouth of the Yenise River.

16 - Novokuznetsk, Russia

200mi. E of Novosibersk, on the Trans-Siberian railway. Where Dostoyevsky married his first wife.