Russia's remote Kurgan region, near Kazakhstan, is the location of about one-sixth of the country's uranium reserves. A subsidiary of the state nuclear agency is expanding its operations there. But for many local residents, the growth of the mines means not greater wealth, but greater dangers.
Almost the entire population of the tiny village of Karmadon has lived for decades in a five-story building. After the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in the early 1990s, many of the villagers lost their jobs in the nearby sanatorium.
Syava was once a thriving town of 10,000 people some 730 kilometers east of Moscow. But it's dying. After the main factory went bankrupt, rail service stopped, the main hospital closed, and the streets are lined with abandoned houses.
The Circum-Baikal Railway was a feat of engineering when it was built during the reign of Russia's Tsar Nicholas II. Today, the route beside the world's deepest lake is used more for tourism than for transportation, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views.
Siberia's Evenk region is larger than any European country but it is home to only around 17,000 people. It's so vast and remote that scientists have spent decades searching and failing to find one of the largest meteorites ever to fall to Earth -- the Tunguska meteorite.
Desertification and overgrazing are threatening the Nogai steppe in the Russia's Republic of Daghestan. The way of life for the ethnic Nogai people is at risk as shifting sand dunes swallow up pastures, farmland, and even homes.
Residents of the city of Aleksandrov, north of Moscow, say they want a giant landfill site closed permanently, claiming it's a health hazard.
