July 03, 2021

Russia's Anomalous Zones


Russia's Anomalous Zones
UFOs look like this, right? Wikimedia Commons user Joe Wos

The Medveditskaya Ridge in the Volgograd region has recently won the distinction of hosting more UFO activity than anywhere else. Interestingly, it also features the second greatest number of "ball lightning" formations in the world. A strange blue mountain features "healing" blue clay. Trees twist at bizarre angles. People who try to go there report "sound hallucinations." Nothing grows there.

Welcome to one of Russia's many "anomalous zones." They are a challenge to the more skeptical among us – who are most likely not Russian.

Murom in the Vladimir region is another one, as are Vilskaya Glade in the Nizhny Novgorod region and Lake Labynkyr in Yakutia. In these areas, people report walking away and ending up in the same spot where they started, people disappearing altogether, instruments breaking, and strange glowing circles in the sky.

Russians are generally more comfortable with the uncertainty of UFOs than Americans are. But we all must admit... something weird is going on here.

You Might Also Like

An Ode to the Hovercraft
  • February 14, 2021

An Ode to the Hovercraft

Russia is a land of many mysteries. The greatest of all, of course, is this: What's the deal with Russians and their hovercraft?
Case Closed on Dyatlov Pass?
  • July 20, 2020

Case Closed on Dyatlov Pass?

Was it aliens? Secret nuclear testing? Bigfoot? The Russian Prosecutor-General's office claims to have solved one of Soviet Russia's most perplexing mysteries.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955