Everyone's heard a thing or two about Putin and the USSR.
But few people have heard anecdotes about real life in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
So Business Insider put together a list of stranger-than-fiction facts about Soviet pop stars, military classes in high schools, a lake that could kill you.
And that's just the beginning.
In the Soviet Union, high-school students had to learn how to assemble and take apart an AK-47 to graduate.
There was a course in school called "начальная военная подготовка" (beginning military training), in which students had to learn how to assemble and take apart an AK-47 under a time limit.
Students also learned how to shoot a rifle and march, several people who attended high school under the Soviet Union told Business Insider.
This was a graduation requirement.
You can go see Vladimir Lenin's actual body today. For real.
You can go check out Lenin's embalmed body from the hours of 10 a.m to 1 p.m. in the Lenin Mausoleum in the Red Square.
(Except on Mondays and Fridays, sorry.)
His body has been on display for 90 years at this point, since 1924.
Source: Moscow.info
A female Russian politician proposed that "each female citizen of Russia will be able to receive by mail the genetic material of the President" to have a baby.
Chairwoman of Parliamentary Commission on Women's Affairs, Children and Family Yelena Borisovna Mizoulina reportedly said:
"The essence of my proposition is simple. Each female citizen of Russia will be able to receive by mail the genetic material of the President, get pregnant from him and have a baby. These mothers will be receiving special allowances from the government."
Source: Trust (Russian), New York Observer (English)
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