More than 30 Russian athletes participating in Siberian Indoor Championships last weekend abruptly withdrew from competition when drug testers arrived at the event. According to the Russian sports website Championat, as many as 36 athletes cited various illnesses for withdrawing from the competition at the city of Irkutsk last week.

People living in some of the coldest places on earth are hunkering down as temperatures fall to near-record lows that are even defeating thermometers. Temperatures in the remote, diamond-rich Russian region of Yakutia on Tuesday plunged to minus 67 degrees Celsius (minus 88.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

An ancient doll and a mythical animal were buried with a child from the Okunev culture in the Bronze Age.

In a dramatic move, Khakassia governor Viktor Zimin has banned flights to the hermit in the Khakassky Nature Reserve in what appears to be an attempt to make her leave her wilderness home. This remarkable woman, a devout Old Believer who lives like a peasant from the 19th century rejecting most modern comforts, knows no other home.

A French father convicted to 15 years in prison camp in Siberia has recounted his spectacular escape from Russian through a forest border guarded by fierce dogs and snipers to reach Europe. In what he called a "double humiliation" for Russian FSB secret services, Yoann Barbereau, 39, managed to evade house arrest in Siberia, go into hiding for a year in Moscow, and then make his way across wolf-infested forests to a neighboring Baltic state - despite being on a national wanted list.

Mysterious craters blowing out of Russia could mean trouble for the whole planet Mysterious craters blowing out of Russia could mean trouble for the whole planet. In northern Siberia, rising temperatures are causing mysterious giant craters — and even more dire consequences could be in store, say climate scientists. The Russian province's long-frozen ground, called permafrost, is thawing, triggering massive changes to the region's landscape and ecology. It could even threaten human lives.

Strange things have been happening in the frozen tundra of northern Siberia. Last August a boy died of anthrax in the remote Yamal Peninsula, and 20 other infected people were treated and survived. Anthrax hadn’t been seen in the region for 75 years, and it’s thought the recent outbreak followed an intense heatwave in Siberia, temperatures reaching over 30C that melted the frozen permafrost.

Escaping methane gas has blown at least two new holes in the Siberian tundra in the past few months, according to eyewitness accounts to the Siberian Times and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Reindeer herders northwest of the village of Seyakha in Siberia's far north reported seeing an eruption of fire and smoke on the morning of June 28 — an event caught on seismic sensors at 11 a.m. local time, according to The Siberian Times. Scientists visiting the site photographed a fresh crater blown into the banks of a river.

An armed gang has violently beaten a man in Siberia after his family rented office space to the presidential campaign of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The victim, the son of the campaign's landlord in the city of Irkutsk, had been discussing repair work with the men before they began to beat him with baseball bats. The landlord's son was taken to hospital, where he is being treated with stitches, according to Sergei Bespalov, the coordinator of Navalny's Irkutsk headquarters.

A 10-day journey through Russia’s terra incognita. By Anna Gruzdeva.

Ceremonial suit was embellished with decorations and left as a sacrifice for the gods by ancient bear cult polar people, say archeologists.

A four-year-old girl who walked miles through the freezing Siberian wilderness to get help for her sick grandmother has been hailed as a hero in Russia’s Tuva republic, while a criminal case has been opened against her mother. Saglana Salchak had been living with her grandparents at their remote farm deep in the taiga forest near the Mongolian border, more than 12 miles from the nearest village and five miles from their closest neighbour.