In February 2012, Google added Moscow and St. Petersburg to their roster of Street View cities, but the major Russian-language search engine, Yandex, beat them to it by a couple of years. In fact, Yandex likely has the largest repository of street-level imagery outside of Google and Bing with coverage in 150 major Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian cities. Here, we can see such sights as the historic museums of Khabarovsk in the far east and historic wooded churches such as this one in the Arctic city of Arkhangelsk.

Of course, if you like good old-fashioned oppressively bleak Soviet-era apartment blocks, you can see plenty of those, too.

Yandex’s coverage also extends into Kazakhstan, where the capital of Astana has seen a massive amount of opulent new construction since it was designated capital in 1997. The sprawling parliament complex, for example, looks pristine. On the opposite end of the capital district, the Khan Shatyr Entertainment Centre was built in 2006 in the form of a giant transparent tent covering a whopping 14 hectares (35 acres).

Yandex also beat Google to the punch in reaching Turkey. Along the Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, we’re able to see both Europe on the left and Asia on the right.

Speaking of Turkey, the website Dunya360 also provides street-level imagery, but only for the Turkish mountain town of Göynük (population 4,900), known for its steep, narrow cobblestone streets.

Also specialising in single-city imagery is iErbil, the major English-language web portal for Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The ultra high-resolution imagery covers numerous locations throughout the city, including the towering statue of the 13th century historian Ibn al-Mustafwi that sits atop city’s historic citadel.

Other major attractions available on iErbil imagery include the 922-year-old Mudhafaria Minaret and the massive gate that welcomes visitors to Shanadar Park (note the tourist tramway in the background).

We end this part of the tour with the Polish site Zumi, which has imagery for the central business district of Poland’s major cities. Among the sights to be seen here are Warsaw’s massive Palace of Culture and Science (the eighth tallest building in the EU) and the sprawling Main Market Square of Krakow. Dating back to the 13th century, it remains the largest mediaeval town square in Europe.

ED: Since this article was submitted just last week, Google have only gone and released imagery in Poland! Insert your own Big Brother joke here.

Locations: Iraq, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Street Views, Structures

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Read our original article for an explanation why these ships are here, and for links to other things to see in the area.

Thanks to Gyorgy Takacs.

Locations: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan / Categories: Deserts, Natural Landmarks, Watercraft

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On the base we can also see a full-scale model of the Ptichka – the second of Russia’s Space Shuttle designs. The Ptichka construction began in 1988 and followed the Buran, which we’ve previously spotted. The name means ‘little bird’ in Russian, but was only a nickname as the shuttle was cancelled just before it was completed and formally named.

The real Ptichka is kept indoors at Baikonur Cosmodrome, as was the original Buran shuttle. However the only Soviet craft to enter space was destroyed in 2002 when the roof above it collapsed, crushing the Buran and its mockup of the Energia booster rocket. I could be wrong but it was probably this big building with no roof. Can you spot a bit of Buran?

Thanks: Georgi Petrov (x3), dimuskin, Tesla_HV, & Hamish CJ (Get me pictures?)

Locations: Kazakhstan / Categories: Spacecraft

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Wikipedia says:

Since the 1960s the Aral Sea has been shrinking, as the rivers that feed it (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) were diverted by the Soviet Union for irrigation.

In 1960, the Aral Sea was the world’s fourth-largest lake, but today it has lost 80% of its volume. You can clearly see how much the water has receeded recently by comparing the satellite image with Google’s own map view (there’s no high-resolution imagery, otherwise we might be able to see some abandoned ships), and even more so by comparing it to this satellite image taken in 1985.

To make matters even worse, the ecosystem of the Aral Sea has been nearly destroyed due to high levels of salinity, industrial projects and fertilizer runoff. Not to mention a biological weapons laboratory on the Vozrozhdeniya Island…

For more information on this fascinating environmental catastrophe, make sure you read the Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Daniel Pereira, Phil Gross and Pablo Bleyer.

Locations: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Weirdness

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