146 articles
Irkutsk (Иркутск)
Irkutsk (Иркутск), Siberian city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast on the Angara River, 66 km from Lake Baikal. Founded 1661 by Yakov Pokhabov; historic wooden architecture on UNESCO tentative list; oldest museum (1782) and university (1918) in Eastern Siberia.
Ivanovo
Ivanovo (Иваново), administrative center of Ivanovo Oblast, Russia; formerly Ivanovo-Voznesensk, the Russian textile capital, birthplace of the first Soviet of 1905, and a major constructivist architecture center.
Izhevsk (Ижевск)
Izhevsk (Ижевск), capital of the Udmurt Republic, Russia; founded 1760 as Shuvalov's ironworks, city since 1918, about 616,000 residents, a major arms and machinery center home to the Kalashnikov Concern.
Kaliningrad (Калининград)
Kaliningrad (Калининград), formerly Königsberg, is a Russian Baltic port city and capital of a 15,000 km² exclave between Poland and Lithuania, renamed in 1946 after Mikhail Kalinin, with about 500,000 residents and the Baltic Fleet headquarters.
Kaluga
Kaluga (Калуга), city and administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, on the Oka River about 188 km southwest of Moscow; first mentioned 1371, population about 346,000 (2025), home of Tsiolkovsky and the world's first cosmonautics museum.
Kamensk-Uralsky
Kamensk-Uralsky (Каменск-Уральский), a city in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, 100 km from Yekaterinburg on the Iset River; founded 1701 around the first state iron works in the Urals, a metallurgical center of about 160,000 people.
Kamyshin
Kamyshin (Камышин), formerly Dmitrievsk, is a city of about 104,000 in Volgograd Oblast, Russia, on the right bank of the Volgograd Reservoir at the mouth of the Kamyshinka River; founded 1667/1668 as a Volga trade-route fortress, renamed 1780, known for watermelons and as Alexei Maresyev's birthplace.
Kazan (Казань)
Kazan (Казань; Tatar: Казан), capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, on the left bank of the Volga; a 1,000-year-old former khanate capital, home of the UNESCO-listed Kazan Kremlin, host of the 2013 Universiade and 2018 World Cup matches.
Kemerovo
Kemerovo (Кемерово), founded 1918 as Shcheglovsk and renamed 1932, is the administrative center of Kemerovo Oblast (Kuzbass) in western Siberia on the Tom River; population 542,928 (2025), capital of Russia's main coal region, distinct from the surrounding oblast.
Khabarovsk (Хабаровск)
Khabarovsk (Хабаровск) is a city of about 615,600 on the Amur River, administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Far East. Founded 1858 as Khabarovka, renamed 1893; major transport hub with Trans-Siberian rail and Khabarovsk Novy Airport.
Khimki
Khimki (Химки), city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, northwest of Moscow on the Moscow Canal; former closed aerospace satellite (NPO Lavochkin, Energomash, Fakel), city since 1939, about 240,000 residents, Sheremetyevo airport on its territory.
Kirov, Kirov Oblast
Kirov (Киров; formerly Vyatka, then Khlynov) is the administrative center of Kirov Oblast, Russia, on the Vyatka River 791 km east of Moscow; 475,871 residents in 2025, renamed in 1934 after S.M. Kirov.
Kislovodsk
Kislovodsk (Кисловодск), Russian spa city in Stavropol Krai at 817–1062 m, largest resort of the Caucasian Mineral Waters; narzan mineral springs, founded 1803, treats cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous diseases.
Kolomna
Kolomna (Коломна), an ancient city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, at the Moskva-Oka confluence, first recorded 1177; known for its 1525–1531 Kremlin, locomotive industry, 132,000 residents, and distinct from the Saint Petersburg municipal okrug of the same name.
Kolpino
Kolpino (Колпино) is an industrial satellite city in southeastern Saint Petersburg, Russia, founded in 1722 around the Izhora Admiralty plants; town status 1912, about 144,000 residents, home of the Izhora Plants.
Komsomolsk-on-Amur
Komsomolsk-on-Amur (Комсомольск-на-Амуре), Soviet-planned industrial city in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, founded 1932 on the village of Permskoye; built by Komsomol volunteers and Gulag labor; home to Russia's largest aircraft plant (Su-57) and a major shipyard; population about 234,000.
Königsberg
Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, was a German city in East Prussia founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Order with King Ottokar II of Bohemia; Prussian capital, Kant's city, captured by the USSR in 1945 and renamed 1946.
Korolyov
Korolyov (Королёв), formerly Kaliningrad, Moscow Oblast, is a science city northeast of Moscow, renamed in 1996 for Sergei Korolev, a rocket and space industry center with naukograd status since 2001.
Kostroma, Kostroma Oblast
Kostroma (Кострома), city and administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia, on the Volga 340 km from Moscow, a Golden Ring river port; founded traditionally in 1152, cradle of the Romanov dynasty, population about 277,000.
Kovrov
Kovrov (Ковров), city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, on the Klyazma River; second city of the oblast, uyezd city since 1778, City of Military Glory (2011), defense-industry center with the Degtyarev Plant, population about 128,000.
Krasnodar (Краснодар)
Krasnodar (Краснодар), formerly Yekaterinodar, is the administrative center of Krasnodar Krai, Russia, founded 1793 as a Black Sea Cossack host city and renamed 7 December 1920; population about 1.26 million in 2025.
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk (Красноярск), Siberian city on the Yenisei River, administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai; founded 1628 as Krasny Yar fortress, population 1.2 million, major industrial center with severe winter air pollution and an ice-free Yenisei caused by the Krasnoyarsk Dam.
Kronstadt (Кронштадт)
Kronstadt (Кронштадт) is a Russian naval port town on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, founded by Peter the Great in 1704 as a fortress guarding Saint Petersburg, main base of the Baltic Fleet, site of the 1921 sailors' rebellion, and a UNESCO-listed district of Saint Petersburg.
Kursk (Курск)
Kursk (Курск) is a city in western Russia, administrative center of Kursk Oblast, population about 435,000 (2025). Founded as a Kievan fortress c. 982–984, first chronicle mention 1095; site of the 1943 Battle of Kursk and the 2024–2025 Ukrainian incursion into the oblast.
Lipetsk
Lipetsk (Липецк), Russian city and capital of Lipetsk Oblast, founded 1703 as Peter the Great's ironworks settlement, city status 1779, resort town in 1805, now home to NLMK's Novolipetsk Steel plant producing 12.4 million tonnes of steel a year.
Lyubertsy
Lyubertsy (Люберцы), a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, about 19 km southeast of Moscow; first mentioned 1623 as Liberitsy, town since 1925, industrial center with railway plant, helicopter design bureau, and about 236,000 residents in 2026.
Magadan (Магадан)
Magadan (Магадан) is the port capital of Magadan Oblast in the Russian Far East, 7,110 km from Moscow, holding 71.4% of the oblast's population and serving a gold- and silver-mining region with no railway.
Magnitogorsk
Magnitogorsk (Магнитогорск) is a Russian steel city in Chelyabinsk Oblast on the Ural River, founded 1929 around MMK, one of Russia's largest steel plants, and a landmark of Soviet socialist urban planning.
Makhachkala (Махачкала)
Makhachkala (Махачкала), formerly Petrovsk-Port, is the capital of Dagestan, Russia, and a Caspian Sea port; founded 1844, renamed 1921 for revolutionary Makhach Dakhadaev, population about 600,000.
Maykop (city)
Maykop is a city in southern Russia and the capital of the Republic of Adygea, on the right bank of the Belaya River with about 140,000 residents.