Etnograficheskii Muzei (Museum of Ethnography), St. Petersburg

Though initially you enter this museum via the royal ostentation of its magnificent marble hall, the rest of your wanderings will give you an intriguing glimpse of less opulent ways, as you tour exhibits modeling peasant lifestyles from across the huge former Soviet Union, just as they were at the turn of the twentieth century. Kazakhs thickly clad in goat-hair look rugged compared to the neat Georgians with their swish pantaloons and trim beards. Also on display are scaly Caucasian toys and ornaments of upright Tuvans on horseback. Many people may have presumed Russia was an ethnically homogeneous region during the Cold War period, but this museum startles with its revelation of the sheer diversity of the peoples of the Soviet Union.