John Lennon and Beatles sites in Russia

The Beatles never played in the Soviet Union, so every Russian site was made by fans, collectors or private businesses.

The oldest tradition is in St Petersburg. Kolya Vasin, the country's best-known Beatles fan, collected material from the 1960s and turned his flat in the Pushkinskaya-10 art centre into a museum. It survived his death in 2018, and the city's Beatles community now runs ticketed tours. In Pushkin, south of the city, car-service owner Sergei Novozhilov built a Yellow Submarine beside his business, copied from a promotional poster for the film.

Russia's first Beatles monument was also a fan project. The Ural Beatles Club paid for cast-iron silhouettes in Yekaterinburg on a brick wall by the Iset river, opened on 23 May 2009.

The strangest is in the mountains. Vladimir Voychishin carved a surreal marble Lennon in Barnaul in 2012, and it opened on 20 August 2014 in a glade behind an art gallery at Biryuzovaya Katun, Altai Krai. The newest is commercial: in November 2024 a developer placed a Lennon bench figure in a Voronezh housing courtyard facing the reservoir to attract buyers, and outsiders may not be let in.