Chelyabinsk

Chelyabinsk is a bold, hardworking city sitting right where Europe meets Asia, in the rugged Ural Mountains of Russia. It has been an industrial powerhouse for generations, its steelworks helping to build a nation, and its railway connections linking the vast east and west of the country. Walking through Chelyabinsk, you get a real sense of a city that means business — but one with plenty of heart and character too.

Then there is the moment that made the whole world stop and stare. One February morning in 2013, a space rock screamed through the sky above the city and exploded with a flash brighter than the sun, sending shockwaves rattling through every window in town. Scientists later fished fragments of it from a nearby lake, and today you can visit the local history museum and see — and even touch — a genuine chunk of that meteorite. Not many cities can say outer space literally came to visit! Add a lively pedestrian street full of quirky bronze sculptures and a park named after the first human in space, and Chelyabinsk starts to feel like somewhere truly one of a kind.