Around 400 delegates are expected including representatives of 41 ethnic minorities representing around a quarter of a million people. 

Russia marks Orthodox Christmas Day on 7 January according to the Julian calendar (and for some this is also a time for fortune telling).

Vladimir Putin surprises a female Siberian student with flowers on her 23rd birthday but also comes face to face with a woolly mammoth.

Amur leopards now number more than 100 for first time in decades, say experts.

Through his extraordinary photographs, Sergey Anisimov has done more than most to show real Siberia to the world.

The freeze is so deep that horses - and even Rudolph - is brought indoors to warm up.

In 2012, the residents of Tumul all stopped drinking vodka and other intoxicating drinks as the village went dry...

Looking like an executioner, with a hood over his face, Danil performs one of the most extreme demonstrations of hairdressing the world has ever seen.