The zoo at Seversk - a city closed to outsiders without special permits - has unveiled its latest inhabitants, several brightly striped snakes.

Curbs will stop foreigners working in schools, as drivers on passenger transport, or in children's food production.

Siberia's colossal resource potential is a great competitive advantage that needs to be skilfully deployed.

Customs procedures and rules on foreigners staying in duty-free region will be relaxed in move that will bolster the economy and boost trade from 2016.

Mormons held for lecturing on their religious convictions while on tourist visas.

There are movies made about the girls performing at the Paralympic Games and the parents who adopted them. But no one notices them in Russia.

Getting to Siberia for foreigners has never been easier.

Here we go back in time and remember 13 remarkable moments of 2013.

'Siberia is so far away that it feels as if it's not quite real? It's time to change the way the world thinks about our land', says Taisia Kaigorodova.

In distant times, parts of California and Hawaii were administered from the city of Irkutsk.