Take a look at this map. That's Russia in the northwest, China in the south, Japan in the east... But what's that giant yellow blob in the middle? That's not real, right? It's like out of the game of Risk or something...

Out of the real-life game of Risk, that is. That yellow blob is the aptly named Far Eastern Republic, an actual, real-life country that existed between 1920 and 1922. Well, maybe calling it an "actual country" is giving it too much credit: it was a buffer state for Soviet Russia against Japan. After its dissolution, the USSR simply absorbed it.

The Far Eastern Republic was the brainchild of Alexander (Avraam) Kra... Krasno... Krasnoshchyokov, who was not your usual Russian Jewish revolutionary. (He actually had a degree from... the University of Chicago.) After the revolution, he returned to Russia and persuaded Lenin to create the buffer state. Krasnoshchyokov was even put in charge.

How did it end for Krasnoshchyokov? He was a Russian Jewish revolutionary. Do you have to guess?