...that women in Russia could own property, even land? While they could not inherit the "patrimony," or inherited estate, they were guaranteed a dowry, which their brothers were obligated to provide if the father died before he could do it himself.

The dowry was received by the bride, and she held it in her own right, independently of her husband. There was no community of property: the widow could become regent of her husband's estate, but their sons inherited it in the end. If a widow remarried, she forfeited all rights (of guardianship) to her deceased husband's property (according to the law -- in practice, the situation was a little more complex, though).

In addition to her dowry, a woman could receive an inheritance from her mother. Mothers were not obligated to deed any of their property to any of their children, but they could dispose of it as they chose, so a daughter was just as likely as a son (or maybe more likely) to inherit some or all of her mother's personal possessions.

All this property (dowry or inheritance) could be used by the woman as she wished, and invested wisely, it could grow. A woman could buy land as well as inherit it, and derive income from that land. She could sell any of her possessions, pass them on to her children, as we have seen, or deed it to whomever she chose. And a husband had no access to his wife's property. In fact, a wife could sue her husband if he disposed of her assets without her consent. Of course, she could consent and invest her property in her husband's ventures, or choose to buy him out of debt, but she was not obligated to do so. Indeed, a husband's creditors had no lien on the wife's assets.

And a final note: the wealthiest private person in the history of medieval Russia (that is to say, other than the ruling princes or the Tsar) was a woman: Marfa Boretskaia, the widow of a posadnik (mayor) of the northern city-state of Novgorod, and posadnitsa (mayoress) of Novgorod herself. She did not enjoy her wealth or her power very long, for she was defeated in her struggle to keep Novgorod independent of Moscow in the late XV century.

Trade Routes
 

...that Russian women wore all sorts of fancy jewelry unlike anything you've ever seen? You expect to see a kokoshnik  on a Russian woman, that is the high and/or wide headdress made popular by Russian folk ballets. And indeed, it existed in medieval Russia. But there's a lot more! 

Unfortunately, I don't have any information at hand on men's jewelry. But I'd say it's fairly safe to assume they wore some. As for women's jewelry, they wore a great variety of items.

Beads: lots of glass beads of various shapes and colors, but also stone and precious stones, ivory (walrus tusk, probably), amber, and precious metals. Glass bracelets, and bracelets made of other materials, too. But the most interesting and exotic-looking pieces of jewelry are temple rings, amulets and kolts.

Kolts  were smallish (about 1 to 2 inches in diameter), hollow pieces, made of inexpensive metal alloys and were worn as pendants attached at the temples to the hair or the headdress, by ribbons, small chains, or leather thongs. They were probably filled with bits of perfumed cloth. Some were also made out of silver. More precious kolts could be larger (up to 2 1/2 inches), made of gold with cloisonne enamel.

Some amulets were moon-shaped (crescents) and were worn secured to the head in the same manner. Other amulets could be animal-shaped, and these were worn in sets or singly, secured by a pin to the dress at the shoulder, or on the belt, or as necklaces. There were also other amulets: spoon-shapes, keys, knives that were clearly not functional.

Temple-rings, finally, were just that — metallic rings worn at the temples, again attached to the hair (braided in) or to the headdress. They were usually worn in sets. They could be simple slender rings, or rings with three diamond-shaped medallions, or three beads. More complex temple-rings had seven "rays" or seven "leafs".

The designs on the jewelry could be found in other items: Celtic-knot-like carvings on stone or wood (on buildings, on furniture, in manuscript illuminations), animals, circular motifs, etc. The birds found on gold cloisonne kolts could be found on dishes and in architectural details. Many wooden items (spoons, cups, bowls, chair backs, column) were carved with similar designs.
 

...that there were no castles in medieval Russia? All right, so I have to qualify that: there were military border outposts with villages around them, with fortifications and miscellaneous buildings. They were built mostly on rivers, that is on trade routes, and at strategic points against attacks by steppes nomads. So one could say that there were castles in medieval Russia, although I would prefer to call them forts.

But there were no castles as centers of a fief, no castles as residences of the lord of the land. No lord of the manor, no baron entrenched in his barony (or count in his county, or duke in his duchy, or...oh, enough).

What could be called the Russian nobility, in the middle ages, consisted of princes and boyars. Princes were rulers of principalities, while boyars were essentially wealthy landowners (that is, they owned land personally rather than held it in fief for their liege). Both boyars and princes lived mostly in cities and conducted their business from there.

Country estates were run by stewards. Princes, who derived their income from taxes, did a yearly round of the lands they ruled (but did not necessarily own). Landowners received income from their lands, on which free and unfree men worked. What they expected to receive was established beforehand, something like a rent, rather than an arbitrary collection of goods.

But the boyars themselves remained in the cities, the political and economic centers of the land where their properties were located. The large urban estates where they lived, as they did in Novgorod, would more readily qualify as castles than anything else. These estates were enclosed in wooden palisades and comprised many buildings, besides the boyarÕs residence: houses and workshops for the craftsmen, lodging for the servants, storage buildings, barns and stables, etc. This arrangement put the boyars right where all the important decisions were made: the cities themselves.

... what foods were eaten in medieval Russia? It is simple enough to deduce what foods were not part of the diet, since some staples of modern Russian cuisine are New World foods: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, green peppers. And some standard foodstuffs are as old as the land (or almost): rye, wheat, millet, barley, oats. These grains were used predominantly to prepare sourdough bread. Buckwheat was introduced only in the XV century, but as we know, it has become one of the most common foods in Russian cuisine. Grains were also used to prepare a variety of porridges ("kasha" refers to a porridge-like dish, not to buckwheat only). These porridges could be sweet or savory, a meal in themselves or a side dish. Domestically produced meat included beef, pork and mutton, in order of importance. Chickens (and eggs), geese, ducks, and even cranes (!) made up domestic fowl. Game and venison comprised just about every kind of available animal, from hares and squirrels, to deer and wild boar. Only bear meat was off limits: some scholars suggest that is was because of an ancient bear-cult, but there is no strong evidence to support their theory. Horse meat was not eaten, except in times of famine. In fact, the eating of horse meat was often used, in the Chronicles, to illustrate the severity of the famine, or the cruelty of a siege. From cow milk, Russians obtained butter, cheese (both hard and soft, the latter of the cottage cheese kind, probably), and probably some kind of buttermilk. A dish still known today, and possible only because of the type of oven used by the Russians, is "baked milk" -- milk placed in a warm oven and left all day until it acquires a brown crust. I have no idea how that tastes: I have never had a Russian oven! Next issue: fish, fruits and vegetables, drinks, and the Russian oven.