Harutyun Mansuryan is a multimedia video producer for RFE/RL in Prague.
Siberia's Evenk region is larger than any European country but it is home to only around 17,000 people. It's so vast and remote that scientists have spent decades searching and failing to find one of the largest meteorites ever to fall to Earth -- the Tunguska meteorite.
Desertification and overgrazing are threatening the Nogai steppe in the Russia's Republic of Daghestan. The way of life for the ethnic Nogai people is at risk as shifting sand dunes swallow up pastures, farmland, and even homes.
A dangerous mountain trail is the only direct route that connects the remote southern Kyrgyz village of Zardaly to the outside world. Every year, people and cattle plummet from the cliffs, but locals continue to use the perilous path because they have no other choice.
In the southern Russian Daghestani village of Kvankhidatl, people extract salt using a unique ancient method. They claim they produce the purest and most delicious salt in the world.
After weeks of protests, environmental activists in Russia's central Bashkortostan region have won a battle to protect Kushtau Hill from mining. The Bashkir Soda Company had planned to mine limestone from the site. But activists say the hill is a natural treasure and home to many endangered species.
The Gamov Peninsula is an isolated region in Russia's Far East , with influences from neighboring Japan, China, and North and South Korea. But the hardy few who live there cherish their solitude and are glad to be off the authorities' radar.
A Siberian village, Tayezhnyy, was swamped with trash when Ilona Domracheva moved there. She didn't like what she saw and, in a short time, she mobilized the community to help clean up. She may have won a battle, but the war on waste goes on.
Little has changed over the past century for timber raftsmen in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region, who still rely on the same working methods that their grandfathers used.
A decade ago, Russia's Defense Ministry closed down a military base in Pskov Oblast, leaving hundreds of people unemployed. Without income or investment in infrastructure, the town began to collapse around its residents. (Current Time)
Valeria ran away from home, and now she's joined the circus. She's one of dozens of kids from tough backgrounds given a new start in life by a unique social project.
One man's obsession with the collective farm he ran for more than a quarter of a century led to the creation of a unique open-air museum in a village in southern Russia.
Forty years of Soviet nuclear bomb tests have left a toxic wasteland in Kazakhstan. The nuclear explosions have stopped, but Russia still rents vast swathes of Kazakh territory for missile tests that critics say are devastating for the environment and its inhabitants. Filmmaker: Harutyun Mansuryan. Wasteland first aired on Current Time TV's Crossroads program in March 2019.
