In the Russian city of Novovoronezh, a poorly designed statue was so widely loathed that officials had it dismantled -- but not before it became a joke on social media. In other cities, some residents wish their own local monuments would meet the same fate.
In Russia's Urals region, towns that once churned out industrial chemicals and coal are now largely abandoned. Verkhnyaya Gubakha was once a thriving city of more than 30,000, but the population has dwindled, and the landscape is returning to forested taiga.
A group of industrial workers in the central Russian region of Chelyabinsk have tried to survive on the national monthly minimum wage for one month. They found themselves starving, unable to afford medicine or treatment, and underperforming at work.
The Circum-Baikal Railway was a feat of engineering when it was built during the reign of Russia's Tsar Nicholas II. Today, the route beside the world's deepest lake is used more for tourism than for transportation, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views.
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.
Valery Melnikov was known in Russia for the huge New Year's cards he created on the ice and snow of a frozen river in the country's Far East. After he died in October at the age of 72 after contracting COVID-19, residents of his home region of Amur decided to continue the tradition he started.
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.
One was a theater director, another worked at an oil refinery, but both have fled repression in Belarus after joining mass protests against an August election widely seen as rigged and are now refugees in neighboring Latvia.
Unlike in nearby Armenia and Azerbaijan, ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the Georgian village of Khojorni have long lived together in peace. That history is part of the reason why Georgia, which contains several such villages, has offered to mediate in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Dead fish, crabs, and even seals have been washing up on the shores of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East, with locals and surfers reporting health issues.
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.
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