Surgeon Andrei Pavlenko treated cancer patients in St. Petersburg, but his work took on a new dimension when he became a patient himself. In a widely viewed video diary, Pavlenko shared his experiences of going through treatment and encouraged others not to lose hope.
Yulia Tsvetkova, an artist and activist in Russia's Far East, runs social-media pages focusing on women's art and LGBT issues. Her posts prompted officials to charge her with “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors” and distributing pornography, an offense for which she could face years in prison.
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.
In September 1983, a Czechoslovak cycling champion made an audacious journey -- fleeing his country in a homemade balloon with his wife and two children across the Iron Curtain.
Uzbekistan's president has warned citizens not to go into debt to pay for traditional weddings. One Uzbek man has spent 19 years working in Russia and saving for the marriages of his three children.
When a flier's overweight cat was refused by a Russian airline, he hatched what he thought would be a purr-fect plan using a feline double.
The sister of a convicted Belarusian murderer has told Current Time of her heartbreak after the country's Supreme Court upheld Viktar Paulau's death sentence for the killing of two elderly women. Paulau is one of three men sentenced to death this year in Belarus, which is the only European country still using capital punishment.
Alisher Bazhorov and his brother Yavlon both work in cafes. While Alsiher runs his own catering business in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, Javlon remains at home in Uzbekistan.
A family of eight lives in a rickety house just meters from a landfill in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. In these adverse conditions, mother Zhazgul Raimbek Kyzy is working to make sure her kids have the opportunities to study that she never had.
Vladimir Balukh and Oleksiy Sizonovych were part of Russia and Ukraine's landmark September 7 exchange of 70 prisoners, seen by many as a step toward reducing hostility between the two countries. But for both men, their freedom does not mean they are home yet: Balukh is from annexed Crimea and Sizonovych from separatist-controlled Luhansk. With other Ukrainians still in Russian prisons, the two hope to use their freedom to spread the word about "what's really happening" in Crimea and Donbas.
Three children look happy and healthy now with their grandparents in Georgia, but that's after living for a year with their mother in an Iraqi jail. Their father, an Islamic State militant, was killed in Iraq, and the Georgian government is still trying to bring her home.
Leonid was born in a small town in Russia's Far East, where his mother beat him for being gay. When he finished school, he left home and met Aleksandr, with whom he now campaigns for LGBT rights.
Load more
