Women’s soccer has enjoyed phenomenal growth in recent years and, now, women in the Kyrgyz village of Kok-Tash, just north of the Uzbek border, are getting the chance to go after some goals, too. Kyrgyzstan’s Women’s Football Federation encourages young girls to play soccer, but, in rural areas, where women’s roles often center around the home, adult female soccer players are far from the norm -- at least, for now.
In Soviet times, Aleksandra Selyaninova worked for 16 years within the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ regional offices. When she retired in 1989, she made another change as well: She changed her sex, becoming a woman. "I took off my uniform and put on a dress," she says with a laugh. (Filmmaker: Yekaterina Ponomaryova)
Aleksandr Kim, a Russian rights activist, intervened when he saw Moscow police stopping migrants for identity checks and refused to comply when officers demanded his documents based solely on his appearance. Kim hopes to to shed light on police officers' use of racial profiling.
This spring, a march in Bishkek marked International Women's Day by calling for equality for all -- including LGBT people. Members of the LGBT community say it marked a turning point in the fight for equal rights in Kyrgyzstan, but they describe ongoing battles with threats and job discrimination.
Francis Savinovskikh made headlines in Russia when the authorities took two foster children away, citing concerns that their upbringing was not "traditional." At the time, Savinovskikh had the name Yulia and didn't accept being a man.
In Georgia, members of a small Christian sect called the Dukhobors preserve the faith they brought with them from Russia in centuries past. Their forebears were persecuted and exiled for their unconventional beliefs and refusal to serve in the army.
For more than a millennium, the city of Bukhara, in what is now Uzbekistan, had been home to one of the biggest Jewish communities in Asia. But their numbers have dwindled after decades of Soviet rule.
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Stas Borodin, 33, lost a good job in Moscow, his wife left him, and he was forced to return to his native Smolensk. He didn't give up, but instead started a new life and became a well-known DJ in the city.
For the Lyuli people of Central Asia, women are the traditional breadwinners, trying to feed their families. Some are bucking centuries-old traditions.
A Chechen man helps Russians locate and repair their family graves in Grozny's war-scarred and neglected Christian cemetery.
On May 18, 1944, the Soviet government deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars from their homeland as a form of collective punishment for alleged collaboration with the Nazis.
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