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 transport, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views
Hundreds of mourners have bid farewell to independent Russian journalist Irina Slavina, who died after setting herself on fire in an apparent reaction to investigators trying to tie her to an opposition group and what’s been described as years of harassment by authorities. Before her suicide in front of the police headquarters in Nizhniy Novgorod on October 2, Slavina wrote on Facebook, “Blame the Russian Federation for my death.”
As Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny fights Novichok poisoning in a Berlin hospital, his teams are continuing their battle against election fraud in a series of municipal votes across Russia. Navalny was poisoned after campaigning in Novosibirsk, and his team there has also been attacked
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
Two protest movements are 9,000 kilometers apart: one in Russia and one in Belarus — but they’re united by their desire for basic democratic norms. Current Time reporters tracked down the protesters in Khabarovsk, in Russia’s Far East, who reached out to their counterparts in Belarus, and the demonstrators in Minsk who responded
There’s little work to be found in the dying villages of northwest Russia’s Solovetsky Islands. But there’s a rich crop of kelp just under the surface of the White Sea, and the farmers who harvest it say it’s a tough but viable business~RFE/RL
He wears a sailor’s hat and general’s epaulettes, but it’s enough to pass himself off as a traffic cop in Kyrgyzstan’s busy capital