A person stands on a car while looking at Auroras, caused by a coronal mass ejection on the Sun, that illuminate the skies in the southwestern Siberian Omsk region, Russia on November 6, 2023. (Photo by Alexey Malgavko/Reuters)

A woman bathes into the icy water on Epiphany during a traditional Epiphany at the Great Palace Pond with the Church of the Holy Trinity in Ostankino in the background in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, January 18, 2024. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A honour guard soldier gives a flower to a girl on International Women's Day in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, March 8, 2024. International Women's Day on March 8 is an official holiday in Russia. Per tradition, men give flowers and gifts to female relatives, friends and colleagues, even though in the past two years flowers have gotten more expensive. Marches, demonstrations and conferences are being held the world over, from Asia to Latin America and elsewhere. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Members of a local winter swimming club photograph as they take part in festive bathing in the icy waters of Boyarskoye lake outside Tomsk, Russia, December 26, 2021. (Photo by Taisiya Vorontsova/Reuters)

Participants hold flags during a demonstration lesson that is part of an extracurricular military-patriotic program, which involves weapon training, first aid treatment, camping skills and other courses, in Sevastopol, Crimea on May 19, 2023. (Photo by Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters)

A mobile phone cover with a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin and which reads “Mr President” is seen in this photo illustration taken a in hotel room in Kazan, Russia, July 30, 2015. He may be in charge of an economy in crisis, but if mobile phone covers and souvenir mugs are a barometer of popularity, Russian President Vladimir Putin need not fear for his political future. In fact, Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year has given the memorabilia makers even more material to glorify, sometimes wryly, a president whose image as a champion of Russian national interests in a hostile world is barely challenged in his own country. (Photo by Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

A woman applies lipstick in a car that is parked at a beach facing a volcanic rock called Devil's Finger outside Yuzhno-Kurilsk, the main settlement on the Southern Kurile island of Kunashir September 15, 2015. Russian residents of the island chain at the centre of a dispute between Japan and Russia that has held up a treaty to formally end World War Two hope a diplomatic solution will lure tourists and investment to help refurbish rickety infrastructure. The Southern Kuriles are referred to in Japan as the Northern Territories. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Every year, in the Rostov region of Russia, a group of 40 young and not so young rural workers compete in the Bison Track Show, or more affectionately known as: Russian Flying Tractor Racing. In front of crowds numbering up to 30,000 people, a series of smoke spilling, monstrous farming machines tear round an 8km mud track, plowing through lakes and dirt mounds, their turbos screaming and tyres scrabbling to find grip.