Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago. It is annually held for 4 days from July 22 to 25 in Haramachi City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the eastern part of Japan. In this historical event, 600 mounted samurai in traditional Japanese armor, with long swords at their side and ancestral flagstaffs streaming from their backs, ride across open fields. Soma-Nomaoi has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Photo: A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012. The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

Indian dancers paint their body like tigers as they perform a Tiger dance during the International day of the Tiger in Calcutta, India, July 29, 2015. Students of Calcutta are taking part in an awareness campaign aiming to draw attention to the threats that tigers face due to habitat loss and poaching. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA)

Police officers detain an opposition protester during a May Day rally in Saint Petersburg, Russia on May 1, 2019. Labor Day or May Day is observed all over the world on the first day of the month of May to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers and fight for laborers rights. (Photo by Igor Russak/Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un pose for photographers during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Thursday, April 25, 2019. Putin and Kim are set to have one-on-one meeting at the Far Eastern State University on the Russky Island across a bridge from Vladivostok. The meeting will be followed by broader talks involving officials from both sides. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo/Pool)

Volunteers carry an idol of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in a pond for its immersion during the ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India, September 18, 2015. During the festival, the idols will be taken through the streets in a procession accompanied by dancing and singing, and will be immersed in a river or the sea in accordance with the Hindu faith. (Photo by Shailesh Andrade/Reuters)

People practice yoga on a cliff at an attitude of over 2,000 meters at Laojunshan mountain to welcome upcoming International Yoga Day on June 20, 2020 in Luoyang, Henan Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

A bird swoops in to deliver its food to its chick, ramming it deep into its mouth while in flight. The photos of the swallows were captured by Kelvin Leong in Hampstead Wetlands Park, Singapore in July 2023. (Photo by Kelvin Leong/Solent News & Photo Agency)