“What did I know about Chechnya before last week? For someone who grew up in the 1990s the very word Chechnya meant a string of grainy images on TV showing people in battered camouflage outfits, shooting at each other amid destruction and ruin. Fear, wahhabis, Shamil Basayev, terrorism, mountains: these were the words that used to spring to my mind when someone mentioned Chechnya”. – Maxim Shemetov. Photo: Special forces officers stand guard during a government-organised event marking Chechen language day in the centre of the Chechen capital Grozny April 25, 2013. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

“I have seen batches of banknotes worth more than $2.6 million, but beyond all doubt, gold bars look much more attractive!”. – Shamil Zhumatov. Photo: Cooling-down gold ingot. March 14, 2013; Tien Shan mountains, Kyrgyzstan. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Tattoo artists work on clients during the second International Tattoo Festival in Sochi, Russia, April 23, 2016. (Photo by Kazbek Basayev/Reuters)

Participants run through coloured powder during the YARKOcross colour run race in Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 5, 2016. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

A model gets ready backstage during a body art festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 23, 2016. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Skiers and snow boarders descend from a slope as they attempt to break the record for mass skiing in swimming suits at Rosa Khutor resort near Sochi, Russia, April 9, 2016. (Photo by Kazbek Basayev/Reuters)

A view shows a Lun-class Soviet-made ekranoplan, which is a naval craft and a ground-effect vehicle, on the Caspian Sea coastline in Derbent in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia on November 3, 2020. (Photo by Kazbek Basayev/Reuters)

The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft is transported from an assembling hangar to its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, August 31, 2015. The Soyuz is scheduled to blast off with Aidyn Aimbetov of Kazakhstan, Sergei Volkov of Russia and Andreas Mogensen of Denmark to the International Space Station (ISS) on September 2, 2015. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)