A Garba (folk dance) participant gets her back painted with an awareness message on vaccination against the Covid-19 coronavirus during the ongoing Navratri festival in Ahmedabad in western India on October 8, 2021. (Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP Photo)

A folk artist gives a fire pot performance at the foot of Ulan Hada volcano group on November 16, 2024 in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. A tourism festival themed on ice and snow opened in Ulanqab on November 16, which will last for five months. (Photo by Wang Zheng/VCG via Getty Images)

Assamese girls wearing traditional Mekhela Chadar perform the Bihu folk dance during the Rongali Bihu festival, organized by All Assam Students Union in Guwahati, capital of the north eastern state of Assam, India, Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

An Indian artist performs with fire during a procession as part of “Bonalu” festival in Hyderabad, India, Monday, Aug.10, 2015. Bonalu is a month long Hindu folk festival of India's Telangana region dedicated to Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. (Photo by Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo)

On Saturday, September 2, 2017, local Chinese villagers gathered to celebrate a folk festival parade known as “Dog carrying Day” in Jiaobang village, Gedong Town, Jianhe county, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou province. (Photo by Imaginechina/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Kathakali classical dancer (2L) watches artists rehearse the traditional folk dance Pulikkali (Tiger Dance) as they wait backstage before their performance at a cultural festival in Chennai on July 12, 2025. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

These brave models show no fear as they pose with bears, tigers and wolves in scenes straight from the pages of a fairy tale. The snaps show the models cuddling up to the deadly animals and even taking naps with the often unpredictable creatures. Here: “Marina with a bear”. Stepan, a 700-pound grizzly bear, was adopted by a Russian couple when he was just 3 months old. (Photo by Olga Barantseva/Caters News Agency)