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)

A specialist from a local veterinary service wears a protective suit as sprays disinfectant near Russian tanks displayed at area near Proryv (The Breakthrough) museum dedicated to the breakthrough of the Siege of Leningrad during World WarII near Kirovsk, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) east of St.Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, April 2, 2020. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A man and a woman take a selfie on Russian Navy Day in St Petersburg, Russia on July 26, 2020. (Photo by Roman Pimenov/TASS)

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.

An employee walks near a rotary dredge which works on the coal face of the Borodinsky opencast colliery, near the Siberian town of Borodino, east of Krasnoyarsk, December 9, 2014. The Borodinsky colliery, 9 km (5.6 miles) long and more than 100 meters (328 feet) deep, annually produces more than 20 million tons of coal and is considered to be the biggest opencast coal mine in Russia, according to official representatives. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Russian Communist Party supporters take part in a memorial ceremony to mark the 96th anniversary of the death of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known as Lenin, at Red Square in downtown Moscow on January 21, 2020. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP Photo)

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)