A Palestinian boy pours water over his head in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 22, 2020. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP Photo)

An Afghan boy covers himself with a plastic sheet as he rides on a donkey after rains in Argo district of Badakhshan province on March 20, 2023. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

A boy attempts to keep a candle lit in a flooded cemetery following Typhoon Molave, in Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines, October 27, 2020. (Photo by Eloisa Lopez/Reuters)

Actor Will Smith attends the Los Angeles Premiere of Columbia Pictures' “Bad Boys: Ride Or Die” at the TCL Chinese Theater on May 30, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

A brightly burning magnesium-rich meteor known as a bolide was captured near Bude, Cornwall on January 24, 2020. (Photo by Chris Small/Apex News)

Getting it done. Felicity, an athlete at an amateur weightlifting competition in a small local gym. (Photo by Clinton Bradbury/Women in Sport Photo Action Awards 2021)

A man runs on a small road in the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, before sunrise on Tuesday, September 1, 2020. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.