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Alexei Gruk, 45, mechanic and supporter of presidential candidate Pavel Grudinin, poses for a picture in St. Petersburg, Russia, January 31, 2018. “The most important thing for me is that our foreign policy stays the same”, said Gruk. “To hell with the sanctions… So what if they don’t bring foreign stuff here anymore? As if that means we have to give up. I don't care”. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

Most Russians intending to vote for Vladimir Putin in Sunday's election say stability is at the root of their faith in their candidate – though many young voters believe it's time for a change of leader. Putin, 65, is expected to win a fourth term in office with 69 percent of the vote, according to the latest survey by a state-run pollster. Reuters correspondents and photographers who travelled around the country talking to voters ahead of the March 18 election found nothing to contradict expectation of an emphatic Putin victory. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)
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15 Mar 2018 00:01:00
A Muslim Shi'ite boy carries a toy gun while standing next to a picture of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as he takes part in a march organised by Hezbollah during a re-enactment of the battle of Kerbala during a mourning process, ahead of the day of Ashura, in Saksakieh village, southern Lebanon, October 18, 2015. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Reuters)

A Muslim Shi'ite boy carries a toy gun while standing next to a picture of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as he takes part in a march organised by Hezbollah during a re-enactment of the battle of Kerbala during a mourning process, ahead of the day of Ashura, in Saksakieh village, southern Lebanon, October 18, 2015. Ashoura, the most important day in the Shi'ite calendar, commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in the 7th century battle of Kerbala. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Reuters)
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21 Oct 2015 08:00:00
Devotees bow to a passingTibetan Buddhist monk on his way to take part in a special prayer during Monlam or the Great Prayer rituals on March 5, 2015 at the Labrang Monastery, Xiahe County, Amdo, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Devotees bow to a passingTibetan Buddhist monk on his way to take part in a special prayer during Monlam or the Great Prayer rituals on March 5, 2015 at the Labrang Monastery, Xiahe County, Amdo, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. Labrang Monastery is one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the largest outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Monlam, the most important prayer event for many Tibetans was banned during the Cultural Revolution in China but once again in recent years it is celebrated in many areas. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
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14 Mar 2015 14:37:00
1924:  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lying in state in the Kremlin

Photo: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924) lying in state in the Kremlin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1924

Important! For the same article in Russian language click here.

Something quite intriguing is happening within Russian-speaking internet during the last few – should you type a fully academic inquiry (at least, according to Russian academic requirements) in national search engines for "Lenin's mausoleum" – the first thing you get (even in top 10 searches) is website pages talking about black magic and occult. Website authors view this construction differently, but unconditionally agree on one thing: the mausoleum of the "leader of the world proletariat” – the essence of a magical artifact, a sort of “energy vampire”. It was built with a certain purpose: to drain the energy out of miserable Soviet citizens on one hand; and to poison the anthroposphere of one-sixth part of the earth with its vibes (the exact territory that was occupied by the former Soviet Union), depriving the Russian people of will to resist on the other hand. Complete nonsense? No doubt. Nevertheless, an intriguing one. Well, probably because some oddities do exist in mausoleum's history. These oddities are the thing we are going to discuss this time. First, let me refresh you memory on the subject.
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16 Oct 2011 11:27:00
Magbola Alhadi, 20, and her three children pose for a portrait in Jamam refugee camp in Maban County, South Sudan on August 11th, 2012. Magboola and her family weathered aerial bombing raids for several months, but decided it was time to leave their village of Bofe the night that soldiers arrived and opened fire. (Photo by Brian Sokol/Panos Pictures)

Magbola Alhadi, 20, and her three children pose for a portrait in Jamam refugee camp in Maban County, South Sudan on August 11th, 2012. Magboola and her family weathered aerial bombing raids for several months, but decided it was time to leave their village of Bofe the night that soldiers arrived and opened fire. With her three children, she travelled for 12 days from Bofe to the town of El Fudj, on the South Sudanese border. The most important thing that Magboola was able to bring with her is the saucepan she holds in this photograph. It wasn't the largest pot that she had in Bofe, but it was small enough she could travel with it, yet big enough to cook sorghum for herself and her three daughters (from left: Aduna Omar, 6, Halima Omar, 4, and Arfa Omar, 2) during their journey. (Photo by Brian Sokol/Panos Pictures)
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18 Sep 2015 15:04:00
A performer wearing a lion mask performs the Ise Daikagura lion dance at the remote village of Yamanawa on February 08, 2021 in Ryuo, Japan. Ise Daikagura is a group of traditional Lion Dance performers who pray in front of farmers houses and businesses for good grain harvests and disease-free lives. Performers play sacred music using drums and flutes with two lion mask dancers. A lion mask is considered a symbol of God, who enters the house and performs in front of the Shinto God, a statue placed inside the house, mostly in the kitchen. These prayers are called “Kamodo Barai”. After the prayers, they are gifted with money, rice, sake and Japanese sweets from the householders. A group can travel for more than one hundred days to thousands of households and businesses throughout rural-villages in western Japan, and pray to those who are unable to visit the country’s most sacred shrine, the Grand Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture. The group started its performance in the Edo era between 1603 to 1868 according to Japanese history. The Japanese government designated it as an important folk cultural national property in 1981. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)

A performer wearing a lion mask performs the Ise Daikagura lion dance at the remote village of Yamanawa on February 08, 2021 in Ryuo, Japan. Ise Daikagura is a group of traditional Lion Dance performers who pray in front of farmers houses and businesses for good grain harvests and disease-free lives. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
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18 Feb 2021 09:27:00
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)

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)
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02 Aug 2012 12:59:00
People take part in a sunset ceremony on the lower slopes of Glastonbury Tor as they celebrate Samhain at the Glastonbury Dragons Samhain Wild Hunt 2017 in Glastonbury on November 4, 2017 in Somerset, England. To celebrate Samhain, the Glastonbury Dragons, alongside Gwythyr Ap Greidal, the Summer King and the Winter King, Gwyn Ap Nudd, were paraded through the town to the lower slopes of Glastonbury Tor where the event was marked with ritual theatre, dancing and a fire to honour the dead. The Celtic festival of Samhain, which was later adopted by Christians and became Halloween, is a very important date in the Pagan calendar as it marks the division of the year between the lighter half (summer) and the darker half (winter). Pagans believe at Samhain, the division between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to pass through. Many of the traditions of this ancient Celtic feast of the dead were later incorporated into the Christian calendar and Irish immigrants to America in the 19th century carried their customs, such as the wearing of costumes and masks to ward of harmful spirits and the harvest tradition of carving pumpkins, which have now blended into modern day Hallowee. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

People take part in a sunset ceremony on the lower slopes of Glastonbury Tor as they celebrate Samhain at the Glastonbury Dragons Samhain Wild Hunt 2017 in Glastonbury on November 4, 2017 in Somerset, England. To celebrate Samhain, the Glastonbury Dragons, alongside Gwythyr Ap Greidal, the Summer King and the Winter King, (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
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07 Nov 2017 07:50:00