“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)

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.

A barn painted with the U.S. flag is seen in the snow covered field in Kanawha, Iowa, United States, January 16, 2016. Iowa will be the first state to hold its primary, with both Democratic and Republican events being held February 1, 2016. (Photo by Jim Young/Reuters)

A young girl is rescued from a collapsed building after an earthquake in Tainan, Taiwan, Saturday, February 6, 2016. A powerful, shallow earthquake struck southern Taiwan before dawn Saturday. (Photo by Wally Santana/AP Photo)

(L-R) Playmates Summer Altice, Monica Sims and Heather Rae Young attend the Playboy party with TAO at Spire Nightclub on February 4, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Playboy)

(L-R) Playmates Monica Sims, Heather Rae Young and Hiromi Oshima attend the Playboy party with TAO at Spire Nightclub on February 4, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Playboy)

Young performer at The Lal Kach festival, an event well known in the local community for more than hundred years in Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 13, 2017. (Photo by Mushfiqul Alam/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Belarusian schoolchildren, who are members of a pro-government Young Pioneer movement, perform with drums as they take part in a meeting to mark the 95th anniversary of their organisation in Minsk, Belarus May 19, 2017. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)