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)

A boy wears a medieval helmet during a festival dedicated to the Day of Russia in St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. The Day of Russia is celebrated annually on 12 June. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A squirrel begs for food from a scooter driver in a park in Moscow on September 2, 2025. (Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP Photo)

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)

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)

A protestor gestures during clashes with police during protests against planned fuel price hikes on March 27, 2012 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Thousands of Indonesians students in big cities all over the county gathered to protest the governments plans to increase the price of subsidized fuel by 30 percent. The Indonesian parliament is currently debating the fuel hikes which would go into effect March 25, 2012 if approved. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

“A bare-breasted feminist activist bearing a threatening message on her body tried to attack the Russian Orthodox Church's leader Thursday, July 26, 2012, to protest alleged anti-Ukrainian policies by the church and the Kremlin”. – HeraldNet.com

Photo: A topless protester from the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN is blocked by a security guard and a priest as she tries to throw herself at the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. (Photo by Associated Press)