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)

A mudlark uses a torch to look for items on the bank of the River Thames in London, Britain June 06, 2016. Mudlarking is believed to trace its origins to the 18th and 19th century, when scavengers searched the Thames' shores for items to sell. These days, history and archaeology fans are the ones hoping to find old relics such as coins, ceramics, artifacts or everyday items from across centuries. their finds with the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Any item over 300 years old must be recorded. (Photo by Neil Hall/Reuters)

Early morning storms over the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya on August 26, 2016. (Photo by Action Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Tibetan girl is reflected in a mirror, as she gets ready for her performance during an event organised to mark the 88th birthday celebration of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama in Kathmandu, Nepal on July 6, 2023. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A woman poses for a friend next to blossoming trees in the A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Visitors were able to pick their own flowers on this sunflower trail at Gloagburn Farm near Perth, in Scotland on September 13, 2021. Crawford Niven, a farmer, said he was inspired to make the trail, which is made up of nearly 200,000 plants, after seeing similar ones in America and Australia. (Photo by South West News Service)

A Cambodian resident wearing a mask attends a ceremony at Pring Ka-Ek village on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 09 June 2016. Villagers organized a ceremony to continue their local traditions by paying respect to the Neakta Pring Ka-Ek (Spirit house) to prevent them from diseases and to achieve abundant rice harvests and other agricultural yields. (Photo by Mak Remissa/EPA)

In this January 27, 2014 photo, snow rollers dot a lot at the northwest corner of Olive and North Main streets in Akron, Ohio. The snow balls are formed naturally when high winds push snow across a hill. (Photo by Michael Chritton/AP Photo/Akron Beacon Journal)