Event entertainer Holly Egan poses with a guitar using an angle grinder as Kevin Jay and Nigel Cox spin burning steel wool, sending sparks flying under the A13 in Essex, UK on April 4, 2024. (Photo by Kevin Jay/Picture Exclusive)

A Ukrainian serviceman hugs his relative after returning from captivity during a POWs exchange between Russia and Ukraine, in Ukraine, Monday December 30, 2024. (Photo by Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)

In an observance of Epiphany, Russian Orthodox believers swim in an icy pond outside Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. (Photo by Olga “Zwezdochka”)

Ukrainian police detain activists of women's rights group Femen as they protest against homophobia outside the parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine, November 12, 2015. Femen and gay rights activists are pushing parliament to adopt bills, including one that would ban discrimination in the workplace based on sexuality, which is included in a package of laws to liberalise Ukraine's visa regime with the EU. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Base jumper Denis Odintsov from Russian leaps from the 300-meters Open Deck of the Malaysia's landmark Kuala Lumpur Tower during the International Tower Jump in Kuala Lumpur on September 27, 2013. Some 103 professional base jumpers from 20 countries are taking part in the annual event. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)

A boy holds the remains of a mortar shell which hit a residential building in the village of Staromikhailovka, outside the separatist-held city of Donetsk, Ukraine, May 24, 2016. (Photo by Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Supporters and opponents of Russian opposition activist and anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny clash during unsanctioned protest in Manezhnaya Square in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, December 30, 2014. The unsanctioned protest came hours after Alexei Navalny was found guilty of fraud and given a suspended sentence. Navalny, who has been under house arrest since February, is accused of breaking the terms of his house arrest to attend the rally and was detained by police as he approached the site of the protest. (Photo by Ivan Sekretarev/AP Photo)

From stuffed elephants to picnics under power lines, Leipzig-born photographer Frank Herfort coaxes magical, colour-saturated tableaux from intriguing slices of everyday Russian life. Here: A lonely dog watches the mailboxes in a typical Moscow residential block. (Photo by by Frank Herfort/The Guardian)