Moscow riot policemen detain an activist during an unauthorized protest anti-Putin opposition rally to defend Article, 31 of the Russian Constitution which guarantees the right of assembly, in Triumfalnaya Square in Central Moscow, Russia, on December, 31, 2011 (Photo by Konstantin Zavrazhin/Getty Images)

Photo by: Sergey A.; Source: LiveJournal

Combine harvesters work on a wheat field of the Solgonskoye farming company near the village of Talniki, southwest from Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, August 27, 2015. Russia, one of the world's top wheat exporters, will harvest its third-largest grain crop in post-Soviet history this year, leading Russian consultancy SovEcon said on August 27 after upgrading its forecast. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Ralph Mirebs, an urban explorer and photographer in Russia, has revealed extraordinary photos of Soviet space shuttle prototypes gathering dust in an abandoned hangar. The abandoned hangar is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is still in operation today (with the close of NASA’s shuttle program, Russian Soyuz shuttles are the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station). The Buran prototype shuttles found by Mirebs, however, are from an earlier era – they are the last remnants of a space program that began in 1974 and was finally shuttered in 1993. (Photo by Ralph Mirebs/Exclusivepix Media)

Taken by photographer, Denis Budkov, 33, the Plosky Tolbachik is one of a cluster of volcanoes located in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia. After taking a lucky group of tourists to the crater of the flat volcano, the Russian photographer managed to get less than 300 metres away from the spurting jets of lava. Photo: The underground entrance to the volcano resembles a scene from the latest Hobbit movie. (Photo by Denis Budkov/Caters News)

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.

“Lombard Street is an east-west street in San Francisco, California. Lombard Street is best known for the one-way section on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, in which the roadway has eight sharp turns (or switchbacks) that have earned the street the distinction of being the crookedest street in the world”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A single car drives down a typically crowded Lombard Street, San Francisco's crooked street, April 29, 2003 in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the feminist punk band, p*ssy Riot, right, reads papers at a district court in Zubova Polyana 440 km southeast of Moscow in Russia's province of Mordovia, Friday, April 26, 2013. A Russian court is to consider whether one of the jailed p*ssy Riot members is eligible for early release. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, in custody since her arrest in March 2012, is serving a two-year sentence for the band's irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral. Tolokonnikova's lawyer Irina Khrunova is at right. (Photo by Mikhail Metzel/AP Photo)