Participants approach a law enforcement officer with open arms during an opposition demonstration to protest against police violence and to reject the presidential election results near the Government House in Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus on August 14, 2020. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Just a few hours’ drive from the Belarus capital of Minsk, many villagers still live off the land. Nearly 80% of the country’s 9.5 million citizens live in urban areas, but for the rest, being close to nature can outweigh the hardships of country life. Here: Boys play in the Stviga River on a hot summer day near the village of Pogost, Belarus, August 16, 2017. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Villagers take part in Kolyada holiday celebrations in the village of Martsiyanauka, east of the capital Minsk, January 21, 2015. Local residents took part in the celebrations to mark the end of a pagan winter holiday Kolyada, which over the centuries has merged with Orthodox Christmas celebrations. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Performers are seen as a 90-year old spruce tree cut down in the woods of the Shchyolkovsky District in Moscow Region, Russia on December 16, 2021 is sent to Moscow. The almost 28-metre high tree will be put up at the Moscow Kremlin's Sobornaya (Cathedral) Square this New Year and Christmas. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/TASS)

A wolf looks into the camera at the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Orevichi, Belarus, March 2, 2016. What happens to the environment when humans disappear? Thirty years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, booming populations of wolf, elk and other wildlife in the vast contaminated zone in Belarus and Ukraine provide a clue. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

A Belarussian tourist crosses the river as he takes part in “Search and rescue operations – 2016”, a three-day competition, near the village of Priselki, Belarus, November 25, 2016. Photo taken November 25, 2016. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Boys play basketball in the facilities of Belarus' Republican Clinic of Speleotherapy within a salt mine, as part of their treatment, near the town of Soligorsk, south of Minsk, February 19, 2015. According to the state clinic, more than 7,000 children and adults seek medical treatment for respiratory illness each year in the subsurface chambers of its facilities, located 420 metres underground between layers of potassium and stone salts in an operational salt mine. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Civilians are led by members of pro-Russian self-defence units as they run outside a military base during an assault in the Crimean town of Belbek near Sevastopol March 22, 2014. Russian troops forced their way into a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea with armored vehicles, automatic fire and stun grenades on Saturday, injuring a Ukrainian serviceman and detaining the base's commander for talks. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)