At the 2025 Spring Commencement Ceremony held at Dongguk University in Jung-gu, Seoul on the morning of the February 13th, 2025, graduates are taking graduation photos while riding on elephant statues. Only graduates are allowed to ride on the school's famous elephant statue of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. (Photo by Park Seong-won)

Jose Sabas Gomez pastes eyelashes to a statue of El Jesus Nazareno in his workshop in Apastepeque, El Salvador March 9, 2016. Sabas is one of a small number of artists still working on traditional religious art in El Salvador. According to him, there used to be more workshops engaged in the work of restoring statues of saints, but only four remain today as the labor-intensive craft is no longer a popular choice of profession. (Photo by Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

The Buddha Dordenma statue overlooks the town of Thimphu, Bhutan, April 16, 2016. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

“The Mahamasthakabhisheka (or Mahamasthak Abhishek) is an important Jain festival held once every twelve years in the town of Shravanabelagola in Karnataka state, India. The festival is held in veneration of an immense 18 meter high statue of the Bhagwan (or Saint) Gomateshwara Bahubali. The anointing last took place in February 2006, and the next ceremony will occur in 2018”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A Jain Sadhu (2nd L) and devotees gather and pray at the feet of the monolithic statue of Jain sage Gomateswara during preparations for the Mahamastak Abhisheka ceremony February 7, 2006 in Shravanabelagola, India. The Mahamastak Abhisheka ceremony is held just once every twelve years where the statue will be bathed with milk, yogurt, saffron, gold coins and other religious items. The statue is said to be the world's largest monolith. The ceremony officially runs February 8-19. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Tourists take photographs with a statue of Shakira at the Malecon in Barranquilla, Colombia, on December 26, 2023. Arms interlocked high, belly exposed, and torso folded to one side anticipate Shakira's iconic hip movement, immortalized on Tuesday in a 6.5-meter-high statue in the Colombian port city of Barranquilla, where she grew up. (Photo by Carlos Parra Rios/Reuters)

A member of North Korean military holds flowers to be laid at the bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il at Mansu Hill Grand Monument in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, December 17, 2018. North Koreans are marking the seventh anniversary of the death of leader Kim Jong Il with visits to the statues and vows of loyalty to his son, Kim Jong Un. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)

Children carrying guns and flags or wearing Soviet-style uniforms have become a common sight at Victory Day parades and other events in Russian-controlled Crimea. Russian and Ukrainian human rights activists have warned that such displays point to a growing trend of promoting Russian patriotism among kids on the Crimean peninsula, annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Here: A young Crimean girl wears military-type clothes during a Victory Day celebration in Sevastopol on May 9, 2018. (Photo by Oleksandra Surgan/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

A woman clutches a teddy bear covered in red paint to symbolize blood during a government-approved, anti-violence rally held in the Kazakh city of Almaty on November 26, 2023. Organized by the New People youth movement, roughly 300 people took part. The rally was dubbed “Say No To The Animal World”, with organizers likening violent people to animals. (Photo by Petr Trotsenko/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)