This November 11, 2014 aerial photo, shows a deforested area dotted with blue tarps, marking the area where miners reside, and craters filled with water, caused by illegal gold mining activities, in La Pampa, in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Less than a month before Peru plays host to global climate talks, the government sent a battalion of police into southeastern jungles to dismantle illegal gold-mining mining camps. Peru's anti-illegal mining czar, retired army Gen. Augusto Soto, marched the men to the wasteland known as La Pampa, where 50,000 hectares of rainforest have been obliterated in the past six years. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

“The Naval and Military Club is a gentlemen's club in London, England. It was founded in 1862 because the three then existing military clubs in London – the United Service, the Junior United Service and the Army and Navy – were all full. The membership was long restricted to military officers. This is no longer the case, but it still has a predominantly military and ex-military membership”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Members of the prestigious “In and Out Club”, one of the oldest and most exclusive clubs in London, march around St. James's Square during the club's 150th birthday celebration on March 1, 2012 in London, England. Patrons of the private members club, whose official title is the Naval and Military Club, gathered in St. James's Square in Central London before marching with the Band of the Royal Logistics Corps to be greeted by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, and retiring for lunch inside the club. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Number 10. BELL H-13 SIOUX was a two-bladed, single engine, light helicopter built by Bell Helicopter. Westland Aircraft manufactured the Sioux under license for the British military as the Sioux AH.1 and HT. In 1947, the United States Air Force ordered the improved Bell Model 47A. Most were designated YR-13 and three winterized versions were designated YR-13A. The United States Army first ordered Bell 47s in 1948 under the designation H-13. These would later receive the name Sioux. The Bell-built H-13 B is seen airborne in this April 29, 1951 photo. The helicopter is equipped with a 173 horsepower engine, cruises at 85 miles per hour, climbs 900 feet in a minute and has a service ceiling of 11,500 feet. (Photo by AP Photo)

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)

People mourn at a makeshift memorial in front of the Russian embassy in Yerevan on March 23, 2024, a day after a gun attack on the Crocus City Hall in Russia's Krasnogorsk. Camouflaged assailants opened fire at the packed Crocus City Hall in Moscow's northern suburb of Krasnogorsk on March 22, 2024, evening ahead of a concert by Soviet-era rock band Piknik in the deadliest attack in Russia for at least a decade. Russia on March 23, 2024, said it had arrested 11 people – including four gunmen – over the attack on a Moscow concert hall claimed by Islamic State, as the death toll rose to 133 people. (Photo by Karen Minasyan/AFP Photo)

Dunnottar Castleis a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and the strength of its situation. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.