Photos of the Week: Oct. 3-9, 2009

Demonstrators rallying Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009, on a Moscow street with portraits of people killed during bloody clashes between federal forces and armed leftist hard-liners holed up in the White House, which was then the headquarters of the parliament, on Oct. 3 and 4, 1993. A total of 123 people were killed in the clashes. The names on the portraits are written in Cyrillic.

Seven-year-old polar bear Commander Sedov shaking off water in his pool at the Royev Ruchey zoo while playing with a ball in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. Unusually warm weather for this time of the year, with temperatures of more than 20 degrees Celcius, has prompted the bear to spend much of his time in his pool.

President Dmitry Medvedev, left, presenting the absolute winner of the 2009 Teacher of the Year contest, Natalya Nikiforova, with her trophy, a crystal pelican, during a meeting marking Teacher's Day celebration in the Kremlin, on Monday, Oct. 5, 2009. Nikiforova teaches math in the southwestern Russian city of Magnitogorsk in the Ural Mountains.

A shepherd leading his herd to grazing grounds down from the mountains in Zakinskaya hollow, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of the southern city of Vladikavkaz, Monday, Oct. 5, 2009.

A raven picking through a Moscow garbage canister. City Hall promised Monday, Oct. 5, 2009 to start a recycling program instead of pressing ahead with an unpopular plan to build six waste incinerators. Environmentalists worry that the sudden change of heart is populist rhetoric before the upcoming Oct. 11 elections. Click for related story.

A billboard reminding Muscovites to vote in the Oct. 11 City Duma elections beside a souvenir stall on Ploshchad Revolyutsii.

Irina Fedotova-Fet, right, and Irina Shipitko reacting outside a court room after a hearing in Moscow, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009. A Moscow court has ruled against two lesbians seeking to become Russia's first legally married gay couple. The Tverskoi District Court upheld a decision by the city's civil registry that said Russian law defined marriage as between a woman and a man.

A weathercock in the form of an angel atop a spire of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg being silhouetted against the rising moon.

A billboard reading, "A khokhol is no brother to a Russian," and depicting the logos of Gazprom and Channel One television on a Moscow street (khokhol is a derogatory Russian word for a Ukrainian person). Moscow City Hall and Nashi were also the targets of billboards hung by pranksters last month seeking "to attract public attention to the things that irritate them." One of the pranksters told The Moscow Times this week that more were on the way. Click for related story.

Another one of the prank billboards reading, "Smoke, drink, give birth to freaks." Click for related story.

Mikhail Gorbachev's granddaughters Ksenia and Anastasia Virganskaya arriving for a showing of Louis Vuitton's new collection in Paris this week.

Mikhail Prokhorov giving an interview in his office in September to The Moscow Times. The billionaire spoke at length about inflation, debt restructuring, the heating industry and his recent purchase of the New Jersey Nets.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, second left in the background, meeting with Russian writers at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009. Others from left in the background are: literary critic Alexander Arkhangelsky, Tatiana Ustinova and Valentin Rasputin.

Vyacheslav Ivankov, better known as "Yaponchik" and dubbed "the godfather of the Russian underworld," seen near a Moscow court on July 20, 2005. The crime boss died Friday, Oct. 9, 2009 as a result of complications from being shot several times in July on a Moscow street. Click for related story.

Oleg Orlov, a chairman of the Russian rights group Memorial, speaks to the media outside a court room in Moscow on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov on Tuesday won a defamation lawsuit against Orlov. Click for related story.

Russia's Maria Sharapova leaving the court after losing to Peng Shuai of China at the second round of the China Open tennis tournament in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009. Peng defeated Sharapova 6-2, 6-4.

A woman placing flowers by a portrait of slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya during a rally in downtown Moscow, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009. Hundreds of people rallied Wednesday on the third anniversary of?  Politkovskaya's murder, calling on the authorities to find and punish the killers of journalists and human rights activists in Russia. Meanwhile, new suspects in the case were identified. Click for related story.

Natalya Samover, right, a preservationist with Arkhnadzor, a group seeking to protect old buildings in central Moscow, and Lidia Shestakova, a museum worker, looking at the remains of the historic Deacon's House on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009. The two-story, 19th-century building was demolished on Thursday to make way for an elite apartment complex. Click for related story.