Salt Mine Therapy in Belarus

Russians marked Orthodox Epiphany overnight by dipping themselves into icy rivers, ponds and lakes across the country.

The Jan. 9 snowfall ranked among the five heaviest in Moscow’s 146 years of weather records.

Indigenous and minority communities have made an effort to revive their ancestral traditions of greeting the new year since the Soviet collapse.

Russia in 2025 was shaped by extremes of weather, war and political control and the moments of uneasy normality that persisted alongside them.