People across Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East are celebrating Norouz, the Persian New Year, which marks the coming of spring. In Tajikistan, Norouz means four days of festivities, food, and music. (Photos by RFE/RL's Tajik Service)
A festive atmosphere descended over the Afghan capital on March 20 as Kabul residents welcomed the traditional New Year -- known as Norouz -- with typically lively celebrations.
RFE/RL Azerbaijani Service photographer Abbas Atilay visited an unusual cemetery in Tabriz, northwestern Iran, where pre-Islamic fertility symbols mark the graves. Some of these ancient carvings have disappeared in recent years, possibly destroyed by local Muslims in keeping with the prohibition against representing the human form.
Cat owners from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan gathered in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on March 18 to show off their prized pets.
Syrians continue to flee the violence in their country and others remember their dead.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's diminutive ex-spy-cum-president-cum-prime-minister-cum-president has gone to great lengths, distances, and depths to cultivate his image as a swashbuckling man of action. RFE/RL takes a look at some of the Russian leader's most robust photo ops over the years.
Planning your next ski vacation? Feeling adventurous? Don't let a little unrest get in the way of your rest and relaxation. As it turns out Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and (soon) Chechnya offer offbeat getaways for those unafraid of a little risk while on the piste.
These photographs show Iranian police removing and collecting illegal satellite dishes from the roofs of houses and apartments in eastern Tehran in late February. The war against the dishes, which allow Iranians to see uncensored foreign news and entertainment programs, appears to be a losing one, however. Police officers spend a considerable amount of time searching for them, dismantling them, and confiscating them. But like dandelions, the dishes seem to sprout right back up again.
People around the world mark International Women's Day as women make their voices heard.
March 11, 2012, will mark the first anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that pummelled Japan, claiming more than 19,000 lives. These combo images show areas in the devastated northeast in the disaster's immediate aftermath and again more recently.
Police in Russia arrested dozens of protesters, including three opposition leaders, after forcibly breaking up a rally in central Moscow protesting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as the country's president.
On New Year's Eve 1999, Russian President Boris Yeltsin handed over power to his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who was acting president until he won an early election in March 2000. In 1990, Putin began his political career in the office of St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, where he stayed until Sobchak lost an election in 1996, after which he joined Yeltsin's administration.
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