Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's coverage area and beyond for the eighth week of 2020. For more photo galleries, see our photo gallery archive.
Photos Of The Week #8
1
Members of the Kote Marjanishvili Theater ensemble perform during a dress rehearsal for an adaptation of the Lev Tolstoy novella The Kreutzer Sonata in Tbilisi, Georgia, on February 17. (epa-EFE/Zurab Kurtsikidze)
2
A man wears a busho mask and a costume made of a sheep pelt while climbing up a ladder outside a barn in Mohacs, Hungary on the first day of carnival. The traditional Busho carnival, which marks the end of winter, dates back to the 16th century. According to local legend, members of an ethnic South Slavic group living in Mohacs at the time dressed up in similar costumes and wore wooden masks to scare away Ottoman invaders, who mistook them for demons. (epa-EFE/Tamas Soki)
3
A resident wears a makeshift protective face shield at a residential compound in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Hubei Province, China. (Reuters/Stringer)
4
A young Iranian girl holds her mother's hand as they wait in line at a polling station in Shahr-e-Ray, Tehran Province, on February 21. (epa-EFE/Abedin Taherkenareh)
5
Border authorities travel through the snow to inspect a mountainous border area and to provide information about the COVID-19 virus to residents in a remote area of Altay, Xinjiang Province, China. (epa-EFE)
6
A Pakistani official uses a steamroller to crush bottles of liquor beside burning drugs on the outskirts of Karachi during an event organized by the Pakistan Coast Guards to destroy seized illicit alcohol and drugs smuggled into the country. (AFP/Rizwan Tabassum)
7
A view of a monument to Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin in the village of Kazinka in the Stavropol region, Russia. (Reuters/Eduard Korniyenko)
8
Members of the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry detonate a controlled explosion to trigger an avalanche for public safety in the Tien Shan mountains outside Almaty. (Reuters/Pavel Mikheyev)
9
A visitor walks past a huge aquarium in the Aviapark shopping mall in Moscow. Aviapark is the largest shopping mall in Europe, covering an area of 230,000 square meters, and its 25-meter-high aquarium has a capacity of 650,000 cubic meters of water. (AFP/Alexander Nemenov)
10
Displaced Syrians ride in the back of a truck as they arrive at the Deir al-Ballut camp in Afrin's countryside along the border with Turkey after fleeing a regime offensive on the last major rebel bastion in the country's northwest. (AFP/Rami al-Sayed)
11
NASCAR driver Ryan Newman (6) crashes near the end of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Florida on February 17. Newman was taken from the track in serious condition but was released from the hospital on February 19. (USA Today/Peter Casey)
12
Pope Francis is kissed by a man during his weekly general audience at the Vatican. (AP/Andrew Medichini)
13
People visit the newly opened B&W cafe in the center of St. Petersburg, Russia. The interior of the first black-and-white coffee shop to open in Russia looks drawn. This effect was achieved by the creators using white paint and black lines. All repairs and design were done by hand in 35 days. (epa-EFE/Anatoly Maltsev)
14
An Indian boy walks through a paddy field on the outskirts of Gauhati. (AP/Anupam Nath)
15
Local resident Larisa Beletskaya, 70, stands in front of an apartment block damaged during recent fighting between the armed forces of Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists in the settlement of Holubivske in the Luhansk region. (Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko)
16
An Afghan girl juggles with balls while training at the Mobile Mini Circus center in Kabul. (epa-EFE/Hedayatullah Amid)
17
An ethnic Albanian boy with a traditional hat plays a drum on the 12th anniversary of Kosovo's declaration of independence in downtown Pristina on February 17. (AFP/Armend Nimani)
18
Riders and horses compete in one of the annual White Turf races held on a frozen lake in St. Moritz, Switzerland. (epa-EFA/Gian Ehrenzeller)
19
Syrian children pose for a picture as their families prepare to flee a camp for the displaced east of Sarmada, which lies north of Idlib Province. (AFP/Aaref Watad)
20
Migrants scuffle with police as they try to block a road in front of the Miral refugee camp in Velika Kladusa, Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic)