Margot Buff is a multimedia editor for RFE/RL.
Inspired by the popular TV series and a tourism initiative proposed by Ukraine's president, more tourists are visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone than ever. Alongside the official guided tours, the abandoned area has also seen a rising number of illegal visitors entering at their own risk.
Klingon, Elvish, Dothraki, and Nadsat: there are plenty of invented languages used in movies. But one of them, Interslavic, has the potential to be useful to hundreds of millions of people. The language just made its movie debut in a wartime drama, The Painted Bird, and its creator says it could be used by Slavic speakers from Siberia to Slovenia.
In the Czech capital, Prague, a monument to wartime Soviet commander Ivan Stepanovich Konev is the target of a heated debate. Residents have covered the statue with graffiti and splattered it with paint, while others lay flowers at the marshal's feet. According to one historian, the dispute over Konev's historical role points to deep divisions in contemporary politics.
At the Tagab settlement in Kabul, hundreds of families displaced by conflict and drought live in grinding poverty. The job of bringing home food often falls to the children, who are forced to sift through garbage dumps in search of scraps or anything of value to sell.
In a video statement, Uzbek activist Shokhruh Salimov called on the country's president to address the persecution of LGBT minorities. Two days later, police raided Salimov's family's house to try to arrest him.
This spring, a march in Bishkek marked International Women's Day by calling for equality for all -- including LGBT people. Members of the LGBT community say it marked a turning point in the fight for equal rights in Kyrgyzstan, but they describe ongoing battles with threats and job discrimination.
Ivan Golunov, a reporter for news site Meduza, was arrested in Moscow on June 6 and sentenced to two months of house arrest pending his trial on charges of drug trafficking. Journalists have rallied to Golunov's defense, saying the charges were fabricated in retaliation for the reporter's work.
In the spring of 2017, RFE/RL contributor Stanislav Aseyev was allegedly abducted by Russia-backed separatists while reporting from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. Two years later, he is still held hostage and has not been allowed to communicate with friends and family.
Disappearing seals, plummeting fish stocks, and a falling water level all point to the deteriorating health of the Caspian Sea. Ahead of Earth Day, observed on April 22, environmentalists in Azerbaijan have warned that it will take rapid action to save the Caspian from the fate of the Aral Sea.
When former Kremlin media adviser Mikhail Lesin was found dead in his Washington hotel room in 2015, an official investigation stated that he died after falling while heavily intoxicated. Now a previously unreleased autopsy report obtained by RFE/RL has uncovered new details of the case.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian lawyer known for defending women's rights, has been sentenced to a long prison term and 148 lashes, according to her husband. The charges include "colluding against the system" and "insulting" Iran's supreme leader. Amnesty International called the sentence "appalling."
In Russia's remote Sakha-Yakutia region, the frozen ground is studded with the remains of prehistoric mammoths. Their tusks are worth a fortune to traders in China, where the sale of elephant ivory was banned in late 2017.
In 2013, a bombing at a market in Peshawar struck a passing wedding party, killing 18 members of one family. One survivor who was seriously injured is now helping to raise 12 children who lost one or both parents in the attack.
In spring and autumn, parts of northern Russia are too muddy to access -- unless you're equipped with a six-wheeled swamp vehicle like Vitaly Alyoshin's Trekol.
The extraordinary photographs of Soviet-era Uzbekistan shot by Russian-born Max Penson were forgotten for decades, but his grandson has worked to bring them back to light.
In a dusty town in the Uzbek desert, a collection of once-banned Soviet-era art worth hundreds of millions of dollars is finally attracting the world’s attention.
When Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia 50 years ago, crushing the period of liberalization known as the Prague Spring, a young photographer named Libor Hajsky captured scenes of violence and fear -- as well as moments of empathy and dark humor.
Forty years ago this week, the first civic opposition movement in the Eastern Bloc was born, and a rock band was at its heart. Czechoslovak dissidents drew up the human rights petition known as Charter 77 after the Communist authorities jailed members of an underground musical group.
