Neil Bowdler is a multimedia editor at RFE/RL.
Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoev has called for the modernization of the country's wine industry and brought 60,000 vine cuttings from France. But can the Muslim state transform an ancient tradition into a modern industry which can compete on international markets?
Vera Selivanova is a social worker in Shelepovo in Russia's Kurgan region. She cleans houses, brings in food, and tends gardens. She says soon only the elderly will be left, and then the village will die.
In Siberia's northeastern region of Yakutia, villagers are harvesting ice. Water from the ice is their only source of drinking water through the long winter when the tap water freezes
Ivan Mankovsky runs a homeless charity in the southeastern Russian town of Khabarovsk. He's converted old buses into shelters to help people get through the winter after their old shelter burned down.
RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service has been granted exclusive access to film on board a flight of the world's biggest plane -- the Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane. The plane was built in the 1980s to carry the Soviet space shuttle, the Buran.
An area of Russia known as the Siberian Switzerland is being torn apart by coal mining. The works threaten the future of the indigenous Shors people who live a hard, simple life.
