This is our Video of the Week. Gorgeous drone footage from across Altai.

A challenge to collect the most pinecones turns out to be about more than just the competition itself. 

In this week's Odder News, gigolos must be stopped in Russia, Yappy might take over TikTok, and "Timothée Chalamet" promotes Russian pastries.

Belugas captured off Russia's Pacific coast since 2018 swam off into the sunset just like the hero of  the 1993 film Osvobodite Villi (Free Willy).

In an unusual turn of events, students in Chelyabinsk protest for more snow in the upcoming year.

An unusually warm fall is leading to some unusually beautiful blossoms in Sochi this year. 

As if COVID hadn't forced enough kids to learn from home, the prospect of wolf attacks are doing the same thing in the Ugra region.

The latest news and developments from Russia that may not have made it into the New York Times.

In this week's Odder News, a wedding that sends the cast of a French musical to Africa, Moscow's new tiny flats, and Russia's trash is piling up.

Meet Khokhulya: he's a Russian desman, the official eco-hero of the Kaluga Region, and now an internet personality to boot. 

Andrei Borodulin, the writer and photographer who penned "Gone Fishing," an article about the Volga River delta for our September/October issue, sent us this fantastic short video captured while reporting that story.

In Chelyabinsk, for the first time, an agricultural enterprise is under legal heat for the mass killing of bees.