🩰‘I thought, ‘Wow! The Nutcracker in Africa!’ Larisa Tretyakova saw an ad in a Rwandan newspaper about a local ballet school looking for a teacher. Ballet isn’t an African tradition, so there aren’t any local experts. Foreign choreographers are therefore worth their weight in gold. So, Larisa was invited to the dance studio immediately.

The Ballet School in Rwanda is symbolic of what the country, which only recently suffered a genocide, could become. In 1994, the Hutu ethnic group exterminated another one, the Tutsi. In just 100 days, nearly a million people were killed in the country.

Watch our clip and the film 'Rwanda Pirouette' (2017) to know more about the country’s history.

#Rwanda

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🗿Would you like to taste fried stones? The footage of Chinese street chefs frying river pebbles has gone viral. Garlic sauce, ginger, and chilli pepper are added to the boiling oil. A serving costs 16 yuan (about $2,20).

The dish is called ‘suodiu’, which translates into ‘suck and dispose’. But this is not a novelty. The stones were fried by boatmen in ancient times. They cheated their stomach like that when they ran out of food.

What other unusual cuisine traditions does China have? Find the answer in our film, ‘China on a Plate’ (2019).

#China

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Little Sasha from the LPR distributes hot meals to Donbass residents along with other volunteers. ‘When they began shelling near us, he promised something. He said, 'I’ll help with everything I can, so we stay alive,' his mother revealed, detailing why he decided to help people. The Ukrainian army destroyed Sasha’s house, but the family miraculously survived.

Listen to his story in our video and documentary, ‘Young Hope of Donbass’.

#Donbass

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▶️‘I was born in Mongolia. I consider myself Russian.’ Vladimir Kuzmin is a descendent of the old believers, who escaped from the Soviet government to Mongolia. His grandparents were little children when his parents brought them to Ulaanbaatar.

The Russian community has grown since. The USSR sent its specialists there to teach people how to build cities and establish agriculture in the 70s. Vladimir recalls that life in Mongolia back then was no different than life in the Soviet Union.

But everything changed in the 90s. Mongolia started to see its neighbor as an enemy. Local youths participated in rallies. They began to reject Russian help and language.

Today, only those over forty remember the powerful influence of the USSR on Mongolian life, with many locals receiving a Soviet education. Recently it has again become prestigious for children to be taught Russian. Learn more in our premiere, ‘Russian Roots, Mongolian Life’.

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👀Florida Cops Accused of ‘Jailing’ Their 3 1/2-Year-Old Son to Punish Him

The couple of police officers - the mother is a detective and the father a lieutenant with the Daytona Beach Shores Police - said they did it twice in October 2022. The family explained, their day care center requires children to stop using diapers by age 3, but the boy was still having accidents. So, the parents tried their best to get the kid potty trained and didn’t believe they did anything wrong.

The father shared the tactic worked. After crying for several minutes in a ‘nasty’ cell, the boy promised not to have any more accidents. Both officers remain on the job while an investigation continues.

👍 if the approach works, it's good
👎 these cops should be put in jail themselves

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😨Just look at what the Hollywood Walk of Fame has turned into. Dozens of tents, beggars and homeless people are sitting and lying all along the famous tourist attraction.

Some 46,260 people are currently registered as unhoused in LA, according to recent data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. That’s quite a sharp rise of 10%, compared to 41,980 in 2022.

The problem is real in many states of America. Listen to the stories of the marginalized in Ocean County, New Jersey, and their struggles to make their voices heard in ‘US Homeless: The Fight for Equality.’

#USA

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Have you heard of a Russian hermit Agafia Lykova? 79-year-old woman has been living in the woods in Russia since birth. Her family, Old Believers, fled in 1930s to avoid the religious prosecution and found in the taiga only dozens of years later accidentally.

Even after her relatives died, Agafia didn’t move to the city but stayed alone and kept living the same way: growing food, chopping wood for heating the stove, fishing. Discover more about the unique Russian hermit in our video and the documentary ‘Agafia’ (2014). Do you think you would be able to survive so far from civilization?

#humanstories

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👩‍👧‍👦 There are 23 kids in Lidia Kovalyova's family. She grew up in an orphanage in Donetsk and vowed to support as many children in similar situations as possible. Years later, Lidia got married, had three kids, and decided to adopt some more. 'I always wanted lots of children. My husband and the kids didn’t mind, so we took in three... Then two, then two more,' remembers 'Mama Lida', as her sons and daughters fondly call her.

Because of the intense Ukrainian shelling, the Kovalyovs decided to move. Who gave shelter to such a large family? Find out in our video and watch the full documentary, ‘Donbass: Restoring Childhood’.

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😲 A man, who went missing as a teen 8 years ago, has been found alive.

Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Farias IV was 17 years old when he was reported missing on March 6, 2015. The teen was walking his two dogs near his family’s home in Texas, USA. The dogs returned home without their owner.

25-year-old Farias was found several miles from his home by a passer-by. He was lying on the ground in front of a church. It's unknown where he had been for the last eight years. According to his mother, he is in hospital and is nonverbal.

Unfortunately, this story is an exception, not the rule. Thousands of kids go missing around the globe every year, and it’s a crucial problem in India. Some run away from home, but most fall victim to criminals. Discover more in our film, 'Lost Kids' (2019).

#USA

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💭‘In our organisation, we had three people who’d been through the Minsk ghetto and the concentration camps. They all, with one voice, said that all the guards there had been Ukrainians.’

Frida Reizman survived the Minsk ghetto as a child. In the first years of the war, about 100,000 Jews died there. The fascists killed whole families, shot people, starved them and slaughtered them in gas chambers.

Hear the survivors’ stories in an excerpt from the documentary, ‘Surviving the Minsk Ghetto’, on the Commemoration Day of Genocide against the Jews.

#humanstories

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🇲🇽 The mayor of a Mexican town, Victor Hugo Sosa, married a female alligator. It doesn’t ask for money and is completely silent. Almost an ideal partner, isn’t it?

Locals believe this union will bring good luck. See how the wedding ceremony took place in our post.

You may find the traditions of some countries shocking. For example, in Mauritania, little girls are forcibly fed. There are even special farms where parents send their daughters to be force-fed. Why are kids forced to eat? Find the answer in the film, 'Fed to Wed' (2015).

#Mexico #humanstories

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‘I continue what our granddads started. I’m defending my family, my history and our values,’ says ‘Vostok’ battalion fighter, callsign ‘Syava’. He’s on the frontline with his comrades, just 300 metres from the enemy's position, under intense gunfire and mortar attacks.

See the stories of the militiamen and the hardships they face on the frontline in an excerpt from our documentary, ‘Vostok Battalion Brotherhood’.

#Donbass

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