🧖‍♂️Visiting the banya is an integral part of Russians’ New Year holidays. The experience consists of sitting in a closed room with the temperature around 60-90 degrees Celsius, receiving a beating on the back with birch branches and then submerging into icy water, and then starting from the very beginning. It may shock some, but Russians really enjoy the extreme pastime, some even believe that the banya helps them to become cleansed physically and spiritually.

Take a look at a traditional visiting of banya in our video and the film Suffering for soup: The secret of authentic ‘ukha’– an episode of Taste of Russia series.

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‘Suddenly I heard they had commenced bombarding of the airport. Of course, I was so frightened! So much! I dropped the hose, I dropped it all! I ran for my life. Didn’t think about anything’.

In 2014, hegumene Michaela (Shevchenko) and a monastery worker Yulia suddenly found themselves in the centre of the battles for Donetsk airport. The militias were engaged in a fight with Ukrainian forces, which had seized control of the facility. Listen to the subjects of the film Portaitissa of Donetsk, who talk about their lives under shelling in our clip.

Though the inhabitants had to live through the worst hardships, they say it was the happiest time of their lives. What do they mean? On World Day of Prayer for Peace, marked by some countries on January 1, watch the documentary and find out.

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👨‍👩‍👦‍👦Omar has not seen his family for a long time due to the Iraq War.

After 40 years, he can finally meet them in Baghdad. However, the ongoing military conflicts have changed the capital of Iraq and divided all of the family. How did this heartbreaking story end? Watch in our video.

Find out more in our film Iraq. The Story of My Family.

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💭‘But imagine what would happen travelling in a white ambulance with red stripes…It’s a real target.’

Natalya, medical platoon leader with the ‘Rus’ Battallion, explains why their medical vehicle has been repainted. Doctors try not to attract too much attention in the combat zone. The enemy never used to touch the red crosses, but now, that's changed. Natalia says the nationalists are targeting doctors.

An exerpt from our documentary Feminine Front. Share it with others.

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Her husband and child are rag dolls.

Meirivone Rocha Moraes, 37, from Brazil, married a doll her mother made for her. She took pity on her daughter, who had suffered from loneliness and could not build a family of her own. So she made her a boy, complete with a moustache, dark hair, and blue eyes out of cloth. Meirivone liked him so much that she first got engaged and then married him.

That wasn’t the end of the story. A few months ago, the woman ‘gave birth’ to a son. She broadcast ‘the birth’, which included a doctor and a nurse, on social media. After that, the young family suffered both breakups (allegedly because of her husband’s cheating) and happy reunions. Check out our video for more details.

In Japan, perhaps more than anywhere else, dolls are preferred over real partners. The main character of I Married a Hologram (2021), Akihiko Kondo, is married to a fictional character, but has different versions of his wife – digital, human-size one and small. He says he would never trade her for a live woman. Why so? Watch the film and find out.

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📸Roman from Ufa, Russia is known in this city as a fashion photographer. He has done many shows and photo-shoots. He even managed to turn a street cleaner into a star, which is highlighted in our film Cinderfella (2021).

Now Roman has become a military photographer and a volunteer. He carries humanitarian aid, helps rebuild houses. Roman had to live in a half ruined school, which was earlier occupied by militants of the 'Azov' battalion*.

*listed as a terrorist organisation and banned in Russia

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Have you finished your New Year's cocktails yet? By the way, today is Drinking Straw Day. At first glance, the tubes seem quite harmless: thin, no longer than 20 centimeters, and they decorate cocktails, juices and other drinks. However, they are among the top ten plastic products that litter the oceans, the seas and coasts the most.

Straws are rarely recycled, and it takes more than 100 years for them to disintegrate in water. Marine inhabitants often suffer from this. For example, there are fewer and fewer seals and sea lions as animals die from plastic garbage. Volunteers come to their aid. How are marine animals rescued? Watch the video and our documentary Seal Empire Under Threat.

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‘I’ll keep working at the bar just to provide for my child’, says sex worker Sarah. Her maximum earnings per day are about $10, but sometimes a woman goes home with nothing. Sarah got pregnant from her client after a couple of meetings, but the man did not believe that the child was his and refused to help her. There are many such stories in Angeles City.

Until 1991, a US Air Force base was located here. Nowadays it is a poor city where sex tourism is flourishing, and this leads to many problems. Which ones exactly? Watch the video and learn more about the lives of sex workers and their children in our documentary Fallen Angels (2016).

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'We knew we were living on a time bomb.' Juana still can't remember the day her parents died without feeling tremendous fear. Six years ago, they were selling fireworks at the pyrotechnics market in Mexico's Tultepec. Suddenly there was a powerful explosion, which triggered a fire that totally gutted the place, leaving 42 people dead.

But deadly accidents do not stop the residents of the city from their work. For them, the production of pyrotechnics, which is still done by hand, is their main job and favourite pastime.

On January 3, Russia celebrates Day of Sparkles and Garland Lights. On that day we want to remind you that pyrotechnics can be dangerous (observe safety precautions when using).

See what careless handling of fireworks leads to in our video and film Mexican Boom Town (2018).

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‘The louder the gunfire [in Donetsk], the more people we had [in the art school]. It was amazing.’

Donbass residents have been coming to Alina Yurtakova’s art studio right under the shelling for the ninth year already. She opened the school in 2013. When Kiev attacked Donbass, Alina thought that nobody needed painting anymore. It turned out to be the opposite. Watch another episode of Alexandra Frank’s documentary series ‘Faces of Donbass’.

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Chinese man runs marathon while smoking cigarettes 🚬

The 50-year-old man, known as 'Uncle Chen', has an unusual habit. He likes to smoke while he runs. Once he even ran a 42-kilometer marathon while puffing on cigarettes. However, not everyone has been impressed by the Chinese man’s peculiar regimen. Some people accused him of harming the health of other competitors with secondhand smoke. Do you agree with the critics?

Another old man who lives in India also runs in an unusual way. Wishwanathan Jayaraman is able to run barefoot about 32 kilometers every day. He was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy.

‘The main reason for going barefoot was economical. Every 500 kilometers you are supposed to change your shoes. The normal shoes would cost you about 5,000 Indian rupees’, says Jayaraman.

To find out what else the Indian has refused, you can see in our documentary Gandhi's Footsteps.

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🏥Dr Nayna Patel opened a surrogacy clinic in the Indian city of Ananda more than ten years ago. Childless couples from all over the world arrived there to become parents. However, others condemned the women who decided to make money from pregnancy. But for them, it was a way to break out of poverty.

Now this practice is widespread all over the world, but before this could only be dreamed of. On this day 38 years ago, the first surrogate girl was born in London. On this date watch our video and documentary Wombs for Rent (2015) about Indian women who have never seen their children.

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