It’s a “roll your own” Olympics in this Russian village! Where’s Mr Zig-Zag when you need him? Now, this took some INGENUITY. There be some good ideas in those plain ol’ down home folks… WTF! It HAS to be Russia… you can’t understand it with your mind, you can only accept it for what it is…
BMD
Traditionally, Red Square is the centre of New Year festivities in Moscow.
More than 50,000 people jammed Red Square to welcome in the New Year.
This year is the first time that the Winter Olympics will be in Sochi.
New Year fireworks in the main square of the Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort in Krasnaya Polyana in Greater Sochi.
New Year’s revellers in the main square of the Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort in Krasnaya Polyana in Greater Sochi.
In Novosibirsk, members of a healthy living society celebrated the New Year by jumping into an icy lake.
Fireworks during the New Year celebrations in Grozny in Chechnya.
Muscovites and tourists alike toasted the New Year at Red Square.
Ded Moroz with Snegurochka in a car in front of an apartment house in Tara (Omsk Oblast) before going in to bring gifts to the children there.
Vladivostok residents rang in the New Year in the central square of the city, where there was a winter village with ice slides and other attractions, as well as highlighting an entertainment programme “Marathon of New Year’s Stories”.
1 January 2014
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/photolents/20140101/987588102.html
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Replicas of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics mascots were placed in Manezh Square in Moscow. The main mascot is the Amur Snow Leopard, whilst the Polar Bear and Hare are secondary symbols.
BMD
For the next seven days, the Third Silk Road International Rally will see drivers compete on a route that goes from Moscow to Sochi. The start was on 9 July on Red Square in Moscow. A special segment of the rally will occur on 10 July on the Kulikovo Polye {the site of a famous victory of St Dmitri Donskoi over the Tatars in the 14th century: editor} in the southeast part of Tula Oblast.
The route of the rally goes through interesting places, both cities of historical interest and natural wonders… Lipetsk, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Stavropol, and Maikop.
According to the organisers, on the route the various competing teams expect to encounter sultry deserts, harsh mountains, difficult swamps, and impenetrable forests. In the above image, we see a truck of the Russian KAMAZ-Master Team {multiple time winners of the Dakar Rally: editor}.
134 crews from 25 countries all over the world are competing in this international rally. In the above image, two members of the Russian KAMAZ-Master Team from Kazan, Eduard Nikolayev and Sergei Savostin (left)
95 cars and 35 trucks are running in the Silk Road Rally; the total length of the track is 3,960 kilometres (2,460 miles). In the above image, we see one of the trucks of the Russian KAMAZ-Master Team.
Before the start of the Rally, there was a Freestyle-Motocross show on Red Square.
The Silk Road Rally will end on 16 July in Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. In the above image, we see the pre-rally celebration on Red Square.
About 3,000 gathered on 10 July at the historic Red Hill on Kulikovo Polye, where the participants in the rally reached the 260-kilometre (161-mile) mark, motoring off-road through Kurkinsky and Volovsky Raions of Tula Oblast to Lipetsk. In the above image, a Polish truck of the LIAZ team.
A crew from the Russian KAMAZ-Master Team, comprising Ilgizar Mardeyev, Yevgeni Yakovlev, and Dmitri Sotnikov broke into the leas at the start of the Rally.
A French crew driving a MINI car during the first stage of the Silk Road Rally, in the segment on the Kulikovo Polye in Tula Oblast.
A crew from the Ukrainian team drives a G-Force Proto car during the first stage of the Silk Road Rally, in the segment on the Kulikovo Polye in Tula Oblast.
9 July 2011
Voice of Russia World Service
Voices From Russia, Too 
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