Held every four years since 1969, this is the 11th International Moscow Ballet Competition and about 120 of the top aspiring dancers from across the world were in competition for the gold medals. Bolshoi Theatre.

Thousands of people spent four nights in the open air, sometimes under heavy rain storm, to enjoy alternative arts and music during “Pustiye Holmi” (Empty Hills) hippie-style festival . Five years ago (in 2003) a successful open-air gathering of 300 people gave birth to the event which later turned into a festival and finally into a movement demonstrating an advanced alternative to the “main stream” approach to music and art in general. Bulgakovo settlement, 250 km southwest of Moscow.

Paintings of masterpiece copier Konstantin Ekshibarov are seen in his house in the town of Chudovo, some 600 km northwest of Moscow. Ekshibarov, a former Red Army toxicologist during World War Two, decided to recreate the beauty of old paintings on his own canvases after witnessing soldiers trampling a French masterpiece during the war. The 82-year-old repeatedly extends his house, which currently holds over 400 copies of the likes of Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt, to make room for more pieces. Ekshibarov, who said he had never received a formal art education, claimed he does not sell his works, wanting to fill his personal museum with his own paintings. August 2007