INTERESTING TRADITION: ALTAI THROAT SINGING

Screenshot from video below

In the video below the two young lads recorded the video live in the Altai Mountains in Russia and it is a form of singing called Altai Throat Singing.

From an article on To Discover Russia:

"Passing on legends and traditions from generation to generation the people of Altai, like many other nations, accomplishedthrough singing. Altai traditions are passed on as poems in the form of epics.

The epic (“kai”) is performed not just as a story, but as a legend, accompanied by music on Altai folk instruments. Epics are sung with a special, throat singing. Sometimes a kai can be sung for hours or even days –kais reflect cautionary tales oftheir heroes.

With the use of throat singing of epics the people of Altai preserved their cultural traditions and passed them on to next generations.

Usually kais were performed after dark, which added to the performance and the storyteller some magical flare."

MONUMENT: "MASK OF SORROW"

 

Source

The above monument was designed by sculptor Ernst Neizvestny and built by Kamil Kazaev to commemorate the prisons to suffered and died in Gulags prisons in the 1930s to 1950's in Kolmya region of Russia.   

From Wikipedia:

"It consists of a large concrete statue of a face, with tears coming from the left eye in the form of small masks. The right eye is in the form of a barred window.

The back side portrays a weeping young woman and a man on a cross with his head hanging backwards. Inside is a replication of a typical Stalin-era prison cell.

Below the Mask of Sorrow are stone markers bearing the names of many of the forced-labor camps of the Kolyma, as well as others designating the various religions and political systems of those who suffered there.^[1]"

For more pictures, check out the above link to the Wikipedia page. 

 The monument is on a hill above Magadan, Russia