It survived one of World War II's bloodiest battles, in which some 2 million people are thought to have perished. 

Although it was often pummeled by machine-gun fire and shrapnel, it stood firm as fierce fighting in Stalingrad raged around it for 200 days.

It's little wonder, therefore,that the gnarled,100-year-old poplar, which still stands in Volgograd (as Stalingrad is now known), has a special place in the hearts of the city's denizens. 

The tree has been protected by the local council since 1993 and a special plaque at its base reminds passersby that the hoary old poplar "lived through the great battle." 

Now, however, despite withstanding everything that Nazi Germany could throw at it, the tree seems set to finally succumb to the vicissitudes of old age. 

As poplars usually only survive an average of 80 years, this centenarian is living on borrowed time.

Consequently, moves are afoot to clone the tree so that its legacy can be kept alive. 

"In order to preserve the idea of continuity between generations, we have decided to use this tree’s genetic material to reproduce it," a spokesperson for Volgograd's environmental authority told the RIA Novosti news agency on June 18. 

Scientists have already taken 10 samples from the tree and they hope to plant the first cloned saplings in downtown Volgograd by 2014.

In this way, it is hoped that this living reminder of the city's resilience and fortitude can be preserved for decades to come.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Battle of Stalingrad in pictures

-- Coilin O'Connor

Russia's dismal safety record was underlined once again this week with the publication of a video on YouTube depicting a horrible workplace accident that has already been viewed by tens of thousands of people just a couple of days after being uploaded.

The tragic incident was the result of a botched demolition job in the city of Lipetsk on June 16.

According to Russian news reports, as laborers sought to tear down a three-story building in the courtyard of a hardware store with a bulldozer and some steel cabling, a shop employee ambled out and began filming the work with his camera-phone. 

It's clear from the footage that 29-year-old Yevgeny Titov is unaware that he is in any danger and no attempt is made by the workers to remove him or to create a safety exclusion zone around the demolition area.

Titov can even be heard exhorting the bulldozer's driver as the machine grapples with the old masonry. Then, tragedy strikes as a huge piece of the building crashes to the ground, spraying dangerous chunks of debris in all directions.

Titov is quickly engulfed by the flying rubble and chaotic scenes follow as the people around him try to rush to his aid. Another man, much closer to the demolition, can be seen jumping out of the way of the exploding debris at the last second.

Despite the best efforts of doctors, Titov's injuries were too severe for him to survive. He is survived by his wife and a 3-year-old daughter. One other man was hurt in the incident, but his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening. 

The company in charge of the demolition is now facing charges of criminal negligence and, in a cruel twist of fate, Titov's camera-phone footage will be a crucial piece of evidence in the case.

Sadly, the tragedy in Lipetsk highlights the difficulty of establishing a culture of occupational safety in Russia, where work-related deaths and injuries are still very common despite legislative efforts to improve the situation. 

WATCH: Russian demolition work goes horribly wrong


-- Coilin O'Connor

On the evening of June 17, for more than five hours, Erdem Gunduz stood motionless on Taksim Square. He simply stared at the portrait of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, that hangs outside the Ataturk Cultural Center in the capital.

The photo quickly went viral, and within hours #duranadam (Turkish for "standing man") and #standingman were trending on Twitter.

To see how the "standing man" protests and ensuing memes evolved, take a look at this Storify timeline by RFE/RL correspondent Glenn Kates:



Gunduz's simple stance inspired hundreds of others to join him in silent protest. However, as Reuters reported early on June 18, dozens of people who had joined Gunduz at the silent protest were arrested.

According to BBC, Gunduz managed to slip away from the police.

"I am just one protester, I'm just one artist. There are many artists and many, many young people on the streets. I am nothing but the idea is important, why people resist the government but the government didn't want to understand, didn't try to understand why people are on the streets [for] 19 days," the "standing man" told the BBC, calling his protest a "silent resistance."

Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist and social-media commentator covering the protests in Turkey, said on Twitter that the "standing man" protest had spread throughout Istanbul and other cities in several hours.

#Duranadam "standing man" protest spread in Istanbul & multiple cities without any TV or formal organization. Bet it will be repeated, too.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) June 18, 2013

Reuters also confirmed that similar protests had spread through Istanbul, Ankara, and the city of Izmir.

Soon enough, however, savvy Twitter users had linked the two most prominent memes of the Turkish protests. So the penguin, which became a symbol of how local media missed the initial protest story, became a "standing penguin."

Turkish humour. Never fails "@zeynep: Here you go! Standing Penguin. :-) RT @leylim @spikylellie see this: pic.twitter.com/yIjS6igJJd. :))"

— Esra Doğramacı (@EsraD) June 17, 2013

Protests arose in several cities across Turkey on May 28 over plans to redevelop Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green areas in Istanbul. Within days, authorities were cracking down and the protests grew into mass unrest.

The silent protest followed a weekend of heavy clashes between police and protesters on Taksim Square as the police tried to clear out demonstrators.

Meanwhile, thousands of people came out to support Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan kilometers away from the city center in Istanbul.

On June 17, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc warned that authorities might deploy the armed forces to help police disperse the protests.

-- Deana Kjuka

The Kremlin has released an English-language appeal by President Vladimir Putin as part of the Russian city of Yekaterinburg's bid to host Expo 2020.

The video coincides with a two-day meeting in Paris where aspiring host cities were making second-round pitches to the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), which organizes World Expos.

Yekaterinburg's rivals for the event are Dubai, U.A.E.; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Izmir, Turkey. (Thailand's Ayutthaya has reportedly dropped out of the running.)

Lots of media suggest Dubai has the inside track, but the Russians scored notable victories in their bids for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the FIFA World Cup in 2018.

In the video spiel, Putin cites Russia's long history of involvement in World Expos, beginning with the first one, in London in 1851.

"But in all this time, Russia has not hosted the World Expo -- not once. Surely the time has come to change this," Putin says.

It's standard stuff. But the entire 2 1/2-minute pitch is delivered in wrenchingly stiff, painfully self-conscious English.

It's hardly an "Ich bin ein Berliner" moment. And it's not unprecedented.

However, the former KGB officer doesn't do a whole lot of public speaking outside his mother tongue (he addressed a "Guardian" reporter and Queen Elizabeth II in English, for instance, and famously crooned "Blueberry Hill" at a charity event).

Even his occasional appearances on the Russian state's English-language satellite television channel are conducted in Russian, as his latest RT interview earlier this week testifies.)

-- RFE/RL Central Newsroom

Nursultan Nazarbaev has ruled Kazakhstan since 1991 and his family controls much of the energy-rich Central Asian state's wealth. But even as the speculation as to who will succeed the 72-year-old as president continues to bubble under the surface, it seems his family is linking to other families of the petro-fueled elite in dynastic fashion.

Last month it was announced that the president's youngest grandson, 23-year-old Aisultan, is to be married. As Eurasianet reports, the bride has been identified as Alima Boranbaeva, the 20-year-old daughter of Kairat Boranbaev, who heads KazRosGaz, the gas-trading joint venture of the Russian and Kazakh state gas companies, Gazprom and KazMunaiGaz.

Boranbaeva is a student at London's Courtauld Institute of Art, where she studies art history. Aisultan Nazarbaev, for his part, attended Britain's prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, so perhaps they bumped into each other on the Tube.

Aisultan is the son of the president's eldest daughter, Darigha, who has positioned herself as a leading candidate to take over for her father. This despite the well-publicized falling out her ex-husband (and Aisultan's father), Rakhat Aliev, had with the Kazakh leader. Aliev now lives in self-exile in Malta and has been convicted of murder and other charges in absentia back home.

Also said to be in the running to succeed Nursultan Nazarbaev is the husband of Nazarbaev's second daughter, Dinara, Timur Kulibaev. Kulibaev's standing took a hit, at least on the surface, after he was fired as head of the Samruk-Qazyna sovereign wealth fund following the bloody riots in the western town of Zhanaozen by oil workers. He has also been named in a scandal involving the suspicious sale of an estate by Britain's Prince Andrew and faced media exposure for his ties to London socialite Goga Ashkenazi, including allegations that he is the father of her son.

Nazarbaev's third daughter, Aliya, has kept a relatively lower profile, though she has recently dabbled in laudatory films about her father. She did, however, take part in an even clearer attempt at dynastic alliance-building in 1998, through her short-lived marriage to the son of then-Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev. Akaev was ousted in 2005.

So is Aisultan Nazarbaev's marriage to the daughter of an energy baron likely to cement his mother's place as next in line to rule Kazakhstan? That's hard to say, but it does seem safe to predict that the next leader of Kazakhstan will never command the fawning adulation of the Great Leader himself, the author of 100 books whose likeness is immortalized all across the country and beyond.

-- Dan Wisniewski