Here are some of the most compelling photographs from the 41st week of 2021 from around RFE/RL's region. For more photo galleries, see our photo gallery archive.
Photos Of The Week #41
- By RFE/RL

1
The Russian city of Yekaterinburg is blanketed by smog from peat fires on October 15.

2
Samira, 9, poses for a photo in the living room at her orphanage in Kabul. Samira wants to be a doctor when she grows up. "I want to serve my homeland and save others from disease, and I also want other girls to study so that they become a doctor like me in the future," she says.

3
Afghan girls sit on a couch at their home on a hill overlooking Kabul.

4
A teacher stands inside a bullet-ridden school in Babro village in Afghanistan's Arghandab district.

5
Ukrainians celebrate Defenders Day on October 14, a holiday created in 2015 to honor veterans and fallen members of the armed forces.

6
A demonstrator in Sofia on October 13 holds a wooden cross during a protest against the Bulgarian government's plans to close coal-fired power plants in the country.

7
Crows sit on grave crosses in the section of a cemetery reserved for COVID-19 victims in Kolpino, outside St. Petersburg in Russia.

8
A farmer works at a cannabis plantation in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan's Kandahar Province.

9
A municipal worker cleans the Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of Nations) fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre in Moscow.

10
Amid a surge in coronavirus cases in Romania, patients lie on beds in an emergency room that has been turned into a COVID-19 unit at the Bagdasar-Arseni hospital in Bucharest.

11
A woman looks at her phone as she walks across a bridge with the Russian Foreign Ministry building in the background in central Moscow on October 12.

12
Patients suffering from dengue fever receive medical treatment at a field hospital set up by the authorities amid an outbreak in Lahore, Pakistan.

13
A migrant, who was detained after crossing into Latvia from Belarus, sits next to the border area near Vorzova.

14
Members of the Red Cross help a Taliban member who claims to have lost a leg earlier in a U.S. air strike.

15
Passengers wearing face masks ride a tram in Belgrade amid a new surge in coronavirus infections in Serbia.

16
An aerial autumn view of the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery on Kubenskoye Lake in Russia's Vologda Region

17
Relatives and friends stand next to the graves of victims of a suicide bomb attack on worshippers at a Shi'ite mosque in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, which killed dozens of people on October 8.