From eagle hunters in Kazakhstan to a peaceful revolution in Armenia, these are some of the most striking images of the year from RFE/RL's photographers.
The Year's Best From RFE/RL's Photographers
- By Kateryna Oliynyk and
- Lucie Steinzova
1
Workers pull apart a house in Khandyga, Russia, on February 2. The shifting ground caused by the uneven thawing of permafrost each summer causes buildings like this Soviet-era apartment house to sag and collapse. Find out more about people who work in Russia’s Sakha Republic through winter temperatures that regularly drop below -50 degrees Celsius in our feature story, The Coldest People on Earth. (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
2
A protester attends a march organized by opposition politician Mikheil Saakashvili's Movement of New Forces party in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 4. Thousands marched through the Ukrainian capital to call for President Petro Poroshenko's resignation. On February 12, Ukrainian security forces detained Saakashvili in Kyiv and deported him. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
3
Young Pioneers pose during a parade in Minsk, Belarus, on February 8. More than 500 members of the youth group came from all over the country to take part in the parade at the Uruchcha Palace of Sports. (Uladz Hrydzin, RFE/RL)
4
Students demonstrate in Tbilisi to demand improvements in the Georgian labor code on February 14. A day after a young worker died on a construction site, protesters turned out to show their solidarity with workers who have been injured or killed at work. (Mzia Saganelidze, RFE/RL)
5
A Kazakh eagle hunter, known as a "berkutchi," takes a part in national hunting competition in Uralsk, Kazakhstan, on February 25. For more on eagle hunters, visit our story. (Pyotr Trotsenko, RFE/RL)
6
Dzinara Alimbekava, a gold medalist in the women's relay biathlon at the 2018 Winter Olympics, returns home to Belarus from Pyeongchang on February 27. The national team of Belarus won two gold medals and one silver. (RFE/RL)
7
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai meets officials from Pakistan's Swat district in Islamabad on March 31. Malala returned to Pakistan on March 29 on her first trip to her home country since 2012, when she was evacuated to Britain for treatment after being shot in the head by Taliban militants. She was targeted for advocating for girls' education. (Niaz Ahmad Khan, RFE/RL)
8
The Prypyat river floods the Homel region in Belarus, April 4. (RFE/RL)
9
Children wait for the Holy Fire, a flame lit in Jerusalem and passed from candle to candle, to arrive at the Cathedral of St. Volodymyr in Kyiv on Easter night, April 7. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
10
People in Yerevan commemorate the anniversary of the World War I-era genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire at a memorial on April 24. (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
11
People mourn over victims of the 1992-1993 conflict in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia as the victims' bodies were returned to Tbilisi on April 26. (Mzia Saganelidze, RFE/RL)
12
A Formula One Grand Prix competitor races in Baku, Azerbaijan, on April 29. (Aziz Karimov, RFE/RL)
13
Masked snipers with rifles keep watch from a government building overlooking Republic Square in Yerevan, Armenia, on May 8, as people celebrate the election of opposition leader Nikol Pashinian. RFE/RL photographer Amos Chapple recalls how he photographed the street protests that toppled Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and his government in an interactive story, Caught Up In A Revolution. (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
14
A memorial service at RFE/RL's Prague headquarters on May 3 honors two Afghan Service correspondents, Sabawoon Kakar and Abadullah Hananzai, and a trainee, Maharram Durrani. The three journalists were killed in a terrorist attack in Kabul on April 30. (Lucie Steinzova, RFE/RL)
15
Police arrest protesters in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on May 10. Dozens of people were detained at rallies calling for the release of political prisoners in the Central Asian state. (Assylkhan Mamashuly, RFE/RL)
16
Young Crimean Tatars pray on the slopes of the Chatyr-Dah mountains in Crimea on May 13, 2018. More than 1,000 people commemorated the victims of the deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland during the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1944.(RFE/RL)
17
A girl watches a school graduation celebration on May 25 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. (Beksultan Abibakir, RFE/RL)
18
Liverpool fans burn flares before the Champions League football final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 26. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
19
A shepherd in Georgia's Tusheti mountains on May 28. Photographer Amos Chapple documented the shepherds' tough life in his story, The Shepherds' Return. (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
20
A Ukrainian marine exercises at a frontline post in Vodiane, near Mariupol, in the war-torn Donetsk region on June 22. (Andriy Dubchak, RFE/RL)
21
A woman cries over the coffin of a victim of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 10 as 35 newly identified victims were reburied at the Potocari Memorial Center. Bosnian Serb forces who overran the town of Srebrenica in July 1995 killed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys. (Midhat Poturovic, RFE/RL)
22
Demonstrators hold signs calling for the release of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov and fellow prisoner Olesandr Kolchenko in Kyiv's Independence Square on July 13. Kolchenko and Sentsov were arrested in Crimea in 2014 after Russia seized the Ukrainian region. A Russian court in 2015 convicted them of extremism charges, which the men and their supporters consider politically motivated. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
23
A starry night in the mountains near Kyrgyzstan's Kol-Suu Lake in Naryn Province on July 18. (Bektur Stamkulov, RFE/RL)
24
A station of the Tashkent Metro in Uzbekistan, August 9. A longtime ban on photographing the underground stations was lifted this year. See more of Uzbekistan's Secret Underground in our feature story. (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
25
The ruins of a library in the frontline village of Opytne near Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on August 11. (Andriy Dubchak, RFE/RL)
