Russia's President Vladimir Putin presents flowers to Soviet cosmonaut, the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, during their meeting in Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, on June 14 2013. On June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly into space in a scientific feat that was a major propaganda coup for the Soviet Union.
An employee walks near a stand with samples of china cups at a porcelain factory in the town of Dobrush, about 350 km (218 miles) southeast of Minsk, June 12, 2013. The factory, which is the only remaining porcelain factory left in Belarus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, produces more than 2 million pieces of china monthly, with more than half of the production exported mainly to Russia, according to the factory's director.
Craftsman Ivan Shafarenko, 45, makes furniture from vine twigs at his workshop in the village of Kostukovka, some 330 km (206 miles) southeast of Minsk, June 12, 2013. During the collapse of the Soviet Union Shafarenko was forced to resign from the factory where he worked as an engineering physicist. After trying various jobs he became a craftsman and sold furniture that he made from twigs, a job that has lasted him 20 years.
In this June 6, 2013 photo, Tomas Gonzalez is shown in Harlingen, Texas. Gonzalez, 70, a Primera native and Vietnam War veteran has tried for years to get the U.S. government to acknowledge that his unit _ 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, Hotel Co., 26th Marines _ in 1967 discovered a spent missile with Russian markings, and that the discovery highlights the Soviet Union's involvement in the Vietnam War.
Picture taken on April 29, 1984 of the Glienicker bridge, or Brücke der Einheit, which was used by the Soviet Union and the United States to exchange captured spies during the Cold War. The berlin wall was built by the East German government to seal off East Berlin from the part of the city occupied by the three main western powers (USA, Great Britain and France), and to prevent mass illegal emigration to the West. The wall, built along the border between German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Federal Republic of Germany, was the scene of the shooting of many East Germans who tried to escape from GDR. The two countries remained divided until November 1989 when the wall was unexpectedly opened following increased pressure for political reform in GDR.
Employees of Moscow s Group-IB, which is responsible for one of Russia s two official Internet watchdogs, work in their laboratory in Moscow, Russia on Thursday, May 30, 2013. Figures supplied by Group-IB suggest that the number of malicious websites hosted across the Soviet Union s old domain doubled in 2011 and doubled again in 2012, surpassing even the vast number of renegade sites on .ru and its newer Cyrillic-language counterpart.
