Sailors guard a door to the command center of the Navy's Baltic Sea Fleet. The Russian military is still a source of national pride—but most parents do everything they can to exempt their sons from doing the one-year compulsory military service because of widespread, often lethal, hazing. © Misha Friedman

Just outside the ”closed city” of Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk Region), a group of teenagers marked off their camp site with caution tape. Severe limits on private property in the Soviet Union made Russians prone to staking and fencing off anything they deem their own. Even years after the fall of the Soviet Union, such paranoia still governs much of daily life. © Misha Friedman

Bychiy Island on the Neva River has long been home to a children’s ecological school and student yacht club. It is now being developed into a private, $100 million judo mega-complex, headed by Arkady Rotenberg, President Putin’s childhood sparring partner. Putin, a black belt in judo, serves as the club’s honorary president. © Misha Friedman

Crews working on the set of the Scarlet Sails, a traditional celebration in St. Petersburg marking the end of the school year in June. This famous event draws millions to its spectacular fireworks and numerous music concerts. For years, Scarlet Sails has been marred by allegations of cronyism and misuse of millions of public funds. © Misha Friedman

A security guard in the Konstantinov Palace in St. Petersburg, one of President Putin’s official residences. The palace was built in the 18th century, fell into disrepair, and was then reconstructed in 2001 with “donations” apparently demanded from private companies, which are acknowledged on a gilded plaque inside. The renovation began shortly after Putin's inauguration to his first term as president. Now, for a price, anyone can rent it out. © Misha Friedman

On the day of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to his controversial third term as Russia’s President, two men take a bus to work in the Republic of Karelia. Their place of employment, seen in the background, is the Segezha penal colony, where Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the founder of the Yukos oil company and once Russia's wealthiest man, is serving a 13-year prison sentence for tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement. He is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. © Misha Friedman

A young man beats a woman on a Moscow street, while police and bystanders look on without intervening. Moscow's Anna National Center for the Prevention of Violence reported in 2012 that a third of Russian women suffer domestic violence and that it kills as many as 14,000 of them each year -- around four times more per capita than in the United States. © Misha Friedman

On a tree trunk in a forest outside Medvezhyegorsk, Republic of Karelia, hangs a photograph of one of the countless political prisoners who died at this mass execution and burial site in the late 1930s. The Russian government has made no effort to recover or identify the individual remains of the Gulag inmates who are known to have perished here. Now many people think of Stalin not as a dictator and murderer of millions of his own people, but as a strong leader; Putin’s current government supports this reputation. © Misha Friedman

A wheelchair-bound amputee holds on for balance as he ascends an escalator. Moscow's metro system, like much of the country, is not equipped for access for disabled people. There are very few elevators in the system, and many stations lack ramps on the stairways. Most of the transfers between stations are connected only by stairs and, generally, at least one flight of stairs leads from street level to the Metro entrance. © Misha Friedman

A boy plays on the embankment of the Moscow River. The street next to it has been cleared of traffic by the police in anticipation of an official motorcade. Especially in Moscow, drivers face daily road closures for several hours while the President, the Prime Minister, or some visiting dignitary, speeds through the deserted streets. © Misha Friedman