Seven days in photographs. February 18-24, 2012

Five rallies were held in Moscow and in some regions of Russia on February 23. Marches were organized by representatives of various political movements. The largest was the rally in support of presidential candidate Vladimir Putin. According to Moscow police, 130,000 people attended the rally in the Luzhniki stadium.

Abkhazian President Alexander Ankvab survived an assassination attempt on Wednesday morning, the fifth since 2005.

In a national referendum on February 18 over 470,000 Latvians voted against granting Russian the status of second state language, the Latvian Central Election Commission said. 24.9 percents voted in favor of Russian, 74.8 percent against it.

Russia celebrates Maslenitsa (Shrovetide) / (Russian pancake week) a Slavic pagan festival that's been adopted by Christianity. The main symbols a “smiling sun” and a “pancake” decorated Moscow during the festival.

On February 23 Russia celebrated Defenders of the Fatherland Day.

American astronomers have studied photos received from the space telescope Hubble and found a new class of exoplanets, i.e. worlds of water with a dense and thick atmosphere, whose size and mass is more than that of earth but less than of that of Uranus. In the photo: Water world GJ 1214b orbiting a red dwarf star in the constellation Ophiuchus.