MtoP is a parody religion created solely to give followers the chance to refuse things like working overtime simply by invoking “religious reasons”.

Short for “Motohiro to People”, the MtoP religion was created in 2018 by a young man named Motohiro Hisano, who acts as a deity/sage. He does point out that he doesn’t perform miracles and has no superpowers other than that of bestowing the power of “religious reasons” onto his followers. In fact, that is the only purpose of MtoP, as its founder does not wish to be worshipped, nor does he accept any sort of financial contributions. Although the parody religion does have its own doctrine, believers don’t have to abide by strict commandments. All they have to do in order to be considered followers of MtoP is to follow the religion’s official Twitter account.

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In recent years, the village of Kamenka in Russia’s Lipetsk region has become famous as the home of Zmei Gorynich, a giant three-headed statue of one of the most iconic villains of Slavic folk stories.

The “Kudykina Gora” family park on the outskirts of Kamenka village has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Lipetsk largely thanks to a single exhibit – the statue of Zmei Gorynich, an “extremely realistic” and “frighteningly attractive” rendition of the main antagonist in dozens of Russian folk stories and legends. Created by Ukrainian sculptor Vladimir Kolesnikov, the impressive statue stands about 15 meters high and is about as large as you’d expect a fearsome three-headed dragon to be. Did I mention it also breathes fire and screams menacingly from time to time?

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A young couple in Koper, Slovenia are the proud parents of a wild sparrow that refuses to leave their side, even though she always has the freedom to go anywhere she wants.

Alesh and Janja, a young couple from Koper, in Slovenia, adopted their “child”, Chibi, when she was about 10-days-old. A friend of theirs found her while walking her baby. She was lying on the ground next to another dead sparrow, and her parents were nowhere to be found, so the woman took the baby sparrow home. Unfortunately, she had her own baby and couldn’t take care of another, especially one from a species she knew nothing about. That’s where Alesh and Janja came in; they didn’t know anything about sparrow chicks either, but there was plenty of information online, and they were willing to put in the work.

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A group of treasure hunters that has been searching for the fabled “Lemminkäinen Hoard” treasure in Finland since 1987 claims that they are finally just “meters away” from finding it.

Known as the Treasure Twelve, the group of treasure hunters has spent every summer since 1987 looking for the Lemminkäinen Hoard, the whereabouts of which were revealed to them by a mystic just before their death. Apparently, a labyrinthine cave complex near Helsinki is home to the most valuable treasure the world has ever known, with an estimated value of over $15 billion. Now, 34 years after their search for the Lemminkäinen Hoard began the Treasure Twelve are closer than ever to finally getting their hands on it.

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A Chinese woman has sparked controversy online with her extremely frugal lifestyle, which involves spending as little money as possible, even if it means giving up on some of life’s small pleasures.

Consumerism may be at an all-time high in the developed world right now, but the minimalist lifestyle trend is also becoming increasingly popular. In China, hundreds of thousands of people share “money-saving tips” on private social media groups, with some members standing out through their frugal lifestyles. One such individual is Wang Shenai, a 32-year-old woman from Nanjing and member of a 400,000-strong online group called Frugal Women’s Federation. She has achieved celebrity status among her peers for her extreme money-saving techniques, but also sparked controversy among the general public, after a recent interview she gave went viral.

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Unless you’re a passionate gardener, the only types of cabbage and kale you know are probably the ones grown as food, but there are quite a few ornamental types of cabbage as well, grown only for their beauty.

If you’re looking for something to brighten up your garden in the autumn and winter seasons, ornamental cabbage is definitely an alternative worth considering. While regular kale and cabbage can be traced back 4,000 years, the ornamental types rose to prominence in 17th century Japan, where they became a centerpiece of Japanese gardens. In the early 20th century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent Howard Dorsett to China and Japan to look for new plants, and the ornamental kale he saw in Japan was one of his favorite finds. Several varieties were brought to the States, and by 1936 they were available to mass markets.

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Les Grands Buffet à Narbonne is a unique all-you-can-eat buffet in Narbonne, France, where you can stuff your face with the most decadent dishes of French cuisine, in a luxurious environment, and without breaking the bank.

While the above paragraph may sound like the beginning of a sponsored post, that is most certainly not the case. I only discovered Les Grands Buffet yesterday, while on my daily session of internet surfing for interesting topics to write about, when some photos of what looked like a lobster fountain caught my eye. It turned out to be just one of the many eye-catching arrangements at the Les Grands Buffet in Narbonne, France, a unique all-you-can-eat-buffet that only serves the best dishes of French cuisine, from lobsters to foie gras and cassoulet. It’s the kind of place that, as a gourmand, you simply have to visit at least once in your life.

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If you’re looking for an unusual and extremely expensive way of dealing with small pests, like cockroaches, may we recommend the world’s smallest working revolver?

The Swiss Mini Gun holds the Guinness World Record for the smallest functioning revolver in the world. It measures 5.5 cm long, 3.5 cm tall and 1 cm wide, weighing only 19.8g. It’s so easy to conceal that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have made the Swiss Mini Gun illegal to import. But while its reduced size may be unusual, this tiny firearm has all the same features as a normal-sized double-action revolver. Its manufacturing was only possible by employing techniques used in the Swiss watchmaking and jewelry industries.

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A woman who had exhausted all other options of treating her depression claims her life has become infinitely better since having a matchbox-sized implanted into her skull.

Having holes drilled into your skull and electrical wires connected directly to your brain sounds like a daunting proposition for most people, but for Sarah, a 36-year-old woman who had been battling depression for years, it was a desperate attempt to get back to a normal life. For years, she had been battling severe depression, and all other treatments, including anti-depressants and electroconvulsive therapy, had failed. Anything was better than the darkness she had been experiencing, and getting a brain implant proved a winning bet, as she has now been depression-free for over a year.

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Kiska, the last living killer whale at the Marineland marine park, has been dubbed the world’s loneliest orca after it was revealed that she has spent the last 10 years of her life alone in a concrete tank, with little to no stimulation.

Orcas, dolphins, and whales are among the world’s most intelligent animals; they are social creatures that require a lot of interaction and stimulation which those raised in captivity, unfortunately, don’t receive enough of. In one extreme case, a lonely orca that has spent most of her life in captivity and the last decade completely alone in a concrete tank, at a marine park in Ontario, Canada has been showing signs of extreme distress, like floating listlessly and banging her head against the sides of her enclosure.

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An Australian man who had been on the run for nearly three decades turned himself in recently, after being rendered homeless by the pandemic and struggling to find work.

On the night of August 1, 1992, 13 months into his three-and-a-half-year sentence for growing marijuana, Darko “Dougie” Desic escaped from the Grafton Correctional Centre in New South Wales, using tools, including a hacksaw blade and bolt cutters. Despite an extensive search, authorities were never able to locate Desic, and he remained a fugitive for the next 29 years. So imagine everyone’s surprise when he just turned up at a police station one day to turn himself in after all this time. As it turns out, it was all because of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the lockdown in NSW had left Desic homeless and with no way to support himself.

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An opposition party candidate running for a municipal position in St Petersburg, Russia, is competing against at least two other people who not only legally changed their names to his, but also borrowed his physical appearance to confuse voters.

Russian opposition politicians are used to running against candidates with the same surname, it’s a commonly used tactic that can derail a few precious votes in close elections, but Boris Vishnevsky’s case stands out. A senior member of the liberal Yabloko party running for public office in a district of Saint Petersburg, Vishnevsky already knew that two of his opponents had recently changed their names to “Boris Vishnevsky” to confuse voters. What he didn’t know was that they’d stolen his look as well. In a district voting poster showing the three candidates side by side, it’s difficult to tell them apart, because they all look nearly identical.

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Reports of the bizarre rat king phenomenon date back to the 16th century, but the recent discovery of a Russian farmer who found five small rats with their tails tied in a giant knot is once again causing scientists to scratch their heads.

A rat king occurs when the tails of multiple rodents become so entangled that even an adult human, let alone a creature without opposable thumbs and advanced brain, would have trouble detangling. Rat kings have been reported numerous times since the mid-16th century, but scientists have yet to properly understand how and why it occurs, or even if it is a natural phenomenon or just a man-made hoax. The discovery of a new rat king in a flooded field in Russia has once again brought the very existence of the phenomenon into the debate.

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Police in Quintana Roo, Mexico, recently received an unusual complaint from a local woman who accused her 23-year-old neighbor of hanging her underwear in plain sight in order to seduce her husband.

42-year-old Yuvitza E. decided to file a formal accusation against her “shameless” young neighbor, accusing her of breaking “good morals and decency”. She told police officers that it was no coincidence her young neighbor always washed her thongs on Saturday, around noon, when her husband was at home and free to gawk at her from their home. Yuvitza explained that she had repeatedly walked in on her husband staring at their neighbor’s underwear, and despite asking the woman to quit trying to seduce her man, she kept at it.

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Panta Petrović has been living in a cave in the canyon of Serbia’s Gradašnička river for over 16 years, away from modern civilization and in the company of both domestic and wild animals, including a 200-kilogram boar named Mara.

Serbia’s most famous cave dweller recently made international headlines after Agence France Press reported that even he had gotten a Covid-19 vaccine, even though he hardly interacts with other people. But in his home country, Panta has been making headlines for at least the last five years. Everyone in the area around Petrovac city, in south-eastern Serbia knows who he is, because of his unique lifestyle. He has been living as a hermit for the last 15 years, spending half the year in a wooden treehouse in the middle of nowhere, and the other half in a 25-meter-long cave hidden in the canyon of Gradašnička river. All because he wanted to go back to the basics and get away from modern civilization.

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