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 In the heyday of imperial Russia, the social season - with its grand balls, receptions, concerts and theater - occurred in the winter. During the stuffy summers, high society fled the heat and dust of the city for their country estates. Even the royal family left for the Summer Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. |
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After numerous false starts this summer, Russia's Foreign Ministry announced this week that new, simplified visa rules will be introduced in St. Petersburg and Moscow on Feb. |
 "I want to work in a bank," says 11-year-old Grisha. His friends Masha, 14 and Tanya, 12, stand nearby and nod approvingly. Tanya sniffs constantly from a bag of glue that she hides under her coat. "He knows how to count well," Masha says. "He's good at counting the money he begs. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - Travelers beware. Those carrying more than $1,500 in undeclared cash into the country could see it confiscated under a new customs rule. The Federal Customs Committee registered a decree this week requiring both Russian citizens and foreigners to declare amounts of foreign currency in excess of $1,500 upon arrival as of Jan. |
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Deck the Streets ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - More than 250,000 New Year's trees will be delivered to St. Petersburg from Leningrad Oblast this holiday season, Interfax reported Thursday. |
 An unprecedented event will take place Sunday within the walls of the State Hermitage Museum. For the second time in its illustrious life, the former tsarist Winter Palace is preparing for a revolution - one that may well shake the world of art. The revolution's main ideologist is film director Alexander Sokurov, whose plans on Sunday to shoot a 90-minute movie in a single, non-stop take without subsequent editing. |
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MOSCOW - Almost a week after the United States notified Russia it was scrapping the 1972 ABM Treaty, President Vladimir Putin is winging his way to Britain for a visit with the man who may be his biggest ally for drawing Moscow closer to NATO, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. |
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MOSCOW - What is the Central Bank doing with the government's dollars? Paying off foreign debt? Defending the ruble? Shifting cash to other accounts? Nobody seems to know for sure, and the Central Bank offered a vague explanation as to why on Thursday. |
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MOSCOW - Gazprom chief Alexei Mil ler and former Prime Minister Yev ge ny Primakov have joined the inner circle of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, a move that further boosts the economic and political clout of the country's most powerful business lobby. |
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RTS Closing Strong MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian shares set a new 2001 closing high on Thursday with the country's No. 2 oil firm, YUKOS, as the standard bearer. Traders said they expected to see fresh growth in the new year. The RTS index closed 1.81 percent higher at 247. |
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Ukraine Passes Budget KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament on Thursday gave its final approval to the 2002 budget, meeting one of the key conditions to unlocking fresh loans from the International Monetary Fund and ending months of bitter political debate. |
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IT appears that Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's hold over Russia's northern capital is coming under increasing attack from the Kremlin. The relationship between Yakovlev and President Vladimir Putin has been rocky since the former's 1996 betrayal of their boss and Putin's self-declared mentor, former Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. |
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I DEVOTED the half of last week not taken up by holidays to discussing the fate of the Russian mass media with foreign colleagues. Of course, we were talking predominantly about the fate of TV6, the television channel controlled by Boris Berezovsky that provided refuge for part of the NTV team when that company passed from Vladimir Gusinsky's control to Gazprom. |
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AS the well-heeled were streaming out of the packed concert of Mos cow violinist Vladimir Spivakov at the Philharmonic Hall on Wednesday, they were greeted by a distressing and all too common sight. A small throng of street children - shivering in threadbare coats - gathered around on the square outside the hall, begging for spare change. |
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THE second reading of a bill in the State Duma rarely causes any sensations. Thus, few would have expected that the second reading of the Labor Code would be a major event. |
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BAKU, Azerbaijan - When Sahnaz Matlabqizi left the offices of the Yeni Musavat newspaper a couple of weeks ago, she had a feeling she was being followed. She hurried back to her flat in a miserable suburb of Baku, hoping to get inside before anything happened. She was too late. Before she could get her key into the door, a man had grabbed her from behind. |
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 Yury Grymov's controversial second film, "The Collector," which was briefly premiered at the Aurora cinema this autumn, was released on video and DVD last week. Born in the provincial city of Gorky (now, Nizhny Novgorod) in 1965, Grymov has conquered Moscow since 1988 as one of the most prolific and successful directors of television commercials and, later, pop-music videos. After nearly 300 commercials and videos, Grymov now seems obsessed with the idea of producing some art-house films and acquiring a reputation as a serious filmmaker. |
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 As the year draws to a close, the Mariinsky Theater - which has been pretty quiet since the season began - has begun showing signs of life. First, the theater revived the grandiose 1954, "Stalin-era" version of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Prince Igor" as staged by Yevgeny Sokovnin. |
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Since there have already been several new album presentations this month, local bands seem to have run out of such offerings and are now returning to their normal club shows. However, there are still some alternatives to Moscow exports Krematory (LDM on Friday), Zapreshchyonniye Barabanshchiki (Red Club on Saturday) and BI-2 (Oktyabrsky on Sunday), with performances by the St. Petersburg Ska Jazz Review, Babslei and Kirpichi, who are all playing on Saturday. The St. Petersburg Ska Jazz Review, a nine-piece band formed by members of Spitfire and Markscheider Kunst, will play its rare, full-length show at Faculty on Saturday. |
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 In most cases, saying that the food was the least memorable part of a dining experience would not be particularly flattering. There are rare occasions, however, when a restaurant manages to put everything together in such a way that food really does take a back seat, and all you can do is sit back and admire the show. |
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Border Crossing GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) - An outbreak of the deadly ebola virus has spread from the central African nation of Gabon to neighboring Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization said Thursday. Fifteen people have died in Gabon since ebola was first reported earlier this month. |
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Cup on Hold BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The second leg of the South American Copa Mercosur final was postponed on Wednesday after 16 people died in Argentina's worst civil unrest for more than a decade. |
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