Arts & Entertainment

Arts & Entertainment

Alexander Shumsky, general producer of Russian...

Alexander Shumsky, general producer of Russian Fashion Week (RFW), tells about the crisis in the fashion industry, the buyers’ role and the show’s new format.

A man who tried to burn himself alive in...

A man who tried to burn himself alive in Moscow on Thursday is in hospital with burns to 20% of his body, police said.

Andrei Arshavin has told Arsenal manager...

Andrei Arshavin has told Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger that he "doesn"t want to play football" after Russia"s failure to qualify for the 2010 World Cup.

A temperature of 8.1 degrees Celsius (46.58...

A temperature of 8.1 degrees Celsius (46.58 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded in Moscow on Wednesday, the highest for 111 years, the Meteonovosti website said

At last something interesting is happening...

At last something interesting is happening in Brussels, that is, in the European Union. It seems to have left behind a stultifying period of business routine, with the first series of haggling and squabbles since Lisbon (where the group reformed itself) now well underway.

Bjorn Ferry of Sweden took the Olympic gold...

Bjorn Ferry of Sweden took the Olympic gold in the men"s 12.5 km pursuit on Wednesday.

Britain and Argentina have renewed their...

Britain and Argentina have renewed their unhealthy diplomatic exchange over the ownership and sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, which Argentineans call the Malvinas.

COPENHAGEN, June 3 (RIA Novosti) - A final...

COPENHAGEN, June 3 (RIA Novosti) - A final decision on conflicting territorial claims on the Arctic seabed must be made by the United Nations, the Russian foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Czechs beat Latvia 5-2 in Olympic men"s...

Czechs beat Latvia 5-2 in Olympic men"s ice hockey on Friday, securing a second win.

Dutch speed skater Mark Tuitert has snatched...

Dutch speed skater Mark Tuitert has snatched a victory from the hands of U.S."s Shani Davis in the men"s 1500m pursuit in Vancouver, finishing just 0.53 seconds ahead of the American.

French warship has destroyed a pirate mother...

French warship has destroyed a pirate mother ship some 438 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, the EU Naval Force Public Affairs Office has said.

Georgia is ready to cooperate with Russia...

Georgia is ready to cooperate with Russia in investigating the recent Moscow metro suicide bombings, State Minister of Georgia for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili said on Wednesday.

Georgian opposition leaders will travel...

Georgian opposition leaders will travel to Russia on Thursday to meet Russian officials, opposition representatives and representatives from the Georgian diaspora in Russia in a bid to create a "Georgian lobby in Russia."

Germany"s Wolfsburg has beaten Russia"s...

Germany"s Wolfsburg has beaten Russia"s Rubin 2-1 in a struggle for a place in the Europa League quarterfinals at Volkswagen Arena.

GROZNY, September 9 (RIA Novosti) - Chechen...

GROZNY, September 9 (RIA Novosti) - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has held talks with the Council of Europe"s commissioner for human rights, the presidential press service said on Wednesday.

Guus Hiddink will take charge of the Russian...

Guus Hiddink will take charge of the Russian national team for one last time on Wednesday evening when the side face Hungary in a friendly.

Hockey player Alexei Morozov will lead the...

Hockey player Alexei Morozov will lead the Russian Olympic team into Vancouver"s BC Place Stadium on February 12 as the national flag bearer. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian national team ahead of the Olympics and the Russia House was opened in the XXI Olympics capital.

It is unusual to sum up the results of the...

It is unusual to sum up the results of the year in January but some people have calculated that this year China will overtake Japan, becoming the world"s second biggest economy after the United States. Arthur Kroeber, managing director of the Beijing-based company Dragonomics, has just made a statement to this effect. This forecast was already made in the fall but this time Kroeber is backing it up with statistics.

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International...

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, called the death of a Georgian luger a tragedy overcasting the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver hours before the Games were to start.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader...

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, will celebrate two important anniversaries on March 11 and 15.

MOSCOW, April 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia...

MOSCOW, April 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Bulgaria will endorse preliminary documents on the South Stream gas pipeline later on Tuesday and sign a final agreement in two weeks, the Russian prime minister said.

MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Struggling...

MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Struggling English Premier League side Newcastle United have made enquiries into the possibility of signing Dynamo Moscow defender Denis Kolodin, a Russian paper said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, April 30 (RIA Novosti) - An Australian...

MOSCOW, April 30 (RIA Novosti) - An Australian politician has admitted to undergoing "excruciatingly painful" surgery in a Russian clinic to increase her height. Hajnal Ban, a councilor in the state of Queensland, was forced to admit to the operation after The Courier Mail identified her on Tuesday as the author of a book, written several years ago under a pseudonym, entitled "God Made Me Small, Surgery Made Me Tall". Israeli-born Ban, 31, travelled to the west Siberian city of Kurgan eight years ago for the $40,000 operation, which lasted nine months and raised her height from 154 cm (5 ft 1) to 162 cm (5 ft 4). Doctors at the Ilizarov Scientific Centre for Restorative Traumatology and Orthopaedics broke her legs in four places, and extended the bones at a rate of 1 mm per day. The grueling procedure involves sticking steel pins into the bones, fixing them to metal frames around the legs, and rotating screws each day to stretch the bones apart. The operation involves severe pain, and a constant risk of infection. Many clinics refuse to carry out the operation on purely cosmetic grounds, due to the high risks involved. Several Russian celebrities are known to have had leg-extending operations at the Siberian center, including the pop singer Vika Tsyganova. Ban complained to the Brisbane Times of constant media harassment since the story emerged. "Media are camping outside my mother"s house so I"m just in hiding at the moment," the Logan City councilor told the paper. "This is purely a personal matter. I don"t know what all the fuss is about. I just want this to go away," she said. Describing her experience in Russia to British newspaper The Times, she said: "From the time I flew to Russia to the time I was able to wear high heels again was about a year in total, but at least nine months of that was excruciatingly painful." Ban wrote her book under the pseudonym Sara Vornamen, five years before unsuccessfully standing for election in the 2007 federal polls. "I chose to go under a pseudonym because it"s a private decision and I didn"t want to be ostracized," the Courier Mail quoted her as saying. Explaining her decision to undergo the drastic surgery, she said that at school she had been called a "midget", and that in adult life she felt her short stature was harming her credibility. "I get tired of people focusing on the physical side of me because I feel like I have a lot to offer and I"m a qualified lawyer. I"m educated and I think people don"t tend to focus on that," she told the paper. The Brisbane Times, however, said that although Ban "claims to be a barrister," she is "not listed with the Bar Association of Queensland."

MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - President...

MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered measures to track a Finnish-owned cargo ship crewed by Russians, which was last sited off Portugal"s Atlantic coast on August 1 and may have been hijacked, the Kremlin said.

MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Allegations...

MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Allegations that the Arctic Sea merchant ship may have been involved in illegal operations will be probed, Russia"s chief investigator said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Delegations...

MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Delegations from North and South Korea agreed at talks on Friday to hold reunions in late September of families separated by the Korean War more than half a century ago.

MOSCOW, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian-born...

MOSCOW, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik"s Access Industries will buy 51% of Dublin-based broadcaster Setanta Sports to save it from bankruptcy, The Times reported Saturday.

MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - A 35,000...

MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - A 35,000 year-old bone flute found by archeologists in southwest Germany is the world"s oldest known musical instrument, the Nature Journal said.

MOSCOW, June 7 (RIA Novosti) - The European...

MOSCOW, June 7 (RIA Novosti) - The European Constitution does not take into account moral traditions which causes protests against this document, Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia said. "In my opinion, protests against the European Constitution are caused by its failure to meet the interests, moral traditions and history of France and Holland," Alexis II said after the meeting with Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Pier Ferdinando Casini on Tuesday. "In this case, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church have a common position. We believe that the European Constitution should mention common Christian roots as the basis of European culture," Alexis II said. "Ignoring this means countering the real truth," he added. Casini agreed with the churches" position on this issue. According to the patriarch, striving for bringing Europe back to common Christian roots will promote rapprochement of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. "The return to common Christian roots, the basis of European culture, may promote rapprochement and ecumenical development between European churches," Alexis II said. The Moscow patriarchate said that "ecumenical development" meant "common interests of Christian churches against de-Christianization of Europe and solution of other problems." Alexis II and Casini agreed that the draft constitution "had no soul." The sides also discussed the problems of proselytism and sects, which destroy the Christian culture.

MOSCOW, March 10 (RIA Novosti) - Lokomotiv...

MOSCOW, March 10 (RIA Novosti) - Lokomotiv Moscow have made an offer for Schalke 04 forward Kevin Kuranyi, the Bild newspaper said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, March 3 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian...

MOSCOW, March 3 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian customs authorities are ready to drop their $22.5 billion lawsuit against the Bank of New York Mellon in exchange for an $800 million compensation settlement, a business paper reported on Tuesday. Russia"s Federal Customs Service on May 17, 2007, filed a damages lawsuit after accusing the bank of laundering funds, received from exports to Russia, through its accounts in the late 1990s. "For the purpose of settling the dispute, the Federal Customs Service of Russia suggests holding a working meeting to discuss the issue of reaching an amicable agreement on the matter," Kommersant quoted Konstantin Chaika, deputy head of the Federal Customs Service, as saying in a letter obtained by the paper. According to Kommersant"s source in the Russian government, the Federal Customs Service has been forced to take this step at the insistence of Sergei Sobyanin, deputy prime minister and head of the government"s office, who Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally put in charge of the matter. "This is a political decision, quite logical in the period of the global financial crisis. Moreover, BNY Mellon does not have any accounts on the territory of Russia that can be seized if the Federal Customs Service wins in a court," Kommersant said, referring to the government source. Neither party has made any comment on the information, Kommersant said. According to Steven Marx, a U.S. lawyer acting for the Russian customs service, under U.S. law the plaintiff can demand compensation of up to three times the laundered sum. He said the bank"s management has acknowledged its involvement in the laundering of around $7.5 billion. In the early 2000"s several countries accused employees at the Bank of New York of involvement in organizing tax evasion and money laundering schemes, primarily with the use of the shadow economy. The bank fired several staff responsible for the Russian money transfers. The main case in Russia related to the bank"s management of U.S. correspondent accounts at Incombank, formerly Russia"s second-largest bank, which was declared bankrupt in the late 1990s.

MOSCOW, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Arsenal Football...

MOSCOW, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Arsenal Football Club"s Russian striker Andrei Arshavin is seeking a large salary increase to compensate for the high British tax rate, the Mail on Sunday reported.

MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s...

MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained, in cooperation with the Investigation Committee and foreign law enforcement bodies, 14 suspected human traffickers, the service reported Tuesday.

MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s...

MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s Dmitry Donskoy strategic nuclear-powered submarine returned on Wednesday from a short sea test run to prepare for upcoming test launches of the troubled Bulava missile.

MOSCOW/PARIS, August 15 (RIA Novosti) -...

MOSCOW/PARIS, August 15 (RIA Novosti) - The tracking device aboard the Russian-crewed Arctic Sea, missing since late July, was briefly reactivated on Saturday showing the vessel to be located off France, a Russian maritime journal said.

MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) - The...

MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) - The Bank of New York Mellon is near a deal to settle a $22.5 billion money laundering suit brought by Russia after the bank offered to restart trade-finance lending once the suit is resolved, The Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday citing people close to the talks.

MOSCOW, September 7 (RIA Novosti) - Over...

MOSCOW, September 7 (RIA Novosti) - Over 50 famous musicians and bands participated in the Mamakabo-2009 international festival in the Kaluga Region southwest of Moscow over the weekend, a regional official said on Monday.

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, September 11 (RIA Novosti)...

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, September 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Church should be modern but must not be reformed to fall in line with the "transient tastes of the time," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said Friday.

North Korea has set up a "peacetime firing...

North Korea has set up a "peacetime firing zone" along its maritime border with South Korea, Seoul"s Yonhap agency reported.

otland and Kilmarnock forward Kevin Kyle...

otland and Kilmarnock forward Kevin Kyle has turned down the chance of move to Russian Premier League side Spartak Nalchik.

Roland Oliphant, Russia Profile

RUSSIA

Russia is not considering a proposal to...

Russia is not considering a proposal to combine part of its South Stream gas project with the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Monday.

Russia may receive a controlling stake in...

Russia may receive a controlling stake in the Ukrainian state-owned aircraft manufacturer, Antonov, in exchange for a gas discount, Ukrainian online daily Ukrainska Pravda said.

Russian aviation officials are in Iran to...

Russian aviation officials are in Iran to investigate yesterday"s crash-landing of a Russian-made Tu-154M airliner, the Interstate Aviation Committee said on Monday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed the hope on Tuesday that Ukraine"s next president will not play politics with relations between Kiev and Moscow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is arriving in Turkmen capital Ashgabat on a two-day working visit on Monday to discuss bilateral cooperation issues, the Russian ministry said.

Russian luge team coach Mikhail Zavyalov...

Russian luge team coach Mikhail Zavyalov has blamed the death of a Georgian luger just before the opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on competition organizers.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev begins...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev begins his three-day visit to Kazakhstan on Saturday to discuss a customs union and a single economic space with presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Friday for a crackdown on people who provide any form of assistance to terrorists.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday he hopes the head of the newly established North Caucasus Federal District will show some tangible results of his work in 2010.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is certain that the country"s Paralympics team will demonstrate its "skill and spirit" at the Vancouver Games, the government press office said on Saturday.

Russia on Thursday threw its weight behind...

Russia on Thursday threw its weight behind the provisional Kyrgyz government, which took power in the capital and several regions of the ex-Soviet Central Asian state after two days of violent protests in which 74 people died and more than 500 were injured.

Russia"s figure skaters Oksana Domnina and...

Russia"s figure skaters Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin took the lead in the ice dance after the compulsory dance at the Winter Olympic Games in Canada"s Vancouver on Friday.

Russia"s MiG aircraft maker said on Tuesday...

Russia"s MiG aircraft maker said on Tuesday it has delivered the first four MiG-29 Fulcrum-D carrier-based fighter jets to India.

Russia will boost its drug control mission...

Russia will boost its drug control mission staff in Afghanistan, Russia"s drug control chief said on Tuesday.

Russia will call for the international community...

Russia will call for the international community to prevent the remilitarization of Georgia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Russia will mark the 65th anniversary of...

Russia will mark the 65th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany with its biggest ever post-Soviet demonstration of military hardware, a respected daily said on Thursday.

Swiss freestyler Michael Schmid brought...

Swiss freestyler Michael Schmid brought his country fifth gold medal of the 2010 Olympic Games in Canada"s Vancouver after winning in men"s Ski Cross.

The Academician Fyodorov scientific research...

The Academician Fyodorov scientific research vessel has arrived at the Russian Antarctic outpost of Bellingshausen on a mission to set up a station for tracking the GLONASS navigation satellites, the Voice of Russia reported.

The German biathletes won the mixed relay...

The German biathletes won the mixed relay held on Sunday at the final World Cup stop of the season in Russia"s Khanty-Mansiysk.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church...

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has used his Christmas message to say that the country has been progressing despite the global financial crisis.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced...

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced first proton collisions, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said.

The Large Hadron Collider will be re-launched...

The Large Hadron Collider will be re-launched in a few days, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said Thursday.

The launch of the European Space Agency"s...

The launch of the European Space Agency"s CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer satellite on a Russian Rokot carrier rocket is scheduled for April 8, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Monday.

The Paris Club has agreed to cancel the...

The Paris Club has agreed to cancel the $1.026 billion debt owed to it by Afghanistan, a press release published on the site of the informal financial group on Wednesday said.

The reaction of western countries to the...

The reaction of western countries to the first round of the presidential elections in Ukraine is a more interesting phenomenon than the elections themselves. Wishes and reality clash in the reports and editorials of Polish, British and U.S. newspapers.