According to the Sunday Times, Russia will soon host a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The money will come from exiled Chelsea Football Club owner and F1 jet-setter, Roman Abramovich. It just needs Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov to sign off on the deal.
When did we hear this before? Many times, but how about March 2002. Quote:
‘The [...]

Catastrophe. These days you can hardly find a bottle of wine in Russia’s restaurants and supermarkets. They say it’s because imported wines must carry a new sticker and, due to an official screw up, there aren’t enough stickers to go round.
But others see it clearly related to last month’s politically inspired ban. The system is [...]

In April, officials ‘confiscated’ 167,500 Motorola mobile phones on their way to Russian handset lovers. They’re still missing. Apparently some 50,000 were immediately ‘destroyed’ by police. The other 120,000 or so have gone walkabout. What happened?
So far the authorities have given various replies. First, that the mobiles emitted lethal doses of radiation and constituted a [...]

Paolo Cuelho’s train trip across Russia has been a major media event. His carriage is flocked to and feted as it pulls into the smallest hamlets in Siberia. Which proves one of two things. Either he has a great publicist. Or that Russians still read books, unlike the rest of us who just scan the [...]

One attraction of visiting Russia is the rather good Georgian wine. So it was disappointing to read that imports from Georgia are suddenly banned.
Officially, says Russia, the wines contain too many pesticides and heavy metals. But the real story is that Georgia belongs to the so-called ‘Awkward Squad’ - Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. These [...]

Ever wondered what happens when you fill in those ‘customer safisfaction’ surveys? Well. Obviously enough people gave Moscow’s Sport Hotel a ‘could do better’ rating. It was dynamited the other day.

Coincidentally, this news happens while 9/11 skeptics are grabbing the headlines. Now everyone from eminent physicists to European diplomats believe that the World Trade [...]