Editor's Letter No. 52 (176) Dec 2007 - Jan 2008

Dear reader!

As always, the last issue of the magazine in the outgoing year, it is also the first in the coming year - about what was and what will be. "Putin of Miracles" - the president's political surprises for the season are being inventoried by Mikhail Fishman . One of the miracles is Putin's cult, but Nikita Mikhalkov in an interview with us refuses to co-author. “Putin in the title is impossible,” says historian Alexander Filippov , who wrote the textbook of the year, according to many, rehabilitating the USSR. “There is a people's war” - the Globus department, on its various business trips, found out against whom children from different countries were playing “war games”. In the most prosperous countries, virtual enemies, if life is a little worse, they “fight” with foreigners, often with neighbors. "God, scold the queen!" from London - notes from Ilya Arkhipov : how and why in 2007 England became the most hostile country for us. Dmitry Rogozin , having become Russia's representative to NATO, does not promise a warming of relations with the West. Exactly a year ago we wrote about the results of genealogical examinations. It turned out that the Ruriks are still not Slavs, but Finno-Ugric peoples. Now it turned out: even if the origin is clear, then the “continuation” of the first dynasty of Russian rulers is unclear - "Operation Clean Rurik" .

We recognized state corporations as the trend of the year in business - it is believed that the "Gentlemen of Distribution" are created for a while, but they themselves are convinced that they are forever. The best football player of Russia Andrey Arshavin and our only world basketball star Andrey Kirilenko talk about the past season, about their games and about the fact that there is something else in life. Yuri Gladilshchikov, as always, presents his two dozen - the best films of 2007 and the most anticipated premieres of 2008. And we recognized Mikhail Efremov as the actor of the year . He, talking about the theatrical boom inevitable for such an era as ours, predicts: "Aesopian language will also return."

Happily!

Leonid Parfyonov,
Chief Editor
"Russian Newsweek"