Photo by Fotobank/Getty Images Anahit Piruzyan on new discoveries from early English novels I recently put myself through an interesting experiment: I decided to re-read a book that I first read thirty years ago. It was Iris Murdoch's novel The Sea, the Sea, translated and published here in 1982, exactly four years after it received the Booker Prize in England.

photo ITAR-TASS You can understand the quirks of the new presidential term only with the help of literature Something has happened to reality. Over the past six months, reading Russian news has become a test of one’s own sanity, when one wants to pinch one’s hand, rub one’s eyes, or breathe into the breathalyzer that should soon become the companion of any self-respecting person.

The Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia has charged the assistant of the Socialist Revolutionary deputy Ilya Ponomarev, Maria Baronova, with the final version of the charge in the case of riots during the “March of Millions” on May 6 on Bolotnaya Square.

The case of the death of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy in Bryansk who fell into a sewer has been sent to court. The tragedy happened on January 8. A woman was pushing her child in a stroller when the sidewalk collapsed underneath them and a sewer pipe fell apart. The boy was carried into the sewer, and a day later his body was found at a sewage treatment plant several kilometers from the scene of the incident.

The management of the Podmoskovye TV channel decided to leave the company. This was announced by the general director of the channel Natalya Kudryashova. “The TV Podmoskovye team has left,” Kudryashova wrote on Twitter . — We are all urgently handing over our cases, materiel, etc.

Golovinskaya, the Moscow prosecutor, interrogated media director of SUP Media Anton Nosik regarding the organization of elections to the Coordination Council of the Opposition. “The violation that occurred carries a fine of 500 rubles, but since the matter is political, the wheels started turning,” Nosik told Interfax on Friday.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs revealed the theft of 53 million rubles during the implementation of government contracts for the maintenance of military camps and a number of other Ministry of Defense facilities, the department’s press service reports .

On November 16, 1909, the world's first commercial airline, Deutsche Luftschiffahrts Aktien Gesellschaft (DELAG), was founded. Its main vehicles were the airships LZ4 and LZ5 of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, whose commercial director headed it. At the beginning of the 20th century, airplanes could transport a maximum of two people a couple of tens of kilometers, and airships, in turn, could travel 1000 km with 10 people on board. That is why they were chosen as the main means of transport.

Ukraine plans to reduce gas imports from Russia to 20 billion cubic meters in 2013 from the current 27.5 billion cubic meters and import about 5 billion cubic meters of gas from Europe using a reverse scheme, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz Vadim Chuprun told reporters at a press conference in Kyiv. “This year we will purchase 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia...

The government has established a minimum level of dividend payments for state joint-stock companies in the amount of 25% of net profit, follows from the order of the Cabinet of Ministers, published today in the Bank of Federal Regulatory and Distribution Acts. The document amends the “Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of May 29, 2006 No. 774-r” .

In Russia, by January 1, 2014, a comprehensive system of emergency notification of the population about the threat or occurrence of emergency situations should appear. The corresponding decree was signed by President Vladimir Putin, reports .

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case regarding fraud with government contracts at Slavyanka OJSC in the amount of almost 53 million rubles. One of the defendants in the case are officials of the Ministry of Defense, the press service of the Investigative Committee reports.

The State Duma Ethics Commission decided not to apply any sanctions against United Russia deputy Ilya Kostunov, who became “famous” for his scandalous statements. Let us recall that at the end of October Kostunov sent an official letter to the general director of Channel One, Konstantin Ernst.

Deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg will not amend the law on administrative liability for promoting homosexuality and pedophilia among minors and ban the image of a rainbow. “There are no such plans,” told Interfax on Friday. Vitaly Milonov, chairman of the legislative committee on legislation and one of the authors of the bill, According to him, “the ability to brainwash our children” has already been limited.

photo Fotodom / Rex Features How can the law on the “Magnitsky list” adopted by Congress change relations between Russia and the United States? On Friday, November 16, on the third anniversary of the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in Butyrka, the US House of Representatives voted for a law named after him.