3 kg of gold will be spent on the production of all medals for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi, said the president of the organizing committee of the 2014 Games, Dmitry Chernyshenko, at the presentation of the medals in St. Petersburg on Thursday. “Gold medals use gold plating and the medal itself is made of metal alloys. The coating will take almost three kilograms of pure 999 gold,” R-Sport quotes Chernyshenko as saying .

The FSB revealed multimillion-dollar thefts during the construction of a center for monitoring and confirming the characteristics of the GLONASS system in Korolev, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Thursday . According to the publication, the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region has already begun a pre-investigation check of the theft case transferred from the FSB.

photo ITAR-TASS The basis for the third case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev could be not only claims against economic experts, but also a new investigation into the activities of the oil company’s subsidiary, VNK. The “big” YUKOS case, initiated in 2003, has not been closed; a new episode may soon be separated from it to bring charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, say two Forbes interlocutors surrounded by the ex-head of YUKOS and a former employee of the oil company.

The leader of the Civic Platform, Mikhail Prokhorov (No. 10 in the Russian Forbes ranking , net worth $13 billion), spoke out at a press conference on Thursday against the adoption of children by homosexual couples. “This is a cultural and moral issue. I have a negative attitude towards gay pride parades... we haven’t matured yet,” Interfax quotes Prokhorov . “Therefore, I do not support the adoption of children by such couples,” he said.

Opposition leader Alexey Navalny, accused of organizing the theft of property from the Kirovles State Unitary Enterprise, asked the second person involved in the case, entrepreneur Pyotr Ofitserov, to buy an inexpensive Nokia phone “to lay around,” according to the correspondence of the accused, announced in the Leninsky District Court of Kirov on Thursday.

Shareholders of the company that owns the Empire State Building in New York have approved an IPO plan to raise $1 billion, reported on Thursday. Reuters For this purpose, the Empire State Realty Trust will be created, which, in addition to the iconic building, will include 18 more objects. The famous skyscraper itself is valued at $2.3 billion. 80% of the company's 3,300 shareholders voted for the plan.

The Basmanny Court of Moscow on Thursday arrested the head of the Department of Highways and Road Activities of the Government of the Voronezh Region, Alexander Trubnikov, on suspicion of receiving a bribe, the Interfax agency reported , citing the court's press secretary. The court granted the corresponding request from the investigation. Trubnikov's arrest period is until July 29, 2013.

The Board of Directors of the Russian Economic School approved the resignation of NES Rector Sergei Guriev, and NES Professor Stanislav Anatolyev was appointed acting rector, according to a press release published on the university’s website. Sergei Guriev remains a professor at the Russian School of Economics, the message emphasizes. The board of directors of the university expressed gratitude to him for his many years of fruitful work as rector.

Co-chairman of the RPR-PARNAS party, oppositionist Boris Nemtsov, together with member of the Solidarity movement Leonid Martynyuk, presented on Thursday a report on fraud and corruption during the construction of facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which the oppositionist himself reported on his page in Live Journal.

photo ITAR-TASS The arrival of the head of the presidential expert department, Ksenia Yudaeva, to the place of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank may lead to a change in the head of the Ministry of Economic Development The first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Alexei Ulyukaev, will most likely leave the Bank of Russia after the head of the presidential expert department, Ksenia Yudaeva, takes the position of deputy chairman in charge of monetary policy.

photo ITAR-TASS The Sunrise startup decided to make money by creating corporate kindergartens, but large businesses are not yet ready for cooperation. Where is the exit? Irina Isaeva comes to a meeting in a cafe with her 8-month-old son Leva. He is almost the same age as his mother’s business.

Audio recordings of telephone conversations, aired on Thursday in the Leninsky District Court of Kirov, completely destroy the prosecution, said the defendant, oppositionist Alexey Navalny, accused of organizing the theft of Kirovles property. “I can assume that they [the investigators] cut something out of people’s conversations that seemed criminal to them, but these negotiations completely destroy the plot of the accusation,” Navalny said in court.

The Greek authorities have decided to increase by 50% the issuance of multivisas to Russian citizens for a period of three years, the information partner of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism, portal grekomania.ru , reported on Thursday . The report says that the decree on multiple visas was signed by the country's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

photo ITAR-TASS Statements by the Central Bank on independence and inflation targeting are necessary, but not sufficient In a previous Forbes column, I wrote about why the gold standard is a poor substitute for modern currencies, promising to tell us what separates good currencies from bad ones. Why are the dollar and euro so far ahead of the ruble and yuan as world currencies?

Some of the Unified State Exam (USE) forms that appeared on the Internet were genuine, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets admitted in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel. “There are several works that are real, and a full investigation is being carried out on these works, and all participants in this act will receive a well-deserved punishment,” Golodets said. According to her, the regulator recorded 60 cases of posting information materials on the Unified State Exam.