Member of the punk group Pussy Riot Maria Alekhina, sentenced in August 2012 to two years in prison for an action in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, was released on Monday under an amnesty, RIA Novosti reports, citing the girl’s lawyer Pyotr Zaikin. Alekhina left correctional colony No. 2 in Nizhny Novgorod, where she was serving her sentence. According to the lawyer, most likely she will go home by train on Monday.

Russia's largest retailer Magnit plans to create a transport company in Hungary to optimize logistics processes when delivering goods from EU countries to Russia, the company announced on Monday. The transport enterprise will be located in the eastern part of Hungary and will have a fleet of up to 1,000 trucks and the infrastructure to service it. Magnit can create up to 1,500 new jobs, the report notes.

The Mechel mining and metallurgical group of Igor Zyuzin (No. 58 in the ranking of the richest businessmen in Russia according to Forbes, wealth - $1.8 billion) plans to sell the remaining part of non-core assets worth up to $1 billion in 2014 and use these funds to pay off debt, reports ITAR-TASS . Stanislav Ploshchenko, senior vice president of the company for finance, announced this on Monday, December 23, during a telephone conference.

photo by Artem Holoshchapov for Forbes Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili told Forbes how he helped President Mikheil Saakashvili carry out reforms, and then greatly regretted it. Bidzina Ivanishvili is a real oligarch. Having left Russia for Georgia in 2004, he immediately became the richest person there. His fortune is $5.3 billion, according to the latest Forbes global ranking, where he ranks 229th - this is a third of the GDP of all Georgia ($15.85 billion in 2012).

photo by Fotobank/Getty Images How to check in advance whether your partner can be trusted Recently, several major international companies with joint ventures have become victims of corporate fraud. For example, the German company Puma lost €100 million as a result of the dishonest behavior of its Greek partners. Top managers of WalMart in Mexico and India have been implicated in corruption scandals and are being investigated.

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church are ready for dialogue with members of the punk group Pussy Riot Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, told RIA Novosti on Monday. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Synodal Department for Relations between Church and Society, “Both I and my co-workers are ready for dialogue with both Ms. Alekhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova,” the agency quotes him as saying.

Russian singer Grigory Leps released on Monday, December 23 (No. 2 in the ranking of the 50 most influential stars in Russia according to Forbes, last year’s income was $15 million) may appeal the US administration’s decision to impose sanctions against him, the White House said in a statement . "Mr. Lepsveridze (Leps's real name) has the right to appeal this decision at any time by sending a petition to the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Tele2 Russia President Alexander Provotorov will not be appointed head of the joint venture being created with Rostelecom; the Federal Agency for State Property Management insisted on his resignation, the Vedomosti newspaper reported on Monday , citing sources. According to them, the Federal Property Management Agency considers Provotorov an unsuitable candidate due to his connections with a certain group of people, including Konstantin Malofeev’s Marshall Capital.

Viktor Yanukovych signed a law that provides for the release from criminal and administrative liability of all detained Euromaidan participants, according to a message published on the website of the President of Ukraine.

Banker Alexander Gitelson, extradited from Austria to Russia in December, has been charged with multibillion-dollar embezzlement. This is stated in a message published on Monday, December 23, on the website of the Investigative Committee. “The Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the city of St.

Petr Rudenko Author The sharpest decline in quotations of Russian companies in 2013 In 2013, there were a number of significant falls in shares of Russian companies. The reasons were different: quotes fell due to syntax errors, incorrect media reports, despite the growth of the company's net revenue. The biggest falls of 2013 and their reasons, sometimes ridiculous, are in the Forbes gallery. RIA Novosti 1.

Ivanovsky Roman Author Luganskaya Daria Author Social networks, iPad, Kindle and other technologies that have changed our lives over the past 10 years Former head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after his release, as his son Pavel told the media , for the first time picked up the iPad and iPhone, which he read about in prison, and was delighted. According to Pavel, Khodorkovsky has already asked his son to buy a Kindle for him.

photo by RIA Novosti 2013 became a year of political reaction for Russia.

The Renova group of companies of Viktor Vekselberg (No. 4 in the ranking of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia according to Forbes , fortune - $15.1 billion) acquired two mansions in the center of Moscow for 162.782 million rubles, ITAR-TASS reports . Renova bought two-story non-residential buildings on Bolshaya Ordynka, built in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The total area of ​​the buildings is 878.3 sq. m. m, the area of ​​the land plot on which they are located is 1400 sq. m. m.

The leader of the LDPR party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, proposed canceling the winter holidays to improve labor productivity and returning to work on January 2, Prime reports . “As for raising labor productivity, maybe we should all work until the end of the year until December 31 until 18:00 and go to work on January 2, everyone could take an additional two weeks of vacation individually,” Zhirinovsky said during a meeting of the Russian State Council on Monday.