Peter Weil The whole world was preparing for the meeting of the third millennium. In Warsaw, on the 42nd floor of the Palace of Culture, a millennium clock has been installed, which will go off at midnight on January 1, 2001. (Photo: AP ) An old lady I know asks: “Why is everyone suddenly talking about linoleum?

(Photo: Hermitage Museum - Guggenheim ) The State Hermitage is being modernized - both conceptually and architecturally. First of all, thanks to the New York Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, patron of a network of contemporary art museums in Europe and America, with which the St. Petersburg museum signed a cooperation agreement in June.

Dina Goder, Yaroslav Sedov Just before the New Year, “Golden Mask” names the best Russian performances of the last season Two St. Petersburg productions nominated for “best small production” - “School for Fools” and “Leshy”. Maria Solopchenko (Elena Andreevna) was nominated in the category "Best Drama Theater Actress".

Sergei Khachaturov Moscow (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov ) Four Moscow exhibitions that opened before the New Year are about the ability to live with taste and turn any “little things in life” into a holiday. At the Historical Museum they teach you how to make tea and play with dolls. The exhibition " Traditions of Russian Tea Drinking " is a kind of visit to the heroes of Griboyedov and Ostrovsky.

Yuri Gladilshchikov USA ***1/2 Directed by Harold Ramis Stars: Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley Rental – “Gemini Movie World” (Photo: Gemini Movie World ) About what. Bedazzled - that's the original title - is a remake of the famous (sinful: I haven't seen) 1967 film of the same name, made by Stanley Donen. Judging by the reviews, that old film was an “elegant English thing” - a variation on the themes of Faust and Mephistopheles, filled with English humor.

(Photo: Alexander Sorin ) For a year now, there has been a museum of modern art in the capital. It was founded by Zurab Tsereteli himself, and Yuri Luzhkov himself (pictured) is his patron. At first, the museum was just the subject of endless slander from art critics: the collection was random, the halls were cramped, the taste of the sculptor Peter the Great was obvious. Over the course of a year, it turned out that there was no taste at all as something specific.

“Let's see where ordinary Russian citizens come when they feel really bad. That is, they come to the federal security service, as one of the few structures where specific issues are actually resolved . ” Mikhail Grishankov , deputy. Chairman of the State Duma Security Committee "Russia will have the legal right to say: 'How can this be?!' After all, you provided these loans on certain conditions! But some of them have been stolen!

Artem Vargaftik Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory (Photo: Natalya Loginova ) Helmut Rilling, rector of the Bach Academy in Stuttgart, is one of the world's most renowned specialists in the performance of early music. Generations of musicians have memorized how to play Bach “according to Rilling” - combining dexterity and endurance with the reverent literalism, fast tempos and somewhat feigned cheerfulness of an experienced actor-comedian. The maestro himself always conducts Bach by heart.

Sergey Ivanov John Montague's sandwich became the ancestor of all future sandwiches, Big Macs and other fast food. (Photo: AP ) In everything that John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, said and did, there was a passionate desire to shock society. He lived openly with his mistress, Martha Ray, in a house filled with small dogs and huge parrots.

Dina Goder Director - Viktor Shamirov Stanislavsky Drama Theater Moscow (Photo: Victor Bazhenov ) As usual, there were a lot of expectations. A banner hung over Tverskaya for a long time: “Masquerade! Starring Sergei Shakurov.” Theatergoers recalled what hopes Shamirov once showed with his first performance “Don Juan” at the Army Theater.

Boris Zhukov In October, due to family and housing circumstances, I needed to privatize in my name the apartment where my mother and I were registered. The mother did not object, the apartment was not subject to any restrictions, the privatization procedure had become routine over the past years, and there shouldn’t be too many people willing to go through it now - citizens had enough time to figure out their relationship with housing. In general, no problems were foreseen.

Alexander Ryklin Protests by thousands of residents of the freezing Primorye Territory gave rise to hopes in society that the regional governor, Evgeniy Nazdratenko, will soon leave the political scene. But, apparently, it is not destined to come true (Photo: Ruslan Yamalov ) In early December, residents of the village of Rudny, 20 kilometers from the regional center of Kavalerovo, at a general meeting decided on an important issue: how many holes to dig for public toilets.

Anatoly Sobchak For some reason, the word “star” is not used in relation to politicians. Meanwhile, Anatoly Sobchak was just a star. Speaking about Sobchak, someone will remember the professor of law, whose popularity after the first congress of people's deputies could be the envy of any artist.

Nikolay Alexandrov One of the most interesting November magazines is "Zvezda" . It attracts not so much the artistic part (mainly occupied by Mikhail Chulaka’s novel “The Lord’s Big Football”), but the philological and journalistic part. Namely, the publication of Boris Vakhtin “Necessary explanations with oneself”, the section “On the 65th anniversary of Vadim Erazmovich Vatsuro”, the conversation between Igor Smirnov and Boris Groys dedicated to the 60th anniversary of D. A.