Like any nationwide tragedy, the death of the Kursk underwater cruiser on August 12 - the pride of the domestic fleet - became a kind of mirror in which post -veltsin Russia saw itself as it is, without embellishment. Themselves and their highest military, who can say with a feeling and meaning “honor” and at the same time brazenly lying not only to the people, but also to the supreme commander. Both the country and the president were convinced to what extent the armed forces were degraded.

The domestic tobacco industry in its entire history began to produce so many products that it is enough for all our smokers. But even in Soviet times, the domestic production of cigarettes is a cover of the country's needs by only 60%. Now all known international brands are produced in Russia (with the exception of very expensive, the demand for which is limited).

The number of refugees from Chechnya, who were at the end of 2000 in Ingushetia, is, according to various estimates, 140-165 thousand people. These people desperately resist the persistent attempts of the Russian and Chechen authorities to force them to return to Chechnya. Most of them have nowhere to return: destroyed at home, there is no way to feed themselves and children.

Our beer share Gastronomic wars, large and small,-true gourmets with fast food, French cheese with McDonald's, connoisseurs of exquisite grape wines with manufacturers of cheap surrogates, “natural” with the creators of genetically altered products, etc. And in the last year of the millennium, he was conducted with varying success.

Olympics The Australians really wanted to please the world with the best Olympic Games in history. And they did not try at all for the sake of praise Juan Antonio Samararanch. The President of the IOC enrolled in the “very-most” every Olympiad, so compliments from his lips have long lost the price. More than four years ago in Atlanta, these words sounded almost mocking.

Islam In May of this year, forums, conferences, exhibitions, performances and concerts dedicated to the 1400th anniversary of the beginning of Islam in Russia were held in Russia. The countdown is carried out from the conquest of Derbent by the Arabs in the first half of the 7th century according to the lunar calendar (according to which a year is shorter than European for days). The legitimacy of this approach caused disputes even among the Muslims themselves.

Shades of brown When in February the Austrian government entered the Freedom Party (APS), whose leader Jorg Hader (in the photo) became famous for sympathy for Hitler and intolerance to immigrants, 14 EU states ceased contacts with Vienna. In March, Hyder defiantly left the post of chairman of the APS, putting the European Union in an ambiguous position of the sovereign state punished for how its citizens voted. The sanctions were canceled, it seemed that the APS won.

Economy Last year, the world economy brought such shocks as 1998, when the global financial crisis erupted. And yet you can’t call him prosperous. First, the oil crisis, and then the record drop in the NASDAQ index on the New York Stock Exchange, pierced the gap even in the American economy. It turned out that economic well -being depends not only on high technologies and investment volumes. The increase in fuel prices found most of the leading world powers.

In 2000, perhaps, doubts were finally resolved that Russians would never be regulars of cafes, bars, and restaurants. Previously, they went there only for a special occasion. Even when McDonald's stood lines, each visitor went there like a holiday. But as soon as a few small cozy coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee, where you can spend as much time as you like, as they had no end from regular visitors. The real "coffee shop" boom.

Eleven months after residential buildings were blown up on Guryanov Street and on Kashirskoye Shosse, fear returned to Moscow again. On August 8, an explosion in an underground crossing on Pushkinskaya Square 12 people were killed, more than a hundred were injured. The explosion was the power that all people in the underground crossing literally scattered in different directions. The fire immediately began, and the entire transition and the way out of it was covered with thick black smoke.

All year, Marat Safin and Evgeny Kafelnikov seemed to compete with each other not only for tournament titles and rating glasses of tennis classification, but also for the attention of fans. In winter, a more experienced tiles came forward - in Australia, he won his second “Big Slam” title. In the spring, Safin made a swift breakthrough a fault. And for a long time he took possession of the sympathies of the audience, completing the shock cycle with a brilliant victory on US OPO.

This is also a special attitude of the authorities to the press and, in general, to freedom of speech. Now the head of state is a spokesman for himself. The Kremlin now has one person - the face of President Putin (the right to speak on behalf of the president was assigned by the head of the Effective Policy Fund Gleb Pavlovsky. His task is to run into various provocative ideas in the general public).

Last year, the most loud and so far the longest attempt by law enforcement agencies has finally ended to restore environmental activists. The retired captain of Grang Alexander Nikitin, accused of espionage in 1996, was indifferent to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. All the possibilities of appealing this sentence were used by the prosecution, but did not give any result. The last such attempt is appeal to the General Prosecutor's Office

ecology It is generally accepted that the coming XXI century will be the century of ecology. By the way: on May 17, 2000, the presidential decree was abolished by state environmental control bodies - Goskomecology and the Federal Forestry Service. Faced with the unanimous protest of the “relevant” public organizations that collected 2.5 million signatures under the demand for the conduct of the relevant referendum, the authorities are trying to urgently “find another widow of Lenin”.

For a year, a museum of contemporary art has been in the capital for a year now. It was founded by Zurab Tsereteli himself, and Yuri Luzhkov himself patronizes him (in the photo). At first, the museum was only the subject of the endless slander of art critics: the collection is random, the halls are tight, the taste of the sculptor of Peter the Great is what is possible. In the year it turned out that there was no taste like something definite at all.