In Russian history, gloomy as a crypt and bottomless as a black cosmic hole, there are two Monarchs of Darkness, kindred spirits: Ivan the Terrible and his heir and successor Joseph, the son of Ivan, and not some shoemaker. On December 21, the All-Russian mankurt, who had hung out giant portraits of him in Voronezh with the sanction of the authorities, decorated the metro station with his name and brought the hellish chords of his anthem back to life, made a pilgrimage to his grave.

from Boris Grozovsky What could be more banal than pre-New Year economic forecasts? But this year even people who are far from the financial world are getting a grasp of them: nothing can be done - a crisis! I really want to know if it ends next year or not. The New Times summarized the opinions of world and Russian think tanks If we sum up all the key forecasts, the picture for 2010 emerges as follows: the world economy will begin to recover, but this process promises to be difficult.

The events of the year according to The New Times Theater of strict regime. The most daring experiment of the year: as part of the Territory festival, the English director Alex Dower set three plays with Russian prisoners in a penal colony No. 29 in Perm.

Russian politicians and political scientists answer questions from The New Times On New Year's Eve, The New Times asked Russian politicians and political scientists four questions: 1) Will Dmitry Medvedev dismiss the government of Vladimir Putin in 2010? 2) Will Mikhail Khodorkovsky be released in 2010? 3) Dmitry Medvedev received a sanction from the Federation Council for the use of Russian troops outside the country without the consent of the senators.

Drink money for cinema will be in a new way The union is indestructible. All last year, domestic cinema shook scandals. At the beginning of 2009, the war for the chair of the head of the Union of Cinematographers, which was won by Nikita Mikhalkov, who had previously vowed that he was not going to lead.